Sparring and fighting are not the same thing. Over all, fighting gives us significant quality control when it comes to instructors, especially with combat sports. For example, if an MMA gym has fighters who occasionally win fights down at the local Casino, you know they are probably really teaching MMA. Same goes for participation in contact martial arts tournaments or gatherings.
But fighting isn't sparring. In sparring the objective is to practice, not to win. Sparring:
Does not require referee or judge to keep the participants safe or to declare a technique successful. No one is keeping score, so it is safe to try moves you are still not good at yet.
Maximizes the length of time the participants are practicing. End a sparring round early and you lose out on practice time. (With a fight you want it to end as soon as possible with victory in your favor.)
Is continuous - talking about what just happened isn't sparring, it's taking a break from sparring. Sparring keeps flowing as much as possible without stopping to pose, keep score or lecture. It encourages good habits like having good conditioning, protecting yourself after attacking, and counter attacking when you are hit.
Uses the same techniques you would use in a fight, though often with less intensity: contact is always made. (For example sparring in BJJ is called "rolling", and in rolling you are very careful with your submission holds, releasing them as soon as the opponent indicates you should. In a fight, you are probably executing that same hold until the ref or judge tells you to stop... Also, BJJ people never try to roll without touching each other.)
Taking Tai Chi for example, there are two types of "push hands":
"stationary" where both opponents try to keep their feet in one place while trying to get the other opponent to move their feet.
"moving step" where moving your feet is allowed, but instead the goal is to get the opponent on the ground or out of the ring.
Since no one in a fight ever got a big advantage from simply getting the other person to move one of their feet a little (see 4 above) and because people have to constantly reset to start over again after a foot moves (see 3 above,) "stationary push hands" is a two person drill with resistance, but it is NOT sparring. "Moving step push hands" for example could be considered sparring because shoving people around is indeed used in fighting:
Stop and go fighting like Kumite Point Fighting, LARP swordplay or Olympic style Fencing can't actually be considered sparring. There are martial arts instructors who I respect that use this stop-and-go fighting, but every last one of them also use real sparring as well. This stop-and-go fighting is not sparring because:
On every single "successful" technique someone is telling participants weather or not a technique was successful. The participants are constantly judged on who is being more successful, given little opportunity to innovate and develop new skills.
It massively cuts into over all practice time during the sparring round. Usually over half the time is spent getting ready to set and go again instead of doing anything martial arts related.
It lacks the realism of continuous action. Even with sharp weapons, it is very unrealistic to assume the fight will end on the first apparently-good technique. It can teach students to drop their guard as soon as they think their attack was successful, and to "control" themselves instead of counter attacking when they are struck.
Most of the technique used in a fight happens AFTER the first person lands a technique that appears effective, since that normally happens very early on in most fights. Even with sharp weapons, landing the first hit in a fight is about as relevant to fighting as being able to get the other fighter to move their feet: fights are won by landing combinations of strikes, not usually by a single opening strike!
I will allow for the possibility that stop and go fighting isn't always a competition, when practiced without any public record it could definitely be considered a drill with resistance. It might be useful as a drill to practice what happens at the beginning of a fight, especially to help ease beginners into real sparring. But no "drills with resistance" can ever be considered an effective replacement for real sparring.
People trash Aikido for not sparring, because that lack of sparring has led to unrealistic technique. But when we consider that stop-and-go fighting is also NEVER sparring, a lot of other martial arts belong in the Aikido hall of shame. The most common example is probably Shotokan Karate:
That is not sparring, that is a drill with resistance not entirely unlike stationary push hands. Because as a whole Shotokan does stop-and-go drills instead of real sparring, Shotokan is notorious for:
Using unrealistically long stances.
Using low power round kicks.
Completely dropping their hands in a fist fight.
Not understanding the importance of kicks to the leg.
If we contrast this to another style of Karate (Ashihara) that does real sparring:
We can see that Karate in general does not need to have all of the problems that Shotokan has, and that Shotokan's problems do indeed originate from their using stop and go fighting drills instead of real sparring. Even though people compete in drills with resistance as a sort of performance art (as in the case of Olympic style Fencing, Kumite Point Fighting and Tai Chi Stationary Push Hands,) drills-with-resistance are no substitute for real sparring!
In the 80's, this was the only way most martial artists could fight against people from other styles:
That is called "Kumite Point Fighting" and that is how martial arts got a well deserved reputation for being useless in the face of wrestlers, boxers and street fighters. The kick boxing popular at the time, called "full contact karate" or "American kickboxing" combined a long-stance Floyd Mayweather style of boxing with these kind of kicks. Then in the 90's an international influence came to kickboxing in the USA, including leg kicks and more realistic fighting stances:
In the 90's many schools stopped training for Kumite Point Fighting all together and started doing REAL international kickboxing instead. Before our sparring was very weak because of the competition we trained for, but now our sparring was very brutal for the competitions we trained for, sparring almost as hard as we could fight almost every time we put on gloves. Martial Arts became something more for tough guys and athletes than for nerds looking for a way to protect themselves.
As martial artists came back from training in Kickboxing in Thailand, they brought back strange practices with them. Most of the athletes in that country are kick boxers. Thai kick boxers fight very frequently, sometimes multiple times per month. They don't want to get injured doing hard sparring in while training, because that could make them delay or loose their next fight. Instead they have perfected a type of light sparring that is still effective for building fighting skills:
Notes on this "Muay Thai Sparring":
It is continuous, not stop and go, you keep going especially when you get hit.
You must "touch" the opponent. You might "sting" them, but you are not trying to hurt them like you would in a fight.
You have to focus on real moves that really work, not on dumb moves like the ones in the first video in this post.
Comparing this to grappling, this is more similar in intensity to the injury-sensitive "rolling" in BJJ than it is to the "explosive power" of collegiate wrestling.
All the hype about "situational awareness" is well deserved, the times I didn't go to the hospital for stitches in my face or get beaten in the body while someone held me from behind, the times where that did NOT happen, I was alert and saw the threat coming.
Learning to fight multiple opponents isn't some super advanced skill - I am no where close to a black belt in anything and I have successfully dealt with multiple opponents before.
Facing off against multiple opponents is not a rare self defense situation. If it is self defense, someone was planning to mess with you, which means they are bigger than you, or have a weapon, or they brought friends. This is why we don't just lift weights instead of do martial arts, because you always have an asymmetric disadvantage in a self defense situation - you need skills.
All combat sports, as well as most martial arts that engage in contact, continuous sparring, bring valuable tools to the table if you have to fight more than one person at a time. For example, collegiate wrestling isn't lauded as an art that is good for multiple opponents because of their lack of strikes and submissions, and because they favor following the opponent to the ground on throws. But wrestling is one of the few arts that competes in getting-off-of-the-ground grappling escapes, and it is a lot better than nothing at all for handling multiple attackers:
Some large minority of BJJ schools reportedly have some really involved self-defense program that prepares you for the deadly streets. If you as an outsider think THAT is what makes a BJJ practitioner potentially dangerous in a street fight, you need to check into your local BJJ club and roll (submission sparring) with some so-called "sport only" rules. You will find yourself at the mercy of a wide range of very effective and deadly techniques, which could most certainly come in handy if you ever had to fight multiple attackers.
But the question remains, "what is the best martial art for fighting multiple opponents?" This question is raised by the specter of Aikido, as that dying art's claims to fighting multiple opponents was the main niche they tried to fill in the martial arts world. My favorite answer to this question is Muay Thai because of:
the ergonomically friendly practice of multiple levels of intensity of free sparring.
a high emphasis on leg kicks, missing in most other martial arts and combat sports.
strikes to the head.
clinch grappling with sweeps and dumps, in other words, not following the opponent to the ground when you throw them.
clinch striking with with knees and elbows.
positioning, movement, footwork.
1-6 above = Muay Thai is probably the best combat sport for fighting multiple opponents.
And yes, some self-defense instructors have training programs for learning to use Muay Thai techniques to fight multiple opponents specifically:
And he certainly makes a great case there. However, yanking the opponent around in the clinch isn't the only reason why knowing the clinch would be handy vs multiple opponents:
But Lawrence Kenshin points out that you probably shouldn't use the full arsenal of Muay Thai technique in a multiple attackers scenario:
So if your first option should not be clinching and kicking an opponent in a multiple attackers scenario, why not just straight up good old fashioned boxing for multiple opponents? Boxing IS a VERY good option for fighting multiple opponents, but here's the reason why Muay Thai is better:
Life is what happens when you have other plans, and having those extra options from Muay Thai will likely be valuable in the chaos of fighting multiple opponents. Having some experience of what to do inside of punching range is helpful if you want to break free from from someone holding on to you while their friends catch up (one of the multiple attackers situations that didn't end well for me.) And this raises a few questions, namely, what about Sanda (Chinese Kickboxing) and perhaps more importantly, what about Combat Sambo?
Let's take a look at what the Sanda fighter is training for:
They are definitely going to the ground on a lot more of those throws than in Muay Thai. In the wrestling video above we see the value of wrestling's training to escape so they can engage the next opponent quickly. Though learning to score in Sanda by pushing someone off the platform could come in handy in a multiple attackers scenario, going to the ground without doing ground fighting is a terrible idea for fighting multiple attackers.
And that brings us to Combat Sambo:
That is comparable to Muay Thai for fighting multiple attackers, as would be Kudo and as would be formal amateur tournament MMA - if any of those things actually existed in most martial artist's world. Sambo isn't an organized style of tournament that Judo guys cross train in boxing for and BJJ guys study up on their secret self defense stand up game to go compete in. Most Sambo people aren't doing Combat Sambo most of the time, they are doing something more like BJJ most of the time. And as for Kudo, that is one of those Unicorn-rare options like Hatenkai Aikido or Combat Glima that is not common enough to be an option for most martial artists.
So if Combat Sambo is good for multiple attackers, what about other deadly military techniques like Systema or SCARS? First, I must take this opportunity to absolutely condemn all martial arts practices without a strong sparring element, military or otherwise, you spar or you don't and if you don't you are doing performance arts, not martial arts, period. Second no boot camp or weekend seminar training program is going to compare to getting together and sparring with like minded individuals on a weekly basis for years on end.
But what about Army Combatives aka BJJ-self-defense? Let's take a look again at their sparring practices:
As much as I like BJJ, and as much as I like palm strikes, I have to say that this engages the opponent on the ground every bit as much as sport BJJ does. Now I get that Army Combatives trains in a wider range of technique than this, but again what are most people going to be focusing on in this style most of the time? Probably what you are seeing above... those who actually manage to train on a regular basis that is... in the military... As a civilian, this training is called "Combat BJJ":
The good:
there is a lot more getting back to the feet again than with sport BJJ,
those palm strikes are less likely to break your hand than a closed fist,
one of those palms to the jaw could potentially drop someone, and
one of those palms could easily be an eye gouge in a emergency.
The bad:
they are much more engaged on the ground there than what is wise in a multiple attacker scenario,
there isn't anything like Muay Thai kicks or
anything like Boxing footwork going on there like what you see with Combat Sambo.
And as with "Combat" Sambo, best of luck to you finding a school that teaches "Combat" BJJ to you in your first year of training. In Muay Thai they are teaching you very helpful striking skills vs multiple opponents on day 1.
What about the power of Chi, the "Traditional Martial Arts," including Tai Chi, Pa Kua, Aikido, Karate, TKD, Kung Fu, Takkyeon, Kenpo etc.? Well you have to find a school into serious sparring, and the best case scenario for sparring practices will end up something like Sanda above, and that is at least as hard to find as "Combat" Sambo or "Combat" BJJ. In the area I live finding a Muay Thai program is about as hard as finding a shopping mall.
But I have been holding my cards too close to my chest. There was a truism that developed on Bullshido.net in the late 2000's, which was gospel at the time (I think it may be attributed to "JKD Chick,") that went like this:
For grappling, the best option is BJJ - the best sparring practices, the widest range of techniques allowed.
For striking, the best option is Muay Thai - the best sparring practices, the widest range of techniques allowed.
For multiple attacker the best option is FMA (Kali/Escrima/Arnis) - the most likely weapon art to spar with technique you might actually use in a real life situation.
With multiple attackers it serves you well to be skilled with a weapon to keep from breaking your hand and to help equalize out the damage output difference between all of them and you:
And THAT brings us back to Muay Thai. Yes the baton technique helped tremendously, but that was supplemented with kicks you will best learn in Muay Thai sparring, as well as what that officer did when an attacker tried to grab him. Muay Thai students are used to people trying to manipulate their arms and have great reflexes for that.
And you see how the cop didn't draw his weapon? If you don't really know what your are doing, the legal consequences of using a firearm to defend yourself in public could be far worse than anything the multiple attackers intended to do to you in the first place. If you:
carried a weapon in public in the last 72 hours,
have been to the shooting range in the last few months, and
have trained against resisting opponents in the last year (in weapon retention or with people shooting back at you with simulated weapons,)
then I stand corrected here. The 90% of the rest of you "Gun Fu" cowboys can shut up, spit that steak out of your mouth and check into some kind of fitness program. Muay Thai (and all of the other unarmed arts mentioned here) have the following additional advantages vs multiple attackers:
You always have it on you.
It doesn't run out of bullets.
It is very easy to deploy in a split second.
It never kills or injures innocent bystanders.
Attackers can't take it from you and beat you with it.
We don't all have access to the same martial arts options, so it doesn't really matter what the "best martial art" for multiple attackers is. What matters is sparring with the martial arts you DO have access to, and experimenting with what works for you for fighting multiple attackers. God gave mankind sparring for reason:
I was absolutely triggered yesterday by an Aikido video correctly explaining that O' Sensei was of the opinion that Aikido in practice would be over 50% atemi (striking.) The Aikido master in that video understood very little about atemi, and it was right there on camera just how wrong he and his students were about simple things (maai/distance) anyone taking a kickboxing class would understand after a few rounds of sparring:
But why would I assume anyone in the Aikido world would know enough about martial arts to waste my time watching any such video? There's this urban legend called "Hatenkai Aikido" that seems to be a lot more like what some of us were exposed to in the the late-80's/early-90's, than what you see in most Aikido classes today:
But in North America this art is no where to be seen. The next best thing, Tomiki Aikido, is so rare that I have never actually encountered a practitioner of it in person. However there are honest efforts in mainstream Aikido to revitalize it, such as Lenny Sly's efforts:
But it is no secret that I believe O' Sensei intended Aikido to be a modern Saumarai art, and most of his sparring was sumo or with the boken. I think Aikido's value to the martial art's world today is as an improvised weapon system for using things like walking sticks or butcher knives to fend off opponents, a practical application of what O' Sensei actually taught:
Any other explanation of Aikido asks us to believe very condemning things about the art:
O' Sensei was so delusional that he thought a regimen of very basic wrist lock kata, foot work drills and Chi Kung could prepare you to fight multiple opponents, OR
He wasn't that delusional, only his current generation of followers are.
Aikido isn't the only walking stick system designed for handling multiple opponents, in fact that is rather the point of "walking softly and carrying a big stick." Consider for example the traditional self defense art of Portugal and Spain, the "game of sticks":
O' Sensei grew up in a world of military evil and tons of firearms. His definition of "non-violent" was "don't rape them, stab them with your bayonet and burn their body with the rest of their village" as Japanese warriors of his era were notorious for. O' Sensei was an experienced enough marital artist to know that the joint locks he taught as his primary unarmed finishing strategy were very injurious, likely to permanently cripple an attacker in his age where they did not have access to the advanced sports medicine we enjoy today. In other words, for O' Sensei, stabbing someone once in the stomach or giving them a concussion with a walking stick would have been just as "non-violent" as his arm-breaking and throwing-people-on-their-head techniques.
Aikido schools are closing, the internet generation is too hip to take Aikido seriously, and Aikido is dying off, serving as an example of cultural Darwinism. How do you explain Aikido to people?
You can't say "it's a type of Japanese Tai Chi" because you are so ethnocentric on your martial arts views that you can't accept the obvious fact that Aikido is derivative of Chinese internal martial arts of one generation or another.
You can't say to them "Aikido is a more sophisticated style of Sumo for average people to defend themselves with" because you don't spar enough with Aikido techniques to be able to match up those techniques with O' Sensei's personal martial arts history.
You can't say "it's Samurai arts for self defense" even though that is how you are dressed, because of your self-assured, self-congratulatory philosophy which leads you to the worst possible ethic for any martial art - pacifism - as it justifies you being too lazy to spar.
Because of the internet, the popularity of combat sports will continue to explode, leaving less and less consumers interested in traditional martial arts. When I was trying to explain to kids the influence Aikido has had on the weapon technique we use, I showed the kids the following video by the leader of the Aikikai Foundation so these kids would know what Aikido was, and they laughed it to scorn associating it with humor videos on YouTube about fake martial arts:
Most Aikido fails to deliver on its promises to students even worse than other traditional martial arts, so it will probably cease to exist as we know it today within a generation. Like it or not, The Walking Dead got Aikido right!
My last blog explained that wrestling is an inevitable martial art for most cultures to develop in one form or another. The next martial step for a culture after developing wrestling is NOT some form of boxing or striking, but rather some type of stick fighting. There are two reasons for this.
First, sticks are practice weapons, that take the place of blades, maces and
spears so that people can train more safety with weapon technique. This
is the reason why cultures start to have stick fighting:
Second, sticks have incredible self defense value, which is why cultures keep stick fighting around even after they stop using swords. In most cultures throughout history, if someone was going to attack you, they were coming with a knife. The best available answer for dealing with someone with a knife is to grab a stick and use the superior range to beat back the attacker until you knock the weapon out of their hand. This might seem like an unrealistic movie stunt, but it's pretty easy to learn how to do with a decent amount of stick sparring.
"When will I have time to pull out a stick if I am getting attacked with a knife?" YOU are going to run away, but SOMEONE has to go stop the maniac running around with the knife. That someone is going to grab a staff or a stick to do that with, if not some weapon with even more reach. Some people do carry sticks, walking sticks, canes, umbrellas, collapsible batons, large flashlights, etc. If they have trained in stick fighting, they have probably trained in footwork, and will be able to buy more time to deploy their weapon in a deadly situation with a knife or multiple attackers than most other victims:
The most obvious example of stick fighting is from Kali, traditional Filipino martial arts:
In Chinese Martial Arts they like their sticks staff length, but you will notice that even the 3 sectional staff uses some of the same moves as Kali for basically the same reasons:
And let's not forget Maori staff fighting:
A form of Single Stick fighting is at the core of Sihk martial arts:
Quarter staff fighting has been a thing in England since people first inhabited that place:
Irish stick fighting is no urban legend:
And of course the French would not be left out of such a phenomenon:
Then we have the "Jogo do Paul" from Portugal and Spain:
Then there is the brutal Donga from Ethiopia:
Not to mention the sophisticated Zulu style of stick fighting:
And of course we have the traditions of Law Enforcement in the USA:
This is not a comprehensive list, probably not even half of the stick fighting styles I have heard about from around the world. The point here is that stick fighting arts could be more culturally ubiquitous than grappling, and they are certainly more ubiquitous than unarmed striking arts. This is not to say that stick fighting in today's world is as important as grappling. As Icy Mike pointed out recently, pulling out a stick on impulse can really backfire on you:
