Customer Reviews

Street Stoppers: The Martial Arts Most Devastating Trips, Sweeps, and Throws for Real Fighting

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book shows step by step illustrated depictions of martial arts techniques for use in defending against violent confrontations against violent, agressive people.

I've been a martial artist for over 35 years, including karate, judo, wrestling and jui jitsu. One glaring problem with many martial arts, and many martial arts books, is that the techniques are either geared for sport, or they heavily rely on a system which emphasizes the "art" aspect of the martial art. This may be fine if your goal is spiritual oneness with the universe. But, when you are attacked by a violent thug, who is drunk, high, mean and a bully, spiritual purity won't help you. You need to be able to fight back and impose your will on that person who is trying to hurt you.

This book is an American martial arts book which gives highly practical, workable techniques. That is not to say that the proverbial 98 pound weakling will be able to read this book and overnight become a beast and a terror. Not at all. But for the serious student of the martial arts, or anyone who is interested in the subject, this book shows devastating techniques which will allow you not only to survive an attack, but to disable the attacker which may prevent a similar attack on some other person.

Overall, this is an excellent book that fills a void in the martial arts literature. Highly recommend.

Joe Scully, Los Angeles, CA

A case of false advertising? I believe that the contents of the book do not match the title. Being a martial artist who is noted for his use of trips and sweeps I found this book disappointing. The book consists of 40 to 50 throw/sweep/trip techniques. Of these, maybe a dozen would be of use for the average martial artist. I doubt that the authors have used even half of them in real life situations. There are also 21 combinations provided, again most of little use to the average reader. Most would be quite useful in a cage fight.

Even the authors divides the moves into low risk moves and high risk moves. They doesn't seem to identify which ones are high risk though. One of the reasons given for doing a high risk move is because you mastered the move (p.35). What the f...? In a street fight you do not want high risk moves. You want moves that are simple to do under stress and will let you escape the fight. Most of the throws start from a wrestling hold or from a wrestling grip of some sort, they would have been much more useful if they started from a clinch, or some entries were shown.

One can see that most of the moves come froma sport like MMA. The sports basis shows through philosphically in most of these moves. A lot of the moves are sacrafice moves or you follow the person to ground to apply a lock. This is nice in a ring or when there are more defenders than attackers (such as police situations), but for a situation at night with an unknown amount of attackers and an unknown amount of glass on the ground, they are of less utility.

The production values of this book are good, but a little more information on key points in each technique would be useful. The authors would have been better off choosing the best 12 techniques and covering them in a lot more detail. To quote the book "Don't fear the man that knows a thousand techniques; fear the man who has mastered one". If only they would have followed their own advice.

While there is good material in here (including my two favourite sweep/trips), I can't really recommend it. Rather, try finding some 1950s or earlier judo books. If you are a grappler, then maybe this could be useful. I will keep reading and see if there is some nugget in there that I have missed, but I doubt I will be buying anything else from these authors.

"Street Stoppers: The Martial Arts' Most Devastating Trips Sweeps and Throws for Real Fighting by Mark Mireles and Loren W. Christensen is a good book. I applaud the two for writing about a subject that has not been addressed like this, even though it is such a very important subject when it comes to fighting and self-defense.

Both authors are accomplished martial artists with impressive backgrounds in real-life violent encounters. In other words, they have been there and done that, and I recommend anyone wanting to learn more about the real-life application of martial art moves listen to them.

That brings me to my complaint about this book, and why I feel it is good, but maybe not great. I wanted more information from these two extremely knowledgeable men. The book is just over 280 pages, but the majority of the book is filled with pictures. As far as pictures go for illustrating throwing techniques, they are done well. They are black and white and clear enough to easily see what the author's intend for you to view in them. However, the accompanying text is fairly basic and minimal. And that is not just a complaint about this book, but any book explaining martial art techniques through pictures and text. Knowing a bit about publishing of books and videos, I understand the fine balancing act that goes on to ensure you put just enough and stay within the parameters of page length and so on. There are a lot of little things and finer points that make these techniques most effective that the authors did not have the space to include, or were not as detailed as I'd have wished they would have put in the written portions.

With that out of the way, let's look at the good things about this book, and there are many. It is definitely a book I recommend for your self-defense library, and one that I think you will learn some valuable information and techniques from. (That is if you actually get out and practice what the authors show, and feel how to do the trips, sweeps, and throws they illustrate.)

Chapter One: Mechanics of Trips, Sweeps and Throws discusses topics such as sport vs. self-preservation, 6 areas of attack on the human body, and some basic positions along with some other practical advice.

Chapter Two: Trips covers what the authors call the Navy Seals of martial art techniques, trips. They are powerful, masked in stealth and deception. After a brief description of physical and psychological aspects about 14 trips are illustrated through pictures and short descriptions.

Chapter Three: Sweeps covers a few standing sweeps, a few hand sweeps, and some ground fighting sweeps. Again, all of these are illustrated with photographs and brief explanations of written text.

Chapter Four: Throws features about fifteen variations of throws and how to execute them. All are shown with the same type of photographs with accompanying text.

Chapter Five: Spins is a short chapter illustrating a couple of spinning type moves that put your opponent on the ground.

Chapter Six: High Amplitude Throws: The Greco Roman Model focuses on a couple popular moves from Greco Roman wrestling. After showing how to train to do the back arch, instruction on the salto and suplex are shown.

Chapter Seven: Combinations is my favorite chapter of the book. Many times when you go for a trip, sweep, or throw, something goes wrong. Regardless if it is your fault or if your opponent is countering, being able to flow into a different technique is extremely important. Practicing the combinations in this chapter might just save your butt one day.

Chapter Eight: Falling had some good general information on falling for those that do not train in an art that throws and how to take some of those falls on the street. (I say for arts that don't practice throws, because if your art practices throws, you have most likely learned to fall.)

Chapter Nine: Law & Ethics contained a few pages on legal considerations and fighting ethics. With both authors having backgrounds in law enforcement, I expected this chapter to be a bit longer, but it still contained some practical advice.

There is a short conclusion and that is the end of the book. As I stated, I think this is a good book and deserves a place in your martial art/self-defense library. However, I do wish the authors would have included more text and explanations in some areas. I have a Judo and Hapkido background, so I've done my share of throwing and being thrown, and this includes real situations on the street. I do like that the authors covered the topic from the street and not competition, and even with my experience I definitely learned a couple new things from these two tremendously experienced instructors. I'm going to practice some from this book with training partners to make my throwing even better, and I encourage you to do the same.

Reviewed by Alain Burrese, author of the DVD set Streetfighting Essentials.

I have been training in Mixed Martial Arts for about 2 years now and have noticed one thing, fighters who do not come from a wrestling background often have one gaping weakness in their game, takedowns. Street Stoppers is an amazing way to adress this weakness because it breaks down each move into several easy to follow steps. This book is also amazing for self defense, which many martial arts do not adress. If someone is attempting to harm you, every single move in this book is highly effective and useful. I recomend this book to anyone who wants to solidify their takedowns or for anyone who wants to learn a few tips for self defense.

To give a "golf" analogy to the martial arts: I see stand up fighting technics like karate or muay thai as the drive, jiu jitsu as the putting game but, who is teaching the middle iron, chipping game? Well, here it is. Street stoppers is one of the very few martial arts books I have read (and I have read a lot of them), that specifically targets how to get from up here to down there, with power and authority. This is a must have for anyone to complete their martial arts library or for anyone just wanting more real-life, effective self defense technics with easy to follow illustrations and descriptions. I would highly recommend it!!

Excellent information, plenty of photographs. Dripping with street cop attitude. Sort of a "Judo for the streets" book.

This book, along with Fighting in the Clinch: Vicious Strikes, Street Wrestling, and Gouges for Real Fights has helped me to learn the basics of throwing, tripping, sweeping, etc. an opponent though I haven't trained in judo, sambo or olympic wrestling in my life.

Thanks to these books I have finally been able to learn when to apply throwing techniques, trips o sweeps so I can integrate those techniques in my training drills.

I highly recommend this couple of books by these authors to anybody who has trained styles such as karate or taekwondo, where it seems instructors don't see the necessity of learning to grapple in order to defend oneself in a confronting situation.

Street Stoppers: The Martial Arts' Most Devastating Trips Sweeps and Throws for Real Fighting. By Mark Mireles and Loren W. Christensen.

Mark Mireles and Loren W. Christensen's, Street Stoppers, provides a unique view on how to use trips, sweeps, and throws in real world situations. As a law enforcement officer and a martial arts practitioner, I know the difference between techniques that work in the gym and those that are applicable in street encounters. In Street Stoppers, Mireles and Christensen merge their knowledge of the streets from their years of law enforcement experience and their knowledge of proven trips, sweeps, and throws. The result is a handbook on how to apply trips, sweeps, and throws in real world street encounters.

Chapter 1 of Street Stoppers starts with the mechanics of trips, sweeps, and throws to allow the reader to become familiar with the philosophy behind the book and the basic mechanics and goals of applying the moves on the street. Chapter 2 deals with trips. The next several chapters cover trips, sweeps, throws, and combinations. What makes the book unique is it provides the link between proven techniques and their applications to real world encounters. The techniques shown reveal Mireles and Christensen's familiarity with the street because not only do they show you how to apply the techniques, but also they reveal to the readers how to place themselves in a position of advantage after completing the techniques. They show you how to get in, take them down hard, and then get out to a position of safety so you can take on the next opponent.

If you want a book that will teach you how to apply proven trips, sweeps, and throws with devastating effect on the street, you need to get this book.

This is the "right stuff" from two great warriors and martial artists, who focus their skills and credentials, like a laser beam, on an important topic that has not been well covered before.
These two authors are decorated combat veterans with a lifetime of extensive, daily action, as only career police officers can know.
Mark Mireles is a two-time recipient of the LAPD Medal of Honor. And in Loren Christensen's case, his career as a highly decorated cop is combined with his combat experience as an MP in Vietnam. You cannot overstate the day-to-day real-world action that cops experience for an entire career, as they wrestle drunks and confront aggression, year-after-year on the "mean streets." This is combined with two lifetimes of experience in competitive martial arts.
This tremendous credibility and credentials for the "real world," focused in one area (trips, sweeps and throws) really comes out in the book. One reviewer listed himself as a "martial artist" from New Zealand (a wonderful land well known for sheep and butter, but not particularly noted for its street violence!) and concluded that this book wouldn't work in the "real world." Such a comment from such an obvious dilettante is as good as a rave review from a real warrior!
This book is dynamite, and we should look for more from these authors, applying these skills, and this format, to other areas. Encore! Encore!
Lt.Col. Dave Grossman, author of On Combat and On Killing

Many martial arts books really aren't that great. The pictures suck, the explanation is unclear/boring, techniques are overrated, they trash other styles etc. Street Stoppers is completely different. The pictures are great, but the authors don't just rely on photograpgy- the explanations are clear without a lot of unusual terms or going into mind-numbing details. As for the techniques, the few I've used in my dojo so far have worked right pretty much right off the bat, which is the point of picking up the book in the first place. It's a great reference for anyone, and fits in with pretty much any style.