Harold Howard attacks Steve Jennum in a parking lot!

[Ludo]

Re: Harold Howard attacks Steve Jennum in a parking lot!

Sprawl and Brawl is great until you get clinched and tripped down, which Royce did use quite a bit especially against the bigger and more powerful strikers.

[MMA_scientist]

Re: Harold Howard attacks Steve Jennum in a parking lot!

Sprawl and Brawl is great until you get clinched and tripped down, which Royce did use quite a bit especially against the bigger and more powerful strikers.

One of the things that has gotten lost along the way with the new generation of BJJ fighters is the takedowns. BJJ has always focused on the ground, but they were all judo blackbelts too. They had takedowns. BJJ today has lost that element because the sport aspect of bjj does not award takedowns (it does give 2 points, but you can just guard pull and no one gets any points).

The old school instructors still teach the takedowns.

Its like the opposite of what happened to judo. The standup was so much more important that the ground got diminished. Now the judo guys arent good on the ground.

If Judo would have never become an olympic sport, there would be no BJJ, maybe no MMA as we know it. Butterfly effect.

[SPX]

Re: Harold Howard attacks Steve Jennum in a parking lot!

^^^ Are you familiar at all with Kosen judo?

I have only heard about it in passing, but I hear that groundwork is emphasized quite a bit more than in today's Kodokan system.

[MMA_scientist]

Re: Harold Howard attacks Steve Jennum in a parking lot!

^ yes. I have heard that as well, I think that is what Aoki trained in.

Its what happens to all martial arts, they get watered down. Kyokushin Karate is bad ass. It is nothing like the weak sauce Shotokan karate that you see 9 year old blackbelts.

The cool thing about bjj is that we have the lineage system. So if someone claims to be a blackbelt, you can immediately find out its legitimacy by asking the lineage. If they beat around the bush at all, or don't give specific names, its a sham. The further from the source, the less you know what you are getting.

But I have said it before, BJJ is not about the moves. Judo had all the same moves, with the exception of some of the new guard work, which is all stupid anyway. I have never seen an omoplata in Judo. But even before Judo, Pankration, JuJitsu (which is really all encompassing) had the moves. Hell I invented the americana when I was like 8. I used to dominate my brother with the americana from side control... I thought I made it up. BUt BJJ practices the ground, so they are the best at the ground.

I hate how Americans bastardize and sell every single martial art that comes along.

[SPX]

Re: Harold Howard attacks Steve Jennum in a parking lot!

As someone who actually did Judo, I just wish they would give equal emphasis to standing and ground work. I'd like to see a true 50/50 split.

I've heard that there's something of a movement within the judo community to go back to pre-Olympic tournament rules. Not sure what's going on with that, but I'd really like to see it happen, even if it takes the form of a rogue breakaway group who sets up a new organization and just ignores the established players.

In regard to martial arts getting watered down, I hear you on that and concur. It's stupid. They want to mass market it and make it appealing to all ages and backgrounds. That sucks. I don't necessarily think that we need to go back to old school training styles where the instructor basically beat the shit out of the students on a daily basis, but the "martial" part of martial arts needs to be retained.

TKD is basically the most reviled of all martial arts right now, and that's because it is so watered down. But I have heard stories from GIs about TKD training in the 50s and it was some serious shit.

With that said, I have heard that ITF TKD is more "pure" as compared to WTF/Olympic style. Having seem some ITF stuff, I would agree. It's kind of like kickboxing in their tournament/competition style. I wouldn't mind training in it myself.

[MMA_scientist]

Re: Harold Howard attacks Steve Jennum in a parking lot!

With that said, I have heard that ITF TKD is more "pure" as compared to WTF/Olympic style. Having seem some ITF stuff, I would agree. It's kind of like kickboxing in their tournament/competition style. I wouldn't mind training in it myself.

If you watched the Fightquest TKD episode, that definately looked more hardcore than what we normally see. I don't know how effective it would be, but I wouldn't want to trade kicks with those guys.

[SPX]

Re: Harold Howard attacks Steve Jennum in a parking lot!

If you watched the Fightquest TKD episode, that definately looked more hardcore than what we normally see. I don't know how effective it would be, but I wouldn't want to trade kicks with those guys.

I think Fightquest is available for streaming on Netflix, so I will go home and look that up. If I can, I will watch it tonight, because that sounds interesting.

From what I understand, many ITF practitioners are actually a little arrogant about it and like to go on about how they practice "real" TKD because the ITF--and I guess this goes back to lineages, like you were talking about earlier--can be traced back to General Choi, who could more or less be called the creator of modern TKD. The WTF spun off and changed the style considerably, at least in emphasis if not technique. In fact, I remember reading a comment attributed to Gen. Choi where he said something along the lines of, "I would be happy to see the martial art I created receiving Olympic recognition, but what you see in the Olympics is not the martial art I created."

I know that, unlike WTF/Olympic TKD, ITF practitioners don't wear 20 lbs of pads when they spar, punches are allowed to the head, and instead of stop-point competitions they usually go for two 2-minute continuous rounds.

There are some things I don't like about it, like no clinch fighting and only straight punches allowed, but overall from what I've seen it's kind of pimp and I would like to maybe give it a try at some point.

[SPX]

Re: Harold Howard attacks Steve Jennum in a parking lot!

Here's a vid of an ITF TKD guy who has made a a relatively successful foray into MMA with a record of 14-9:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8048hXhXKs4

I've known about him for a little while, but was quite surprised to learn that, quite surprisingly, he's actually supposed to be fighting on tonight's Moosin card.

[Svino]

Re: Harold Howard attacks Steve Jennum in a parking lot!

Actually, a lot of those early UFC strikers did train in grappling, it just wasn't enough. I remember reading that Johnny Rhodes had originally impressed the Gracies by being a karate guy who "also did some stuff on the ground." Harold Howard tried to play up his jiu-jitsu skills in the interview. You could usually see the guys practicing some type of submission wrestling in their intro clips. Patrick Smith impressed me a bit by immediately taking the right lesson from his loss to Shamrock and trained nothing but grappling for a while, which took him to the finals in UFC 2, and Abbott wouldn't have had even his modest semblance of success without his wrestling background.

I'm glad to see someone mention the Gracie / Hackney fight. It was one of the underappreciated scraps of the early era.

[SPX]

Re: Harold Howard attacks Steve Jennum in a parking lot!

Keith Hackney is a bad ass. He runs an MMA school now.