Defending against multiple attackers

The theory being that it teaches all ranges and weapon awareness so should translate well to multiples, however my experiences of JJJ/gendai is that multiple attackers drills are often quite poor abstractions of the pressure and reality of a group attack. I also have found the efficacy of the training method against a single opponent to be sub-standard.

Obviously I'm aware that what I've seen and participated in is only my own exposure so I'm curious how yours differs. What exactly was the set up in the exercise you mentioned? What were the parameters?

 

No weapons, one student faces 3, more of a 4 person spar 3 against 1, No mats, no protective gear and the class was in a fencing studio with foils and fencing masks in the wall, over 40 years ago, it worked for me at the time, is about all I can give you.

Response was to OP and no weapons were mentioned as part of the question, just BJJ, holding a guy, while another guy hits you.

 

Contact level?

Did people still throw you to the ground given the relative danger in doing so?

 

Yup, that is why you learned how to block well and fall properly, probably why I can still fall without getting to hurt in my old age. Can't fall as well as I use to and if you ask me to do it I pretty much won't, but if I trip and fall things seem to work. Fell down a flight of stairs a few years back, landing on concrete and hit a support pole, it hurt, was not as graceful as it probably was 40 years ago, but I got up with only a bruise where I hit the pole. Dropped everything I was carrying though... had to clean that mess up

Would I train that way or let my kids train that way today...not a chance. But in the early 70s what the heck did we know.

 

What was the contact level regarding strikes and what was the intent of the attackers?

 

It was supposed to be half power, but it was not always half power sometimes it was darn hard if the other guy got carried away. So you knew you 'might' get hit hard. But you were not supposed to be.

 

Doing it in the dojo is still theory.

 

Well, no, not really.

Talking about it in the dojo would be theory. Reading about it in the dojo would be theory.

Doing it in the dojo is practice.

How accurately that practice reflects being jumped by three ne'er do wells is another matter...

 

I think anything that's not doing the actual "thing" is theoretical in nature. There are plenty of gym champions that are monsters but can't quite perform to that level come fight time (for whatever reason).
Up until you actually have to defend yourself it's all theoretical.

 

I know what you mean, but you've had to redefine the word "theory" in order to get that pithy statement to work

It's sounding a bit like you think the quality and quantity of training a person has done bears no relationship to how well they can function under real threat.

Would you say the same about full-contact competition and criminal assault? Still all theory?

 

Unless your actually risking loss its all dry land swimming/theory.

 

Now you're starting to sound like the deadly streetz crowd who say that having referees and doctors on hand means that full contact comps don't prepare you in any way for "real" violence.

And what do you mean by loss? I've been more hurt and fearful of injury more during training than people attacking me "for real".

 

Thanks Xue Sheng.

It sounds like somewhat of a better facsimile than some, but much worse than others. I think that far harder contact and aggressive intent with slightly more saftey equipment is much better. I don't know if you agree with hindsight, being that you guys were just experimenting with what you had at the time.

 

Like anything, I think it's best triangulated with a variety of approaches. Armour brings its own compromises, as does the lack of it.

Backing away with the semantic argument I had with Smitfire's post, he is right that you won't know exactly how effective your training is until you have to use it. Light-to-medium contact, unarmored sparring with multiples has definitely helped me out in the real world a couple of times.

 

A big knife works just as well. I can own one, just cant do it legally.

Also, its all a hypothesis as every situation is different and the ones that are avoidable are usually avoided, there is not a big market for people reliably picking fights with groups of people and actually being able to pass down the knowledge they have. It may very well give you a edge in getting used to a crowd fighting you but its still limited as it would stop before anyone willingly maims you. Not much you can do if its a pre planned thing done by people who are at least so-so confident you would probbly be hit from a ambush or they would ahve weapons or soemthing. Somone gimme crime statstics on group attacks. I assume some of you know of good detailed statstics for this.

 

Nope, you've got my comment almost 100% wrong. Injury is in the main counterproductive, you have to have the potential to lose in drills, Losing being the opposite to winning, if your regularly doing 3 vs 1 sparring, and not losing 90% of the time, something is wrong with the drills.

In my view not having protective equipment on, often means the drills become play acting.

 

You really haven't cleared up your point.

Injury is losing? You always receive an injury when you "lose" a drill? What is "winning" then? Injuring your partner?

As for protective equipment, it all depends on the intent of the people training. Are all your drills done with armour? Is MMA sparring just "play acting"?

 

Again that's not what I'm saying.

Any drill where you can't lose is going to give you incorrect feedback.

Anyone drill where there is a high risk of injury is counter productive. Injury means you can't train, it also means people who don't want to injure you, will play act along and let you win inappropriately.

Any drill without safety equipment and no real risk of losing tends to not make people who can actually use those skills under pressure.

When I train bjj vs strikes and wrestling with strikes and just striking, we always wear gloves, when it's very light gloves you have to train with less intensity, and be aware of the problems which accompany it.

 

In other words, you dont win and if you win the scenario is not accurate because you wont win? Safety equipment point makes enough sense.

 

Not at all, any drill where you never win, is going to ingrained losing into the participants!

You have to be able to use drills to discover what does and doesn't work under pressure.

And then entrain those skills through further drills.

A good example to knife defence, stopping every time you get solidly cut is realistic, but does entrain stopping every time you get cut, so sometimes it's useful to have drills where you just keep going no matter what, to entrain just keeping going, but that can't be all of your drills, and people have to know the reason for the drills, otherwise you'll end up training a lot of sub standard defences.