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I've done Japanese jiu-jitsu for 10 years. We train in free fighting as well as ground fighting. I'm not great by any means. I'm decent and a new person isn'

I've done Japanese jiu-jitsu for 10 years. We train in free fighting as well as ground fighting. I'm not great by any means. I'm decent and a new person isn't going to beat me. I have sparred with low level pro fighters including one guy who fought in the now defunct IFL and one guy who made it to the semi finals of the Ultimate fighter one season and another contestant on that show. I've also sparred with a number of amateur fighters. All of them could defeat me in ground fighting and especially in sparring. They were and are way better than me. I've also sparred with amateur MMA women and none of them could even come close to winning against me. They simply don't have the strength. I could muscle out of any move they do. They don't have the punching power of a man and their striking ability does not instill fear. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Ronda Rousey could beat me in a fight. She is strong for a woman and she is in great shape. Fitness is a skill in a fight. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that she could not even defeat a low level pro male fighter. She would have not a single advantage and all of the disadvantages. Such is my opinion based on anecdotal experience.

vehementi 11y ago
It seems odd that the defense against all of her amazing moves and choke holds happens to be having a few tens % more muscle strength.
- yequalsx 11y ago
  I believe you have reached a conclusion that is not justified by what I actually wrote. Nowhere did I imply that the only defense against against her moves is to have more muscle strength. The point of commenting on muscle strength is that if one is strong enough to muscle out of a person's move then they don't have to be as talented to defend against said moves. Hence the belief that many people have that Ronda would not stand a chance against even a low level pro male fighter.
  - vehementi 11y ago
    I didn't suggest that that is the only defense against her moves, but you seem to be saying that no matter what move / hold someone puts on you, you'd be able to get out of it with mere brute force if only you were 50% stronger. Is that really true?
    - dpark 11y ago
      I don't know about the 50% mark, but at some point it becomes true. When I was in college, one of my friends was big into MMA, to the point of participating in organized fights and maintaining a winning record. He was wresting with another friend (much larger and stronger, but not at all involved in MMA) on one occasion and learned rapidly what raw strength does. The MMA-participating friend was completely outclassed. Everything he tried was basically just beaten with brute strength. He attempted to put the larger guy in an armbar and the larger guy basically just did a bicep curl with him. You're also underestimating the strength difference between women and men. Pound for pound, an untrained man will be about 50% stronger than an untrained woman. With both trained, the difference approaches 100%. http://www.exrx.net/Testing/WeightLifting/StrengthStandards.htm http://www.exrx.net/Testing/WeightLifting/StrengthStandards.... Edit: Whenever I hear comments about women beating men in physical sports, I think about the Williams sisters both losing to the 203th ranked male tennis player, who supposedly didn't try very hard, and according to some reports spent the morning before drinking and playing golf, and smoked between sets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Sexes_(tennis)#1998:_Karsten_Braasch_vs._the_Williams_sisters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Sexes_(tennis)#1... http://www.yourememberthat.com/media/15978/Karsten_Braasch_vs_Williams_Sisters/#.Vb7kSm5VhBc http://www.yourememberthat.com/media/15978/Karsten_Braasch_v... I seriously doubt that the 203rd ranked male had better technical skills than the Williams sisters. Skill only gets you so far, though.
    - yequalsx 11y ago
      I see what you were saying. In my experience if someone has done a move on you and has it tight then it is very hard to get out of. However, before the hold is tight then muscling out of it is very much a huge concern for a lighter, weaker fighter. A smaller person usually is quicker and more scrappy. Speed is an asset but there is a reason there are weight classes. Larger opponents are much harder to defeat if both people are in equally good shape and have around the same skill set.
mikekchar 11y ago
I have a similar background, though in an obscure style of Japanese karate. I can't really comment on ground fighting since anyone with Japanese jiu-jitsu will wipe the floor with me (probably litterally ;-) ), but I can say something about striking. I will probably start an argument, but a great deal of strength is unnecessary if you are trying to damage your opponent with strikes. When I say "damage" I mean "cause injury". You want to deform your target so that it breaks. To do so, you need speed, not strength. Consider, for a moment, a glacier. Because it is ridiculously massive, it has a huge amount of momentum as it creeps along at 5 cm per year. A glacier can level mountains, but anyone can stand next it it and let it "hit" them with no damage. That's because it is moving very slowly and your body has plenty of time to adjust itself to any deformation the glacier will cause. Now consider a bullet. It has not even a fraction of the momentum of the glacier, but it can drill holes in you. That's because it is moving very quickly. When it hits you, your body deforms and there is not enough time for it to adjust before it has deformed to the breaking point. Another good analogy is Jello. Put some Jello on a plate. If you are careful, you can push the Jello around. It deforms when you push on it, but then rebounds and moves backwards, bouncing back to its original shape. If you push too quickly, though, there will not be enough time for it to rebound and you will create a hole. Striking in fighting works the same way. There is not enough space in a comment to explain how to use this idea to strike optimally, but most people with good technique can seriously damage any human opponent. Certainly any adult (whether male or female) that has trained for 10 years or so will be "strong enough". Strength is important in grappling and positioning an opponent. It is also important when you are wearing pads designed to deaden the impact of a strike. If the pads deform instead of the body, then if you want to knock someone out (for instance) you need to be very strong to physically move their brain case around. Similarly, strength is important to push their muscles around to tire them. Part of the problem is that in sport we are hoping to have a competition in which people compete but don't unduly injure each other. In such a situation, strength will certainly play a big role and so women are at a disadvantage. If we were intending to see how fast we can injure our opponent (very possibly killing them in the process), then I think it levels the playing field considerably. Jiu-jitsu is designed to constrain striking attacks so as to make them less dangerous, so possibly it wouldn't make any difference anyway -- a very skilled striker may not get many opportunities before they are taken down. However, I think we will never really know because I don't think there is any way to be really effective in striking without intending to kill your opponent. IMHO it is not a technique that lends itself well to sports (it is worth noting that the head of my style disagrees on this point!) I have also never seen an MMA fighter that strikes well (fast enough, choosing the correct targets, relaxed enough, etc). I don't think I ever will because such a fighter would injure too many people to get fights.

vehementi 11y ago

It seems odd that the defense against all of her amazing moves and choke holds happens to be having a few tens % more muscle strength.

yequalsx 11y ago
I believe you have reached a conclusion that is not justified by what I actually wrote. Nowhere did I imply that the only defense against against her moves is to have more muscle strength. The point of commenting on muscle strength is that if one is strong enough to muscle out of a person's move then they don't have to be as talented to defend against said moves. Hence the belief that many people have that Ronda would not stand a chance against even a low level pro male fighter.
- vehementi 11y ago
  I didn't suggest that that is the only defense against her moves, but you seem to be saying that no matter what move / hold someone puts on you, you'd be able to get out of it with mere brute force if only you were 50% stronger. Is that really true?
  - dpark 11y ago
    I don't know about the 50% mark, but at some point it becomes true. When I was in college, one of my friends was big into MMA, to the point of participating in organized fights and maintaining a winning record. He was wresting with another friend (much larger and stronger, but not at all involved in MMA) on one occasion and learned rapidly what raw strength does. The MMA-participating friend was completely outclassed. Everything he tried was basically just beaten with brute strength. He attempted to put the larger guy in an armbar and the larger guy basically just did a bicep curl with him. You're also underestimating the strength difference between women and men. Pound for pound, an untrained man will be about 50% stronger than an untrained woman. With both trained, the difference approaches 100%. http://www.exrx.net/Testing/WeightLifting/StrengthStandards.htm http://www.exrx.net/Testing/WeightLifting/StrengthStandards.... Edit: Whenever I hear comments about women beating men in physical sports, I think about the Williams sisters both losing to the 203th ranked male tennis player, who supposedly didn't try very hard, and according to some reports spent the morning before drinking and playing golf, and smoked between sets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Sexes_(tennis)#1998:_Karsten_Braasch_vs._the_Williams_sisters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Sexes_(tennis)#1... http://www.yourememberthat.com/media/15978/Karsten_Braasch_vs_Williams_Sisters/#.Vb7kSm5VhBc http://www.yourememberthat.com/media/15978/Karsten_Braasch_v... I seriously doubt that the 203rd ranked male had better technical skills than the Williams sisters. Skill only gets you so far, though.
  - yequalsx 11y ago
    I see what you were saying. In my experience if someone has done a move on you and has it tight then it is very hard to get out of. However, before the hold is tight then muscling out of it is very much a huge concern for a lighter, weaker fighter. A smaller person usually is quicker and more scrappy. Speed is an asset but there is a reason there are weight classes. Larger opponents are much harder to defeat if both people are in equally good shape and have around the same skill set.

mikekchar 11y ago

I have a similar background, though in an obscure style of Japanese karate. I can't really comment on ground fighting since anyone with Japanese jiu-jitsu will wipe the floor with me (probably litterally ;-) ), but I can say something about striking. I will probably start an argument, but a great deal of strength is unnecessary if you are trying to damage your opponent with strikes. When I say "damage" I mean "cause injury". You want to deform your target so that it breaks. To do so, you need speed, not strength. Consider, for a moment, a glacier. Because it is ridiculously massive, it has a huge amount of momentum as it creeps along at 5 cm per year. A glacier can level mountains, but anyone can stand next it it and let it "hit" them with no damage. That's because it is moving very slowly and your body has plenty of time to adjust itself to any deformation the glacier will cause. Now consider a bullet. It has not even a fraction of the momentum of the glacier, but it can drill holes in you. That's because it is moving very quickly. When it hits you, your body deforms and there is not enough time for it to adjust before it has deformed to the breaking point. Another good analogy is Jello. Put some Jello on a plate. If you are careful, you can push the Jello around. It deforms when you push on it, but then rebounds and moves backwards, bouncing back to its original shape. If you push too quickly, though, there will not be enough time for it to rebound and you will create a hole. Striking in fighting works the same way. There is not enough space in a comment to explain how to use this idea to strike optimally, but most people with good technique can seriously damage any human opponent. Certainly any adult (whether male or female) that has trained for 10 years or so will be "strong enough". Strength is important in grappling and positioning an opponent. It is also important when you are wearing pads designed to deaden the impact of a strike. If the pads deform instead of the body, then if you want to knock someone out (for instance) you need to be very strong to physically move their brain case around. Similarly, strength is important to push their muscles around to tire them. Part of the problem is that in sport we are hoping to have a competition in which people compete but don't unduly injure each other. In such a situation, strength will certainly play a big role and so women are at a disadvantage. If we were intending to see how fast we can injure our opponent (very possibly killing them in the process), then I think it levels the playing field considerably. Jiu-jitsu is designed to constrain striking attacks so as to make them less dangerous, so possibly it wouldn't make any difference anyway -- a very skilled striker may not get many opportunities before they are taken down. However, I think we will never really know because I don't think there is any way to be really effective in striking without intending to kill your opponent. IMHO it is not a technique that lends itself well to sports (it is worth noting that the head of my style disagrees on this point!) I have also never seen an MMA fighter that strikes well (fast enough, choosing the correct targets, relaxed enough, etc). I don't think I ever will because such a fighter would injure too many people to get fights.