I found this two title fight  (IKKC and WFKBA) lightweight title fight between Germain de Randamie and Angela Rivera-Parr on youtube. I’ve seen Randamie before and remember she was a tough competitor. This is a women’s Muay Thai match where the winner waked away with both lightweight belts. Watch this video.

Wow that was intense… did you notice the front kicks being used like jabs? I think I like watching Muay Thai better than MMA because is is striking (me being a striker). I like to see strong women fighters so girls can understand that women can fight!

Many women grew up thinking that girls could not fight because they were not as strong a boys. Women have legs that are stronger then mens arms. If a woman learns how to kick and throw concentrated palms, eye gouges, elbows, half-fists and other strikes – women CAN fight!

Many women do not think they could fight (psychologically) if someone attacked them. What? What does how you feel have to do with defending yourself? Well I should not judge as I am a man. Men traditionally have been the protectors of women and many girls and women grew up thinking that they would always be protected.

I think most women would fight to protect their children so there is hope. I also hope that this sexist society we seemingly live in where girls grow up thinking they don’t have to protect themselves, changes soon. Fathers should be taking their daughters to karate class (as well as ballet). I think karate, judo, boxing and such is every bit as important for girls as soccer practice is (or at least it should be).

This remindes me of a funny story my wife told me last year while she was out with the her sister. Some guy started coming on to my wife and she verballyrebuffed him. The guy got fresh and started to paw her. My wife was shocked and angry in a split second the guy was trying to run the bases on her and struck him with an elbow that knocked him off of the chair (he was sitting beside her).

That is not the funny part but very entertaining… the funny part is my wife called the guy outside to kick his butt! The guy had no chance… if he went outside with a woman to fight – he would have lost either way. If he beat my wife up I am sure ANY other guy would have came to her rescue (as well as her sister and friends). If the guy got beat up by my wife – he would have never lived it down.

Any way the whole thing got diffused without a fight but I wanted to bring this up, not that I am endoursing women calling men out to fights but the thought that a woman would consider fighting for her honor (still probably not smart as my wife had just learned a few moves). Women should understand that they will probably not have to fight except for the few times they have to use self-defence! But if a woman needs to fight – there will be no time to consider what to do… just fall back on training (hopefully) and defend yourself!

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I must be behind the times to be examining this topic. Today one can turn on any TV and see UFC, WEC, IFL and even Exite XC MMA fights! Modern MMA is way beyond the no-holds-barred matches of the 90’s where Jui-Jitsu came into its own. Today’s MMA can incorporate whatever mix of the fighting arts (yes I avoided calling it martial arts) that a fighter likes. This can include, boxing, jui-jitsu, karate, wrestling, judo, street-fighting and anything else that one can think of but generally a fighter has striking and ground work at a minimum.

The reason I am thinking about this now is the association I belong to has adopted grappling as part of its overall goals for future students. As I announced last week, the American Kenpo Karate Association that was derived from Tracy’s Karate, as taught by Richard “Dick” Willett, is having a seminar for beginning Jui-jitsu moves here. In this post I will explore karate vs ground fighting, area’s of compatibility, as well the future direction of fighting arts. Here is a beginning video I found of some MMA grappling moves.

Wow, Joanne and Lauren – the “MMA Girls” seem to have these moves down. The thing I am noticing so far is Jui-jitsu takes advantage of chokes and arm-bars and such easily where as the wrestling of my youth, I had to ad-lib to choke someone out later in life (yes I got to put someone in a then sleeper hold (now a rear-naked-choke) in a real fight). The MMA Girls can be found on their MySpace page here for anyone interested in seeing some of their other instructional videos. They also have a site at MMAGirls.net.

Who am I to validate ground fighting in MMA? No one that counts as I am coming into this late in life. I am a lifetime sport karate and self-defense instructor/practitioner that has been around the block a time or two. For a time when I was younger I got in allot of fights because I was a bouncer at a bar. I estimate that I have been in about 100 real fights over the two year period I was bouncing (21 to 23 years old).

The hardest fight I have ever been in was against a wrestler that kept trying to get me to the ground. I was able to avoid the ground game because I wrestled in junior-high and knew how to keep my legs away!. I am so glad the fight did not go to the ground as I could tell I would have lost my first real fight! Now that I am 51 years old – I have a lifetime of experence to draw on and I will apply this to my evaluation.

Karate, boxing, mui-tai, and full-contact is commonly called striking in MMA. As I observe, a practitioner of MMA (can be any combination of styles) need to have some striking. If a jui-jitsu fighter tries to win at MMA nowadays, he or she will usually not get the title unless he or she has some striking ability. This is because of the ground and pound (from my observations). Jui-jitsu, judo or wrestling does not really have an answer for ground strikes.

A MMA fighter should also have a ground game becuase it is legal in MMA. Some leagues like WEC allow for more liberal elbow strikes and it is really exciting to watch! Now you can fight in MMA without a ground game but if you get taken down – what will you do? So it is smart for a MMA fighter to have ground skills too (or at the very least learn out to escape the ground game).

When does it make sense to be the striker? Just like any other fight – observe your opponent and see where he or she is weak! If your opponent cannot strike as well as you - be the striker! If your opponent is an excellent striker (better than you), become the grappler. 

When would you avoid the striking game? whenever you have a better advantage doing something else. Fighting is fighting, meaning just because you might not have a skill – if you are a great fighter, you can think your way to a victory providing you have the requisite fighting ability!

When would you avoid the ground game like the plague? When there is more than one attacker! When I was a kid, I challenged a couple of twins to a wrestling match. I was a good enough wrestler to take both of these guys who admittedly did not have much wrestling experience but did have height and weight advantage on me. That is not the normal situation; what will happen normally is one guy will tie you up and the other one will strike! You get the drift.

Now how are karate and jui-jitsu compatible? As I already stated, if you size up your opponent, you can use whatever the other guy/gal is open for and pound away at it! One example here (not really karate and jui-jitsu, but applicable) is when I was learning boxing, I fought a good inside fighter. By the end of first round I was almost asleep at the wheel! The second and third rounds I came back with a fury and used my reach to strike from the outside! My opponent did not have an answer for that (luckily) and I was able to recover. The point is you have to use your advantage in a fight so you should train with hands, feet, sweeps, arm-bars, (extrapolating jui-jitsu here), chokes and such to overcome your opponent.

So as you can see that even though until this seminar I will have no jui-jitsu experience, I think fighting is fighting and if I learn some new skills; I should be able to incorporate  them into any future fights. I think (yes I am way behind the times and any MMA practitioner will tell you) MMA type of fighting is where fighting is going. Will fighting stop here? No I don’t think so – future practitioners will continue to refine fighting skills and strategies such as Joe Lewis has done for full contact karate.

Now if you are in San Diego on Saturday, November 1st, and want to attend a beginner class in grappling, please stop by and take the class. I will be taking my first grappling class so don’t worry about looking dumb. It seems funny to start learning new skills but you never know when they might come in handy!

I heard about this fight for the bronze in Olympic Tae Kwon Do and found lots of articles about this. Apparently this guy hurt his foot and called a timeout.  Angel was ahead 3 to 2 prior to the time out. Check out the video link below but I saw the guy took over the allotted one minute break. The referee disqualified the Cuban (Angel) and awarded the bronze to Arman Chilmanov (from Kazahkstan).

Talking about a bad sport, this guy got mad and kicked the referee in the face! Many of you that have competed in tournaments have had the experience of being robbed. But in this case, it does not even meet that standard! The guy just took too long before he got up. The referee gave a 10 second warning and when Matos did not get up – the referee awarded the match to Chilmanov. Even if Matos thought he was cheated (which he clearly was not) there is no excuse for going off on the referee.

Check out this video!

On a positive note – the fighting Lopez’s all came back with metals although no golds this time. 

I guess no matter how I frame this new karate league entitled the, “World Combat League” (WCL) my bias is going to be apparent. So off with the perverbal gloves and here goes. I found some of this type of fighting on VS TV the other day and I had a hard time figuring out what was going on. At first I thought I had found some type of wrestling or such because the two participants were just meeting in the middle of the stage and going at it. The strikes and kicks seemed real enough but there was not anything thrown below the belt. There did not seem to be much tactics other than just slugging!

I looked this up on google and found these were team competitions that were scored on how many kicks and punches landed in a round (rules). You could not clinch, hold, or do any take downs. I did not see any rules against leg kicks, groin shots but I assume those are not legal (groin shots are not normally legal in MMA). Here is a quick clip Chuck Norris’s World Combat League.

This is billed as full-throttle fighting. Looking at this clip I found it interesting but I also knew the fighters could not do half of what they are capable of, such as using fighting tactics! Most of these fighters looked like they could fight but just meeting in the middle and going for broke, I would argue, does not showcase their (the fighter's) talents. It is hard to figure out if a fighter that won a match - would do well in a more traditional Mui-Thai or Kick Boxing match.

I do not watch traditional boxing matches because the fighters are kept from using most of their tools. I have the same critique of this World Combat League, the fighters cannot fight anyway they see fit (plan their game) and then fight their game plan. Brawlers (in the karate sense) would do better even if they would not win in a normal full contact match. I think I will skip these fights on VS TV.

By the way, I do not want to (or mean to) slight boxers by my comparison. I have the highest respect for pugilism as a sport and fighting method. The only way (in my view) boxing compares to the World Combat League is from the reduced striking areas in the competition standpoint. When I was learning full contact karate in the 80's, boxing was a big part of that training.

We have plenty of exciting fighting leagues out there such as UFC, Pride, WEC, IFL and such that I will not be lacking MMA entertainment. I know there are Mui Thai and other full contact events that are sanctioned by other governing agencies that are also realistic and fun to watch. The next time I happen on the WFL matches on TV, I will vote with my channel changer!

As you probably know by know from reading this blog, I enjoy a good contest. I stumbled upon some kick boxing from Eurosport Fight Club on Youtube.com that featured a match from Eurosport’s Netherlands vs Thailand Kickboxing Series. I’m not sure exactly when this fight took place but it was uploaded to Youtube.com on January 31, 2008.

The series seems to be a national team competition featuring some really great fighters. For the Netherlands, Jimmy Eimmers is fighting and Hansuk is representing Thailand. Take a look at this video below.

As I reviewed this video I noted Hansuk seemed confident but also noted he was dropping his hands. I've not watched too much Muay Thai kick boxing but there seemed to be a little bravado going on at the expense of common sense (from my karate point of view).

In the first round Hansuk seemed to be the dominate fighter, constantly encroaching on Jimmy's ring space. Jimmy was able to fight tit for tat with his own counter kicks, punches and leg strikes. Jimmy Eimmer's did a beautiful spinning back knuckle that momentarily dropped Hansuk. Hansuk recovered and took the fight back to Eimmers.

The second round Hansuk was more aggressive but Eimmers was responding well. Halfway through the second round Hansuk throws a power round kick into Eimmers gut and Jimmy counters with a match-ending left-right combo!

I don't have any Muay Thai Kickboxing experience but after reviewing this fight, I noted that Hansuk did not cover his head. That seemingly tipped the scales in favor of Jimmy Eimmer. In a fight, you do not always win based on superiour fighting skills... just as many times your opponent defeats him or herself! This is an important nuance that good fighters recognize. If someone is handing you a match on a silver platter - who am I to look a gift-horse in the mouth?

I would enjoy seeing more of this type of fighting on television as it is very exciting to watch. Right now (so far as I have found) there are only MMA flavors and boxing on American TV.