The roots of RBSD.

Hi, what are the roots of this new breed of self defence or reality based self defence. Did it come from any one instructor or a variety? What TMA styles does it draw from most heavily?

I would think that its coming from people who are versed in TMA and have realized that most of it isn't based in the reality of today.
When I was studying taijutsu it occured to me that not every attack can be accounted for and countered. In real life, no one punches like they're "supposed to."
So I've dropped the taijutsu as the main focus of my training but I have carried with me the Ninja willingness to learn, adapt and overcome the new threats as effectivly as possible.

It's just the natural evolution of things I think.

I believe it was Jim Wagner who actually coined the term RBSD, but "it" aside from it's name is hardly something new. A lot of the flowery crap we see today was perfectly realistic with the gear, level of training and conditions from which it came. But has become pussified and commercialized over time. Like ninjutsu. As a rule those guys only fought when they fucked up and got their cover blown or something. Not that I'm some kind of ninja expert but as far as I've understood it they grew out of the criminal underworld as a very illegal organization opposed against the samurai rule of the time. Maybe something along the lines of al quaida Vs. America but more like OSS type of stuff than dirka dirka dirka kaboom. For the ninja, social deception, hidden weapons, anti-armor and escape were the main elements. The fighting techniques and tactics being made to counter that of the main enemy of the time. But I don't think they hold water against the current threat picture. But as you say DemonFace, the underlying principles still apply. There is of course the matter though of how far you intend to take that particular course of training. The modern equivalent to the ninja would probably be something in between mafia and the intelligence communities. It's just too fucking hardcore for most people to even have an interest. But people like to play around and associate themselves with the cool factor.

And that's sort of a paradoxical thing that the more real and hardcore the training is, the less people will be interested. I believe Vladimir Vasilliev had to tone down his systema training in the beginning because most of the students stopped coming after a couple sessions. The world wants to be decieved...

So we end up with neutered karate, neutered tae kwon do, neutered whatever. And I've read here and there that when a lot of instructors were forced to teach various occupying forces during the many wars in Asia they deliberately held back things, taught wrong moves and so on, in spite... For instance the samurai upon losing their status taught the commoners to draw the sword horizontally, so that it wouldn't act as a guard, instead of vertically to catch a potential opportunistic stroke of the sword. Things like that. To simplify the entire messy picture I think we could simply call it entrophy...

Back to RBSD, before Wagner coined and popularized that term, there was the WW2 guys, Applegate and so on. But that's only the recent manifestation of this stuff. Realistic fighting has been around scince before dirt. The WW2 crew drew a lot of stuff from the Japanese systems. Jits especially. And of course Bruce Lee came along and started a wave of eclecticism a little bit later, influencing a lot of people. Nowadays there is also a lot of stuff being based on the Filipino systems, but people seem to take any idea from anywhere when they see a use for it. Well I'm no historian but that should be a general idea.

Thinking about this question reminded me of an Aikido book written by Ueshiba's grandson, cant remember its name, but in it he (grandson ) distinguished between "Bugei" and "Budo"

according to the book, Budo implies a spiritual journey, self development, balancing destructive practises with healing arts and honour

Bugei is the more rough, thuggish cousin only interested in inflicting damage in a battle context

Ueshiba created Aikido, it was written in the book, to distinguish what Ueshiba felt was merely rough "Bugei" and refined "Budo"- Ueshiba felt the arts he had learnt up to that point had no such clear distinction.

Aikido therefore was designed specifically to fulfill this paradigm of "Budo"- its primary goal is spiritual enlightenment, not to make you a better fighter but a better human

I read this book when I was 16 and faithully practising Aikido- when I read the description of "lowly, thuggish" Bugei I knew what direction I really wanted to go in.

Those are my personal roots of my "Bugei" or Street Focussed Combatives research and development process. Everyone has their own story, there is no real answer to your question as it is Im afraid mate.

It was the pussification of karate and tae kwon do that pushed me in the direction of Ninjutsu in the first place. Everything else had a point system slapped on it and became a sport.

Then I had to sort through tons and tons of bullshit to get little nuggets of what I believe to be truth about ninjutsu. Ultimately though, the truth was that my opponent is probably not going to be a Samurai or spear wielding soldier at this point in history(at least I hope not.) I'm more likely to be attacked by an unruly fisherman with a filet knife or drug smuggler with an automatic weapon. Or even when I'm not at work and I'm just walking down the street and there's a guy who thinks he's entitled to the money in my pocket because his parents didn't hug him enough.

Firearms and CQC/RBSD are core training for me now.

Thanks for your replies. I know very little about this subject but it seems from what i've read on here and seen on youtube etc that the modern RBSD instructors know about "the fence", use the palm vs the clenched fist, know a bit about psychology and emphasise deesculation. Who came up with the fence first? Who started teaching psychology alongside physical techniques and emphasising avoidence? Actually who made it popular would be a better question as opposed to who invented this method of training. The martial arts classes over the years have had no psychology, only sport like pressure testing and not one word about avoiding fights so i'm interested in how it came about.

the quality of the questions you ask determine the quality of the answers you get

Geoff Thompson I believe coined the term "the fence", at least thats where I got it from

- Mick Coup told me he has seen literature from the 70's training FBI agents to use a "conversational stance" - or something- you can ask Mick on the s.p. forum if you want specifics

My main inspiration for incorporating psychology was Tony Blauer, who was inspired by Tony Robbins, whose work and style and Im also a big fan of-

Geoff Thompson has done the most to popularise self protection in the last 15 years I would think

let me ask RBSD encyclopedia Reg Wong...

Stuff like the fence or using daily postures as "combat ready" stance I beleive are used since a long time ago. But if you want to be specific the earliest i ever seen was from Charles Nelson (Pass away already), the latest direct source of WW2 combatives, all of his techniques are applied through stance such as "jack benny" (One hand on chin one arm folded under), hands up style etc.

[quote="Richard Grannon"]the quality of the questions you ask determine the quality of the answers you get
quote]

You're right. I'm so used to posting half assed questions on forums. I'll try and engage my brain next time.

I have not studied a huge variety of martial arts, but of the one's I have, (Bagua, Tai Chi,Hsing-I, Eskrima, Toyama Ryu Battodo and a little Silat) I'll have to say that they were ALL reality based methods of self protection, protection of others, or battlefield techniques - that is, back when they were 'invented', of course.
That was what they were FOR.
If your bodyguard service (in the days when there were few police) lost the goods it was protecting to bunch of bandits, you weren't ever going to work again.
If your village got raided by pirates and you didn't defend your family, you were fracked.
As a Samurai, If you didn't AT LEAST draw your sword to defend yourself against attackers, there was disgrace on your family for many generations.
Training was for real life usage. Now ....how the arts have degenerated over the decades, that's a different story.

Psychology? Eskrima talks alot about creating 'freezing points' and, being a blade art, thinks very carefully about the tactics of how to close on an opponent and how to set them up. Bagua also - very sneaky, the art is sometimes called 'the liar'. And what's one of the uses of the Kiai, if not to scare the shite out of your opponent and give you a mental trigger to get it on?

And then the 'fence'. Isn't it just a new word for an old thing? Bagua has it in the basic circle walking posture, Tai chi - "Play the Lute" and other postures, Hsing-I - San Ti Shi, Eskrima has it in many varieties in it's Pangamut and pre fight stances. Look at the Jurus of Silat ... How about Japanese style Kamai ......?
Sometimes the meaning has been lost in TMA, on purpose or by accident, but the information is still in there IMHO.

Added thought: Most of the 'reality based' fighting arts from back in the day were weapons based - after all if it was your job to fight, why would you not carry weapons? Of course certain groups in some cultures could not afford, or were banned from carrying certain weapons, so different arts developed - based on sword, spear, staff, sticks whatever, and the ideas got transferred from there to empty hand.
Generally the sport arts were grappling type arts - Greco-Roman, Turkish, Mongolian, Persian wrestling, Shuai Jiao from China and many more than I can name.

It's funny that in this day and age when people don't tend to carry staffs or swords as part of their day to day wardrobe, that grappling has become so much more important in RBSD ......