A thousand years ago, I trained briefly with some Green Beret types for college ROTC. They taught a small variety of what they called "two-second-kill" techniques, some for bare hand but most with knives, and preached that if you were still fighting after three seconds you endangered yourself and your companions.

I remember only a little of that training - except the initial fear I felt trying to learn it - and cannot imagine those techniques legally defensible in most situations or appropriate for mass consumption.

My couple years of judo training, however, especially the mat and grappling moves, might find appropriate defensive use in the real world. There was a lot of emphasis on safe-falling and hold-breaking.

At this point in time, I know my preparation for physical self-defense is almost non-existent and I have been thinking about changing this. Hence this thread.

I think its a great thread, and brings up alot of issues & choices. ANY self defense classes have their worth; as has been stated, if for nothing else than cardio. Even some of the advanced stuff is good; pressure points & joint locks. The downside of it is the "art" part of it, IMHO-you have to go through a lot of useless stuff to weed out what is applicable. Hence, I suggest a more combat oriented system, which can be difficult to find. They strip everything down to what works, and thats it.
To touch on the 3 second rule; one thing we had done in the past is to try punching, full force, for 1 minute. You will see how tired you get-anything less than a full on hit likely isnt going to bother your attacker. If you are fighting for more than a minute, you are either losing, or about to. Without the cardio, its tough to go toe to toe with someone for even a few mninutes. Never mind one at full power.

absolutely true, spend 3 minutes grappling with a 200 pound resisting opponent, even an unskilled one an you will be exhausted.

Hmm yes I'm familiar with all those books but I don't recall Fairbairn ever advocating front chokes. The closest I've seen in the context of WWII combatives is a neck crush where you basically strike the opponent in the neck, then transition to grabbing and twisting the Adam's apple as hard as you can. Like all strikes in combatives, it's done full-force and with forward momentum so even if the crush doesn't work you'll push the bad guy to the ground where you can follow up with knees, elbows or hand blows. Not a "sport" technique by any means, though.

Anyway, don't want to hijack the thread, just trying to offer an alternate point of view since I've played a bit with WWII combatives and I'm not that sure Mr. Smith's critique is valid on that particular point.

P.S.: If anyone is interested in those systems I'd suggest looking up Kelly McCann/ aka Jim Grover. He's the real deal, not sure if he's still teaching personally but he has done some tapes and I believe his company Crucible is still offering courses. Very good stuff, basically somewhat updated WWII combatives, hand-to-hand, firearms plus things like improvised weapons and pepper spray.

I'm going to chime in on one part of the discussion for a moment. This isn't in response to any one post, but I've seen ground fighting skills/mat work/wrestling/BJJ mentioned several times.

The usual reason for studying these skills is "most fights end up on the ground."

I think this is an inaccurate statement. It would be more accurate to say, "Most fights between untrained opponents end up in a grappling match that ends on the ground."

To me, the point of learning any grappling style, be it good old fashioned wrestling, BJJ, judo, or the grappling elements in any other art is this: To put the other guy on the ground, where he is at a severe disadvantage, and to stay off the ground yourself.

You do NOT want to take an opponent to the ground on purpose. First, if you go to the ground outside of the ring or dojo, you are going to encounter either a hard, rough surface such as the street or the sidewalk, or if you're on the grass, a surface that could be hiding any number of dangers from broken glass to a simple root sticking out of the ground. So, do a BJJ or MMA-style take down and try to submit a single opponent? Not so fun if you tear a muscle or break a bone in the process.


Secondly, if you are on the ground, you can be stomped. If you're preparing to defend yourself, it's not from anyone who has a playground sense of ethics where one on one is the accepted norm. In most cases, if you're faced with an unarmed opponent (the only case where unarmed skills should be employed -- if they show a weapon, they need to be shot immediately, and if you can't you need to high tail it), you will be faced with multiple opponents. If it's simply a sandbox brawl with a drunken friend, it's not self defense.

So, IMO, train to stay off the ground. Train to put the other guy on the ground as fast as possible, and to do as much damage to him as you can in the process. Avoid BJJ/MMA schools that focus on training people for the ring.

IMO, most real street fights(attacks) are finished with the first blow. EOS and intitiative are the prime factors in who will win and who will lose. If a thug fails on the first attempt, they usually abandon the attack, especially if the opponent appears well defended, either by implementation or by posture. Rules of combat are fairly standard.

And yes, survival prep better include self defense in this day and age.

This is true. Situational awareness trumps physical prowess most of the time, IMO. I thought that was well-covered though, so was focusing on why it's a bad idea to take someone to the ground in a fight. Which as you point out, is the wrong term, it's usually a one-sided attack.

Good advice, if you are on the ground grappling with one opponent, his buddy will be over kicking you in the head.

The advantage to staying on your feet is to use run-jitsu, because taking on more than one opponent without a weapon, no matter how well trained a person is , is an almost sure lose situation.

that being said, everyone should learn to martial arts skills on the ground and standing up, as Royce Gracie and Jon Bluming have both proven , the most skilled stand up fighter is at a serious disadvantage if he doesn't know any ground work.