A Visual Glossary of Brawlers, Part One · 10:07pm May 20th, 2018
I swear I'm not writing this just because some commenters said all the fight jargon was hard to follow, I'd actually planned to do this as a companion piece all along. Honest.
I'm going to pick out bits of the story that are either jargon or... written unclearly, to put it kindly. I'll also explain some bits that read okay, but are references to stuff you'd only know if you follow combat sports. Speaking of references, there's one really important reference I want to talk about before I get to any of the other stuff:
Teppuu
Teppuu is the reason this story exists. It's the story of Natsuo, a huge asshole who is gifted in every sport she tries, and gets a taste for mixed martial arts. It's incredibly good, and it reinvigorated my dormant love of the sport. I tried not to crib too much from the manga; the only bit I did was the bit about the boxers jab/kickboxers jab (which I completely fucked up by the way). I can't recommend it enough tbh.
Now, onto the specifics:
Phases of Combat
I don't mention the phrase 'phases of combat' in the story but I do mention clinch, stand-up, and the ground, which are the three phases. It's a foundational concept for what is happening in a fight, and I think Renzo Gracie and John Danaher explained it best in Mastering Jujitsu:
If neither fighter has any body contact or grip on the other, then the two fighters are free to move as they please. They will move, strike, evade, and shoot toward their opponent at will, since nothing constrains their movement. We can refer to this first phase of combat as the free-movement phase, since its greatest feature is precisely the freedom of movement enjoyed by both fighters.
The moment the two fighters get a grip on each other, however, the nature of the fight changes. Once body contact and grip is established, the movement of one fighter is constrained by the other. They are no longer free to move about as they please, but they must now take into account the movement, grip, and body position of each other so that they can decide how to move and act. This second phase of combat is referred to as the clinch, a term commonly used in all combat styles to refer to a situation where two fighters have a tight, controlling grip on each other in a standing position that severely constrains movement.
The third major phase of fighting occurs when a fight goes to the ground. This phase happens in almost every serious fight, especially once a fight enters the clinch phase. This third phase is called ground combat, and it is entirely different from the first two phases (as so many people have regrettably discovered at their own expense).
Swimming/Pummelling
Swimming (also known as pummelling) refers to a variety of drills to develop clinch skills. It's less about practicing takedowns and more about practicing control: you're trying to get to a dominant position where you can use your best takedowns and attacks, and at the same time prevent your opponent from getting the control they need to take you down.
Judo
Judo sucks. It's the combat sport you do when you can't afford jiu jitsu, your mum won't let you box, and there's no SAMBO or catch wrestling in your area. Every few years the IJF get together, write all the fun things you can do in sparring on ping pong balls in sharpie, shove them all in a bingo cage, and ban the first three techniques to come out. It's filled with reactionary internal politics that are still bitter about losing a bunch of judo competitions to sub-Olympic wrestlers from the Caucasus nations in the 1970s. It's both too powerful and too weak for self defence; a basic judo leg sweep done poorly will accomplish nothing, and done well it will crack someone's skull open on the pavement. Throws are good and they're essential to good grappling, but the overemphasis on upper-body throws (the IJF fucking banned leg grabs!), the over-reliance on jacket grips, and the lack of no-gi training means that it's just not an optimal training strategy for anyone who wants to get into MMA.
Anyway I love judo very much, and I hope that one day I won't suck at it. Here's the two techniques I mentioned in the story:
This is the best explanation of the inner thigh throw I've ever received that didn't involve my coach literally moving my hands into the correct position while I practiced. The one in the video (and my attempt to explain it with words, poorly) is actually an unorthodox version, it's normally taught that your right leg sweeps their left inner thigh instead of their right inner thigh. The unorthodox way feels so much better it's unreal, and I think a lot of judo players don't really click with the inner thigh throw because they think it involves a lot of hopping around with your opponent's leg raised in the air, trying to wrestle them over. Either way, it's a fantastic set up for
That's tai otoshi, or the body drop throw. I have that guy's book! It's about one throw. It's another throw I think people struggle with, because the counter to a sloppy body drop throw is much more intuitive than a good body drop throw. When I last did judo on a regular basis, this was probably the throw I sucked the least at.
Wrestlespeak
I mention level changing/level changes several times, a set-up for a variety of takedowns where you bend your knees and drop your hips leading you to... change levels.
This is an essential part of most double and single-leg takedowns. Double-leg takedowns involve grabbing both legs, and single-leg takedowns grab one leg. Changing levels and quickly advancing into the takedown is called shooting for a takedown, or a 'shoot'.
Double-leg
Single-leg
Sprawling
The most common defence to a shoot is to sprawl. You're sprawling your legs back so your opponent can't get a proper hold on them, you're dropping your hips so they can't get leverage underneath you, and you're setting up your grips to either pin them or take their back.
The third big change in early MMA strategy was built around this techique: you had fighters like Chuck Liddell who were most comfortable as kickboxers but had also trained in wrestling their entire lives, and they won matches by punching and kicking the snot out of their opponent, using their wrestling experience to block any takedowns, and then punching and kicking some more. This was 'sprawl and brawl,' and it was the last big wave of limited-focus fighters in the game before everyone needed to be good at everything to have a chance.
That's most of the grappling stuff I mentioned in the story, I think. Next weekend (accounting for Chuck Time) I'll add part 2.
Teppuu owns
This is really fascinating. Some of it you’ve told me in discord DMs, but some of it I’m totally unfamiliar with. There’s so much like raw knowledge here
It's always been my dream to be part of "some commenters." :-)
Since FoME hasn't yet, I guess it's my job to respond: everyone knows there aren't "phases of combat" (it's its own phase), but it does have steps: beginning, declare attackers, declare blockers, combat damage (which may be repeated), and end of combat. :V
Snark aside, this has been both helpful and interesting in the context of the story, thanks. Yet, at the same time, I continue in my belief that it really isn't crucial to understand all the terminology involved to follow the emotional flow of the story; the narration carries that without the need for specific understanding of the physical actions taking place. It's perhaps unusual in that regard, probably driven by the fact that the stakes are (almost) purely for momentary boosts to the ego of either character, with some motion towards longer-term physical and moral (in the sense that Gilda especially had areas she neglected) growth as a secondary and less immediate factor.
Okay, this is extremely helpful. (And obviously totally planned from the start. We believe you!
)