…but can the new Messiah pull off a crippling step-over toe hold? A well-timed heel hook? A reverse nelson arm lock?
No. No he can not.
— And yet the sonofabitch has designs on the presidency. And beatitude. The arrogance!
At any rate, I know some of you here are involved in martial arts. So if you’re looking to improve your ground fighting — and you want to introduce something different into the mix than the standard BJJ nearly everyone seems to be using as a base for his or her ground game these days — I can’t recommend Tony Cecchine’s Lost Art of Hooking enough.
Catch-wrestling is a moribund art — a fascinating bit of Americana in danger of being lost to history as imported arts like BJJ or Russian Sambo become institutionalized by an increasingly uniform MMA culture.
Plus, both Gloria Steinem and Barack Obama would likely hate it. Which is all the more reason to make sure it survives.
YOU CAN TAKE CONTROL OVER OUR THERMOSTATS…BUT YOU CAN NEVER TAKE OUR ACHILLES LOCKS!
Anti-hypermasculine screed from Caric in 5-4-3-2…
I really thought that Dan Henderson was the right style of opponent to beat Anderson Silva. I was wrong. That fucker was flicking out kicks that were quicker than jabs, and sneaky strong, he is. Good Allah, he is good.
NOW, Steinem taken down with an equal opportunity titty twister.
Lost Art of Hooking? And it looks like Nair for Men® is involved.
Ok. I’m so in. My volvo ain’t gonna buy itself I guess.
Cecchine’s stuff is really first rate. If any of you are interested in catch, let me know. I can probably get you a Lost Art of Hooking set at a really good price.
Interestingly — and JD, you kind of hit on this — Cecchine is completely committed to the striking game and preaches the necessity of being able to stand on your feet and punch / defend. Being on the ground and pulling off a knee bar is nice and all, but why risk it if you can finish the fight off with strikes?
On the ground, though, catch is fantastic, and uses the legs far moreso than does BJJ, and quite differently than does Sambo. So it is an excellent way to expand your ground game.
:( sry. That was wrong.
By the way though in The Pub you can make for real emoticon thingers. I just learned that yesterday.
Yeah, I used to have all that here — including a whole kit for putting in links and such — but it wasn’t working for some people, and they kept complaining, so I took it down.
Might try it again if you people will agree to update your damn browsers.
But can the new Messiah pull off a step-over toe hold? A well-timed heel hook? A reverse nelson arm lock?
After watching a few Dem debates, I felt like I was caught in the sleeper hold.
Obama would call that a rear naked choke. Because he’s a communist.
really did not need to see these words in the same sentence. thnx.
Hey. Here’s a lot the Americana part…
They shoulda done that in Carnivale. Maybe I missed it. My grandfather was a pretty accomplished wrestling professional person really. If I wanted to send you one of his books I grabbed which is mostly just sort of I have no idea. Basic collegey wrestling I think. You want? Is there a way to send that? It’s signed by the guy named Arnold Umbach who was some sort of friend of his. It’s called Successful Wrestling: Its Bases and Problems. The first edition was 1953 I guess. This is a revised second. Apparently they called him “Swede” cause of he was Swedish. There’s a hand-written letter in there too from “Swede” to my grandmother about how it’s hard to wrestle when you’re poor or something.
I had never really heard of catch wrestling before, Jeff. I looked at Wiki, but how reliable is that entry on its history? Honestly, I’ve only recently been educating myself on various martial arts, and mostly by watching Human Weapon on History Channel and Fight Quest on Discovery? Have you watched any of these shows? I’m pushing forty but I’d like to start learning something, just difficult to choose which one.
ack, too many question marks…long day
Feets. A href=”http://www.wrestlinghalloffame.org/awards/?dm&honoree=50″>Look here.
wow.
Thanks, RTO. Interesting. I never knew my grandfather, really. They all a lot die young on that side cause of a freaky genetic predisposition to a weird lung disease. That and trains.
RTO: War Damn Eagle!
The wiki entry has some good info, but it’s also got a bias. There’s a kind of political game going on with catch — which is unfortunate, because as I noted in the entry, it’s dying out.
Tony Cecchine is one of the few people with the background to be teaching the stuff, yet he’s left out of the wiki entry (and a guy who took one seminar from him, then worked to trash his reputation, has put himself in the company of catch wrestlers, despite practicing it for only a few years — and not very well, from what I’ve heard).
cjd —
I watch Human Weapon — enjoyable, but they have to pretend that a lot of the bullshit actually works or is effective. Chambers can probably take out most of the guys he’s fighting in a heartbeat by bringing them to the ground.
There are several sites out there that go into the history of catch wrestling — American catch has a British counterpart — but the excerpt hf provides is a decent summation. Unfortunately for catch — but out of economic necessity — many of the famous catch wrestlers became the first of the pro wrestlers, and worked fights became the norms. Still, each troupe had its enforcers — the actual hookers — who kept the other guys in line should they veer off script.
Because many of the catch moves can literally cripple guys, exhibitions — with show holds — weren’t uncommon to begin with. They were simply later repackaged with drama and costumes and pro wrestling was born.
But guys like Lou Thesz, Ed Lewis, et al were truly accomplished wrestlers, and they routinely beat the top judo players in Japan. Japanese wrestling owes a great debt to catch wrestling.
If you are looking for something to get into, cjd, I really do recommend catch, and Cecchine’s set in particular. It stresses the importance of controlling an opponent rather than gaining a particular pre-considered position from which to attempt a submission, which makes it strategically different from, eg., BJJ.
I don’t like to say one style is superior to another; they just differ. But why I like about catch is that it uses the whole body as a weapon. It also incorporates “ripping,” which, while brutal, is effective — if you first learn how to wrestle well — for controlling the way your opponent moves, allowing you to know where s/he will be so that you can flow into different holds / locks.
If you want more info, just email me, and I’m happy to help out. I am just beginning my own catch training (beyond watching DVD instructionals, I mean), and I think it will perfectly complement Krav, which shares a similar philosophy.
Jeff – Have any Matt Furey stuff? Good bit of catch stuff in his Farmer Burns training. (disclaimer: I have no commercial relationship with Matt.)
Anyone have any thoughts on Hapkido?
The Lost Art of Hooking. I thought that was the title of Heidi Fleiss’ new book.
Jeff G – Ground games are good and effective, but only if you can get the fight to the ground. Silva was better on the ground than I expected, especially against the strength and grappling of Henderson. However, that fight was won on the feet. The kick, knee and punch that led to Silva taking him down were breathtakingly quick, precise, and ultimately led to Henderson tapping out, something I never thought I would see in that fight.
Simple words of wisdom – Every fight starts on its feet. There is no guarantee it is ever going to the ground.
I took my first Krav Maga class last week. I fucking hate it. I got hit more in 45 minutes in there than I have ever been struck in my entire life. I cannot wait for the next one.
cjd – Fight Quest is my second favorite show these days, behind any UFC broadcast, and slightly (but only slightly) ahead of NASCAR and their 869 HD cameras.
happy – You are killing me.
Jeff, thanks for the history and the info. I’ll have to look into it more in between scotch binges and being inundated at work. I hope to be in a better position in the future to looking into learning some martial arts training of some sort.
As for the TV shows, I agree with your assessment about HW. Although they’re almost carbon copies, I’ve actually come to like Fight Quest on Discovery a little more. It’s not quite as flashy, and the sparring matches these guys do at the end of each episode seems a little more raw. The fights they went through after the episodes focusing on Krav, BJJ, and Silat were especially brutal.
cjd – The Krav show was brutal, especially for the poor young man that trained with that sadistic Israeli lass. What a ball buster she was. Those sit ups she was making him do on the beach at the Dead Sea were remarkably difficult. I also liked how she cracked him in the jaw about 12 seconds after they walked into the training facility.
JD-
She was nuts, wasn’t she? She was merciless, but at the same time you could tell that she cared in her own twisted way. She really took it seriously and wanted to impart something. Same for that hard case on the Savate episode who cracked Jimmy in the liver and then stared at him while he rolled on the floor in agony. Awesome show. As for Obama, I believe his martial art of choice is Hope Fu. Or perhaps Change Maga.
JD —
Agreed. And Cecchine teaches standup — good boxing skills — as the first line of defense. He also (and this is true of all real catch wrestlers) is unapologetic about hating to be on his back. He doesn’t think the guard is a position of control, and he would train you to do your best to get out of there immediately, rather than sit back and wait for an armbar attempt or a triangle choke.
And he’s right. As more people in MMA become adept at recognizing armbars or escaping chokes, the guard is getting ever more dangerous, it seems to me. It’s no longer just mount or knee on belly from which to get pounded out.
Also, if you look at Tony’s stuff, the way he puts on holds is different than the way a lot of other systems attempt the same holds. For instance, if you look on Youtube, you’ll see a clip from Lost Art of Hooking where he’s putting on the scarf hold. And he’s actually doing it correctly — making sure to fully control his opponent’s arm and shoulder, keeping him uncomfortable and preoccupied by messing with his head angle, and distributing his weight in such a way that there is no way that a turn in or even an explosive Bas Rutten buck is going to break the position.
And the way catch teaches wristlock, double wrist lock, etc., is more economical than how some other systems had been doing it before LAOH came out. Not a whole lot of falling back into armbars, or using brute strength to try to get a kimura. All leverage, positioning, and then the arch of the back or rotation of the shoulders. Which, were you to affect these moves in a non-sporting situation, would be accompanied by a violent arching or rotation (rather than a slow controlled movement), such that bones are broken, or tendons severed.
MC —
I actually do have come Furey stuff. I hear his combat conditioning stuff is pretty good, but I haven’t seen it. His catch stuff — what I’ve watched of it, at least, is not terribly impressive. The way he marketed it, though, was genius — and now he’s a very wealthy guy. Furey was a very good collegiate wrestler. But he’s no catch wrestler. As I believe he now even admits.
I’m glad hf threw in the Americana thing, b/c otherwise I’d be picturing Jeff catch wrestling in a kilt. Which would be wrong.
FREEDOM!!!eleventy!!!!
Heh. Here’s that Youtube clip, if anyone’s interested.
And he’s right. As more people in MMA become adept at recognizing armbars or escaping chokes, the guard is getting ever more dangerous, it seems to me. It’s no longer just mount or knee on belly from which to get pounded out.
Agreed, wholeheartedly. Having said that, the Cheick Kongo fight on the undercard was a perfect example of how not knowing how to fight on the ground is also a liability. Kongo is a fucking freak of nature, and had the Texan in control on the ground much of the time, surprising since he had recently beat Crocop standing up. But, he had no offense in the guard, or even half guard. It looked like the simple basic concept of posturing up had never been taught to him. Heuring on the other hand, had no problems with offense on the ground.
My theory is that a ground game is fine, so long as you are the one dictating when the fight goes to the ground, and you are going there on your terms. Like Henderson did in the first round, and Silva did in the second. FWIW, Silva is prolly going to have to go up a weight class to find a good marketable fight. Henderson was all that was left, and the only good match at that weight I could see would be if Henderson stayed down at that weight for a while, rather than dropping a class for the fight. He might be a bit more fresh and crisp, but then again, he looked good in the 1st.
I’d be picturing Jeff catch wrestling in a kilt.
I would totally watch a YouTube of that.
cjd – A perfect assessment. She was freaking insane, seemed to be devoid of emotion other than to scream “if you are on the ground, you are dead, dead”. At the same time, she seemed to really respect him, I know I do.
No pics, pleeeeeeeeeze, MayBee.
[…] …because I was inspired… […]
yeah, when are we gonna see clips of Jeff writhing around on a mat with another dude? that had me giggling like a school girl.
A Youtube clip.
My goal is to train hard, then kick the shit out of Joe Rogan. On pay-per-view. But that’ll cost y’all.
I’d pay for it, Jeff, given that Rogan, while funny, is a moonbat of the highest order. Oh, and Fear Factor sucked.
That, I would pay to see. Gladly. Can I be one of your cornermen?
Sure. Just so long as you make nice with Eddie Bravo. I don’t want to mess up a potential weed connection.
Jeff G – My Krav instructor must have watched that Fight Quest with the Israeli lass who cracked the guy in the jaw, just for fun. He was doing that in the gut to us in our first class, and preaching aggression, and after he had gut shotted one of the other guys in class, the student had apparently had enough and attempted to retaliate. Hilarity ensured. It ended badly for the now former student.
I can make nice with anyone, so long as the definition of anyone does not include timmah, caric, and IJS. They are fuckers.
Yeah, my Krav instructors like to taunt me near the end of a session. “What’s wrong, Jeff?” — as I’m gasping for air.
Turns out I’d been fighting with a broken rib, though. So now they’ll probably be a little less likely to give me shit.
Best part of having the broken rib though is that I haven’t been bruised up for a couple months now. So, you know, silver linings and such.
I am a walking bruise. A complete novice, with an instructor that does not seem to be used to teaching to complete novices, is not ideal, but it is going to force me to learn the hard way, which is generally best for me. I am going to take some beatings getting there though. Fortunately, unlike the fool that thought that his untrained street aggression would work on a Krav instructor, I understand that is simply part of it. I go in knowing it will happen, which makes it easier to deal with. Except when I puked. That sucked.
Think of catch wrestling, in its non-sport application, as Krav on the ground. The “ripping” techniques — elbows on the jaw joint, behind the ear, on the floating rib, the cross face, fish hooks, eye and ear gouging, etc — mirror the NHB approach Krav takes.
Krav doesn’t have much of a ground “game.” You are taught to get up as soon as you can — though there are a few basic moves for kicking out and getting up. But because sometimes things will end up on the ground no matter hard you try to keep them standing up, I thought it prudent to begin studying something with a little more range for just such occasions.
I find all the ground and pound jibber-jabber sweet…but, “allowing you to know where s/he will be so that you can flow into different holds / locks?”
That “s/he” thing implies the potential of a “she,” right? Jeff, Gloria Steinem, and her predictabile definition of “rear naked choke,” is gonna have a hit put out on you in the morning.
Krav Maga is just interesting to consider. We still train to fight for sport, in a gym, or in a ring. For fitness, pride, competetion. Maaaaaaybe that training is useful in self defense against and armed combatant. Probably not. Krav Maga starts from that point. An armed combatant hellbent on your death and as many of your kind as he can muster. And Krav Maga is fucking crazy effective. Says something all the way around.
Agreed. What I like about it, too, is that it is really an egoless system. It borrows whatever works from various arts. In that respect, it mirrors what Bruce Lee was always on about.
Much of what we do striking wise is muay thai and western boxing, with some defenses from muay thai, karate, and judo. The choke defenses — plucking — is something I haven’t seen elsewhere yet.
People often denigrate the knife defenses — and let’s face it, knives are difficult to defend, especially if you are dealing with a skilled bladesman. But more often than not you’ll be dealing with a mugger who may not be an expert in Kali. And what detractors fail to take notice of is that while Krav practitioners are blocking the knife, they are simultaneously counterstriking.
Re: the s/he thing. One of Tony Cecchine’s students is a 19-year-old gal who just won the Ohio (?) NAGA submission grappling tournament. She hasn’t been training very long, from what I understand, but she completely dominated both her opponents in the clips I saw.
Yeah, but Obama can pin you with his ears.
Hey! Pin…..ears……there’s a joke in there somewhere. Could one of you take care of that for me, please?
Thanks Jeff. I gotta read up on this stuff.
“One of Tony Cecchine’s students is a 19-year-old gal who just won the Ohio (?) NAGA submission grappling tournament. She hasn’t been training very long, from what I understand, but she completely dominated both her opponents in the clips I saw.”
I’m forwarding that to Madam Steinem immediately, as she has probably contracted that 19 yr old gal/ “womyn” to take you out. If she’s hot, you get distracted and take a beatin’, we’ll all understand.
So catch wrestling is basically carny fighting?
Man, you gotta love America.
In 1953, they didn’t even know what the Granby roll was
Cecchine’s stuff is really first rate.
I’m not going to dispute that, but I have a great deal of wariness for people who claim they’re the best. It’s like crowning yourself king, or something. I mean:
just makes me want to barf.
He also really needs to get someone to proof-read his site. But that’s just my pet peeve talking.
Re: Fight Quest, the Krav episode was just insane. Particularly the drills where they had the no-hair guy beating the crap out of a bag
. Krav, I think, tends to prepare you better for multiple assailants. I don’t think catch wrestling is, by itself, effective for that kind of scenario, nor is jiujitsu.
The Kajukenbo episode was interesting; they seem to be no-ego in much the same way that Krav Maga is, and they have the same emphasis on multiple opponents. Basically, both are about quickly crippling your opponent so that you can face the next guy, and they both tend to view going to the ground as a bad thing, unless you’ve only got one opponent. So what if you’ve arm-barred the guy, if his buddies are kicking you in the head?
Doug seems to have learned much in the Krav Maga and jiujitso segments, because he seemed to be able to dominate the Kajukenbo fights. Knocking out his opponent with a head kick was a lucky break, but I think he’d have been able to beat the guy without that.
Another cool thing about the Kajukenbo segment was that they practiced using your opponents against each other; to move in such a way that your opponents can only attack you one at a time. Something to think about.
What I didn’t care for so much was that eighth-degree blackbelts in kajukenbo seemed pretty common. Certainly none of the other disciplines had the abundance of high-level belts appearing on the show as were present in the kajukenbo section.
Ok, is it just me or did that make no sense?
Somebody check his meds. And get Collins outta there.
While we’re on the Obama/wrestling tip, has anyone else noticed that Obama, in full speechifying cadence, sounds distractingly like Duane “The Rock” Johnson?
Go ahead, close your eyes next time you see Obama on TV. Tell me you’re not waiting for him to talk about “The People’s Elbow” or “jabronis”.
If you smeeeeeeeelllllllllllllllllll what the shinyhopeychangey is cookin’
Actually, in this scenario it’s a bit different. Catch wrestlers, the few who are left, that is, often are forced to claim a lineage — and it is based upon this lineage that they are able to even call themselves catch wrestlers in the first place (you see similar things happening with those who trace themselves back to Bruce Lee). For my purposes, it matters not if a guy has a lineage straight back to Frank Gotch or Farmer Burns; it only matters that he has learned the material, somehow, and can teach it effectively. In the world of catch, though, these things are often stated up front — and so it really is no surprise to see Cecchine state his qualifications openly and with a sort of forceful conviction.
It may make you want to barf — I imagine some people prefer their marketing material show more humility (real or contrived), but the “world’s leading exponent” of an art that can claim very few legitimate practitioners doesn’t strike me as anything other than descriptive.
He also has never claimed to be much of a writer, that I know of; perhaps you can do the honors and proofread the site for him. I’m sure he’d appreciate it.
If not, maybe I’ll do so later.
Mojo —
Who/what are you talking about? Whose meds? What didn’t make sense? Is what just you?
Your referents seem to be pointing all over the place, like a blind dude at a fruit stand. Makes it difficult for me to understand if what you want is an apple or the bag of dried dates.
@JD:
Precisely. Now if Barrack would take on The Big Show for the heavyweight title, well, I might gain some respect for the man.
Next up? Hillary joins the ranks of GLOW.
Actually, I’m picturing “Sarge” from Doom. Shoulder your rifle, soldier.
Jeff: acknowledged. I get it. And my pet peeve was pretty much solely reactivated by “mother-load”. I don’t expect the guy to be nearly as literate as his web designer should be.
“Mother-load” has a kind of disturbing bit of imagery that attaches to it, I agree.