Lennox Lewis and Bruce Lee

[Manimal]

I was referring to a one on one between Lee and an MMA fighter with regard to the eye gouge. This is the entirety of my statement: He's better than anyone out there when they're both on their feet. So, the only real chance would be to work a ground game. The problems with working a ground game are that he is able to effectively and quickly generate an amazing amount of power and would also use the most effective possible way of neutralizing a situation. Thus, without wrapping him in a bear hug and taking him down, he's going to land a severely damaging blow to break the hold either on the way down or immediately after hitting the ground. As a result, any individual MMA fighter would stand no chance.

With regard to the mass attack, I don't know what/where/how you train, but it sounds very different from my experience in Kenpo. Mass attack was always the last exercise in a session, and it was always conducted at full speed. It was always the less skilled/trained/whatever students mass attacking one student who was at least two belts higher. Obviously, there are discrepancies in the training levels of those involved - which, might I add, were smaller than the difference between the level of fighting skill of the average 2+2'er and Bruce Lee - but the fact still stands, there was more than one occasion where a higher ranking student was able to basically neutralize the group advantage through effective striking and smothering aggression - two of the things that Bruce Lee most strongly advocates.

[nicky g]

"He's better than anyone out there when they're both on their feet. "

Maybe. We can't say for sure. He fought against people from styles that didn;t hold up in NHB or even MMA kickboxing matches. Sure MMA doesn;t allow for a lot of "dirty" fighting, but that isn;t that difficult to learn.

"So, the only real chance would be to work a ground game. The problems with working a ground game are that he is able to effectively and quickly generate an amazing amount of power and would also use the most effective possible way of neutralizing a situation. Thus, without wrapping him in a bear hug and taking him down, he's going to land a severely damaging blow to break the hold either on the way down or immediately after hitting the ground. As a result, any individual MMA fighter would stand no chance. "

Once he's on the ground his "devestating strike" is gone. He himself insisted on the point that power in punches and kicks comes largely from the body. On the ground he's lost that. Also, let's remember that he was small. He may have had devestating punches, but there are much bigger people who properly trained could deliver a lot more force from a punch than he could. Those people fight in MMA matches, and their blows have not been enough to prevent takedowns owrking a large percentage of the time.

"It was always the less skilled/trained/whatever students mass attacking one student who was at least two belts higher. Obviously, there are discrepancies in the training levels of those involved - which, might I add, were smaller than the difference between the level of fighting skill of the average 2+2'er and Bruce Lee - but the fact still stands, there was more than one occasion where a higher ranking student was able to basically neutralize the group advantage through effective striking and smothering aggression - two of the things that Bruce Lee most strongly advocates. "

OK. I have never seen someone be able to do this to to five people swarming them full contact without let-up, but I'll take your word for it. I'd be interested to see it.

Edit: One question i would have is how were these people attacking? Were they coming in mostly with strikes? Were they really trying to work as a group eg have some get behind him and grab him at the same time as the others ataccked from the front?

[Manimal]

Well, now that you're open to the experience, don't just watch it, get in there and try it! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

As a final note on individual fight, you are absolutely correct - he'd lose a very good amount of his power on the ground. But I believe he'd still be able to generate enough power for a hard shot to a very sensitive area, to allow himself an escape possibility before his opponent was able to follow up on his takedown.

EDIT: Just saw your edit. The first few times, it was presented as a bar fight. The teacher just grabbed some students, pointed to the sparring session, and said "Are you gonna let your buddy get his ass kicked like that? Get in there and help him!" So, those first few times, it was basically mayhem, with one of the higher ranking students always just working to try and create space between him and the other student on his level, while still taking care of the lower level students. After 2-3 times, the instructor really saw the error in that setup, and he then had it set up more as a bodyguarding type situation, and called one of the higher ranking students off the floor. That's when the "metagame" considerations kicked in. Attacks started to become slightly coordinated, but still mainly focused on striking. But, that may have been because the first guy that tried to grapple was handily thrown aside, directly into the wall, leaving a nice divot. The "defender" also became increasingly aggressive, to the point where his main focus was disrupting any possible coordination.

[nicky g]

That sounds interesting. I think it is different from people spending a month together training how to execute a coordinated swarm attack, and I think your guy(s) would have had more trouble if several people rushed him with takedown style attacks at once; but it sounds good. On trying it, I don;t think there's much Kenpo in London other than Shorinji Kenpo, which I understand is pretty different.

[jakethebake]

I have no idea what "the average 2+2er" is. This would really depend on which 2+2ers we're talking about.

Oh yea, and is Greg "Turn Muggers Into Fossils" Raymer in?