Eskrima Kombat

On February 23, 2013, Ronda Rousey won yet another MMA match. I wrote about Ronda’s winning game plan earlier, and we see in this fight that the salient points of Rousey’s game plan continue to dominate opponents.

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1. Ronda’s Game Plan Is Simple

Once again, Ronda won by armbar. I hope this causes all of us to look at how complicated our curriculum is. Are all those techniques necessary? Of course, Ronda knows many techniques, but clearly the armbar is her go-to technique.

For instance, instead of having 20 different throws, what if you focused on one very effective throw, but practiced multiple ways to get into that throw? I think this type of training will lead to a technique that you can actually use in unexpected situations, instead of 20 throws you’ve learned superficially.

I remember GM Estalilla saying, “What if I knew you were going to battle tomorrow?” How many teachers would change their instruction if they kept that in mind? For me, this is The Parking Lot Rule –Is what I’m teaching you now something that you could use in the parking lot on your way out of class?

Not only are extra techniques unnecessary, but they create complexity leading to confusion. The more options a student has to choose from, the greater the possibility of overload, wherein a a student freezes while trying to decide which technique to use while under tremendous stress.

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2. Ronda’s Game Plan Is Dominant

Ronda is not just squeaking by in the ring, or surviving until the last bell. Ronda dominates opponents, and won yet again in the first round. This

Rousey (left) Note guard hand is up.

is not to downplay Ronda’s skills and dedication, but it is obvious that she has chosen well to focus on a high-percentage technique like the armbar. This is key, not just to choose any technique, like a jump spinning back kick, an omoplata, a kimura, etc. and focus on it, but to carefully select the most effective technique.

In my thinking, this is The Pyramid. Imagine filling a pyramid with every possible fighting technique. At the broadest part of the pyramid, the base, there will be many techniques, and these techniques will be less effective or ineffective. As long as a self-defense technique doesn’t have to work, you can come up with anything. But as you move up the pyramid, the techniques become more effective. As you near the top of the pyramid, where the most effective techniques are, they are very few.  At this point you will note commonalities, where a silat technique looks like an old wrestling technique, or where a Chinese boxing technique looks like a pankration technique. Where an Irish stick fighting technique looks like Filipino Kabaroan. Where Bruce Lee does a stick technique, knowing nothing of the Filipino martial arts, and a flabbergasted Dan Inosanto shouts, “That’s largo mano!”

The best techniques are few in number. Those martial artists functioning at the highest level of the martial arts will tend to converge at the top of the pyramid, regardless of what place or era they are from.

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Ronda in Trouble

3)  Pain Compliance Doesn’t Always Work

At one point in the bout Carmouche had Rousey from behind, and had secured a scissors on the waist and a cross face on Ronda. Whether she was trying to get the cross face or merely failed to sink in the rear naked choke, I don’t know. The crossface, with a forearm blade across an opponent’s face, is what I call a “pain compliance” move. The forearm blade across your nose and cheekbone or eye socket is excruciating. Couple this with an opponent riding your back –a very controlling, dominant position, and a lot of people would have given up. Tremendous credit to Romda for gutting it out.

What this means for you is that if you’re planning to get someone to quit by inflicting pain (via armlock, hits with a light stick, nerve point strikes, and so on), some people will not be affected. Either they’re drunk, high, crazy, medicated, and immune to pain, or they’ve lived a hard life you can’t begin to imagine and live to dish out pain. Under adrenaline the typical person feels much less pain.

All of us who have sparred have at some point woken up the next morning with an aching rib and asked, “How the hell did that happen?” When we were fighting we felt great, but the next morning when the adrenaline wore off and the excitement of battle had passed, it became clear, “Wow, I didn’t feel it at all last night, but I took one heck of a shot.”

You don’t want your knife-wielding attacker to have that sensation the next morning. “Wow, that guy I stabbed to death must have landed a shot.”

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