If you don't compete....

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Forum
21

you know what’s sad … when thinking about possibly competing i worry more about performing in front of a large crowd than facing a skilled opponent. it makes me nervous.

i have been able to perform fine once i got going in other situations, but i dreaded it most of the day. wierd coming from someone who is such an attention *****.

i don’t really consider where i fall in since i dont compete. when im not sick i train hard, spar hard, and do my best not to be comepletely ignorant of reality. i may compete one day but it’s not a real big deal to me. i have no desire to ever be a pro fighter or anything so ill be happy if im always able to kick my own ass from a year ago.

22

GDA.

I fully understand your feelings.
On Sunday I did a forms demo in front of about 6000 people and plenty of teachers, granted I was one of 112 people in the group. :wink:
Doubt if I could have done it solo.

Personally, I think doing a form publicly is more emotional stress than fighting someone.
OTOH, I think I gained something from having done it.

23

I have to say Im more worried about the other guy when im competing. I mean, the crowd isnt going to start hitting me (I hope)

As for “competing” I should clarify that as sparring. competing in tournaments is great and all but you dont need a medal to know you’re a good fighter.

GDA hit the correct spot on- if you can kick yourselfs arse from a year ago then you’re on the right track. hard to measure that though :wink:

and yeah i get a bit anxious before I start doing a form as well, but once I start it goes into autopilot.

24

I also feel more nervous coz of the crowd watching me fight than the guy infront of me. It’s different in sparring when everyone is there to fight themself…

25

For me, it’s not necessarily about competition. I’ve never competed much. Performed abysmally at a couple of open point fighting tournaments. (Never was much good at the point fighting.) And fought in a handful of WEKAF stickfighting tournies in the 90s (Catonsville, MD; Jersey City, NJ; and San Francisco, CA).

To my mind, it’s more to do with critical thinking. Nothing we do in practice is ever going to mirror the reality of personal combat (thankfully). But we do try and simulate it to one degree or another. The way we simulate it varies considerably among individuals, schools, and systems. But personally, I think that requires sparring. The more permissive in terms of range of techniques and contact level, the better (within reason).

The advantage of a venue like competition is (in my opinion) simply the level of motivation. Sparring in class can often get very cooperative. People trying to help one another. Or simply not going all out on their mates. Whatever. But in competition, the opponents tend to feel no such obligations. Quite the contrary, they’re generally very motivated to maul you. That particular condition is something that I think people should have some exposure to (myself included).

Basically, you can’t train every variable at the same time. That would be a fight. You can’t train kicking to the knee at full power. You can’t train eye pokes at full intensity. Etc. You can train those things at low power and intensity with the right safety equipment. But then, to get some exposure to higher contact and intensity, higher motivation to win, etc., competition is a good way to round out your options.

I’ll never be an avid competitor. I’m just not that driven to compete. But in terms of breadth of experience, I believe it’ll teach you some things that other methods won’t (and vice versa).

Stuart B.

26

Originally posted by CrippledAvenger
[B]

Which, essentially is the crux of the whole problem of the “sportive” vs. “Traditional” argument anyway. No-one likes having stuff forced down their throat. What you have to realize, LC, is that the TMAs are just as guilty of this as the MMA types. At the core, I think most (there’ll always be some outlying schmucks in any camp) MMA’s would readily admit that the venue isn’t about proving their particular practice superior, it’s about being accountable for the claims you make-- something that most legendary fighters out of Chinese history would tend to agree whole heartedly with. Hell, most challenge fights I head of ended quite non-fatally, so I’m guessing the concept isn’t very far removed from tradition in the slightest.

I still think you’re not quite grasping what I mean by competition. It’s not really about winning or losing (except to the fans), but for most fighters, figuring out how they can make their training work and work consistantly in as close an approximation to live hand-to-hand combat as humanely possible.

That reason, to figure out how I can adapt to fighting under pressure and against a determined opponent, is why I’m training for the Arnolds. I could care less if I win or lose, but if I can pull just 3 throws off while in pain and under duress, I’ll consider myself satisfied. [/B]

good post.

27

Originally posted by T’ai Ji Monkey
Personally, I have never heard anybody saying that “what they do is too dangerous”, etc.

I have.

28

Originally posted by GunnedDownAtrocity
you know what’s sad … when thinking about possibly competing i worry more about performing in front of a large crowd than facing a skilled opponent. it makes me nervous.

Trust me - once the match starts, you forget they are there until after it’s over.

29

I like a lot of the sentiments which have been posted so far. I think it might even reflect a maturity that’s happening to the combined MMA/TMA world overall. When NHB style competition first emerged, it was brash, silly, prone to exaggeration and irrational…AND, it had a point to make. What I see starting to happen is, as the dust settles, people from both camps are starting to calm down their knee-jerk emotional reactions and give thought to what the other side is saying. As a result, some logic is starting to creep through.

Personally, of the hundreds of martial artists I’ve met in 29 years of practice, I’ve known only three who could fight with skill who didn’t (to my knowledge) compete at some point in their careers. I competed for several years when I was young in partial and then later, full-contact matches, complete with KO’s and serious injuries. However, I’d like to introduce something that many will think of as merely a sematic difference. Namely, there is a difference between competing and pressure-testing. A lot of TMA practitioners react with uneasiness to the idea that, if they don’t compete, they won’t have functional skill. Not always, of course, but sometimes this reaction is not based in the fear of actual contact but rather to the idea of competing to determine a winner and a loser. Like it or not, competition is a prime example of judging oneself by comparison with others rather than against oneself. The ego gratification that this breeds is objectionable to the TMArtist.

The solution is often in reframing how such training is viewed. Instead of competing, which requires a winner and a loser, one can simply pressure-test what they do in full-contact training without regard to points scored or wins and losses. Depending on the intensity of such training, it can often be continued beyond where many competitors stop. That is, you don’t fight until one of you wins…you fight until you can make your skills work, or until one or both of you are simply too tired to continue the session. Such training has nothing to do with winning and losing, which are as relevant to real combat as empty, flowery kata. It has to do with calibrating your ability to realistically evaluate your FUNCTIONAL skill, which is often a different animal from your CLINICAL skill.

Pressure-testing can also be done at a very wide range of intensity, unlike competition. Pressure-testing can be done full-out like NHB tourneys, or it can be focused and isolated to develop a single skill within an environment of resistance.

30

The ego gratification that this breeds is objectionable to the TMArtist.

I don’t know about this. In my experience, it’s the sport fighting crowd who tend to be humbler. Most of the TMA guys I have met love to talk about how much @ss they can kick. Most of the sports fighters love to talk about who kicked their @ss and how bad they got schooled.

31

WD has tag-teamed the Correct and her equally hot twin sister.

Most fighters are humble outside the ring. However, let us make a distinction between the MMA/sportive fan and the fighter (a distinction that is rendered almost unnecessary through the lack of any sort of competition). Fans can be *******es, granted.

Fans also don’t have anything but boasting put on the line, so it’s a lot easier for them create a dogmatic party line and toe it like a drunken idiot.

Now, let the discussion continue.

FWIW, I agree with Chris on pressure testing, but I vehemently disagree with the idea that competition breeds ego.

Okay, gotta run. Time to look at mug shots.

32

Originally posted by Water Dragon
[B]

I don’t know about this. In my experience, it’s the sport fighting crowd who tend to be humbler. Most of the TMA guys I have met love to talk about how much @ss they can kick. Most of the sports fighters love to talk about who kicked their @ss and how bad they got schooled. [/B]

That simply hasn’t been my experience, so no biggie. While I have known bungholes in the TMA who let their egos flap in the open like they’d forgotten to zip their fly, I’ve met far more, percentage-wise, from arts which are considered part of the modern MMA camp. This most definitely includes even the instructors of these arts. Often, half the class is spent training and half is spent deriding the TMA as useless and silly and talking about how much more badass “we” are for practicing our MMA style.

The worst example IME was a school I visited in Texas in '96 which taught BJJ, Muay Thai and Boxing. I walked in and the students and the instructor, a Gracie brown belt, were engaged in a loud conversation before class about how TMA suck and can’t fight, etc. The instructor stopped the denigration long enough to greet me and we arranged for me to participate in an introductory BJJ class. I explained that I was only a TMA guy so not to expect too much. As some MMA places are stereotypically wont to do, these guys started ramping up the intensity to embarrass the new guy. Eventually, the instructor called me over to “show me the difference in how BJJ would respond to how TMA does it”. This meant that he intended to rough me up and embarrass me into converting to MMA from whatever I was.

He started out by having me throw a Karate punch (why Karate???) and he tossed me on my face and got the rear naked choke on me from top back. Nice. He says, “that’s what we do to traditional Karate…it’s bullsht". I let him use me as a dummy once more while he did a double leg on me and knocked the wind out of me with the takedown. He then told me, "see…you don’t have sht…you need to train with us if you want something real”. I said it was very impressive and that I could see how a typical Karate guy would be in trouble. He smiled, thinking he had made his point and had me go again…this time he said he’d show me a submission. Anyway, after I choked him out, I hurriedly grabbed my bag and took off, not wanting anymore to do with this kind of crap. His students, fortunately for me, gave me a wide enough berth to get out of there when I said that all I wanted to do was leave.

I realize that this is an extreme example, but only in behavior. The attitude is just as strong at most other MMA schools I’ve been to.

33

So your saying you choked out a BJJ Brown Belt? Cool! What was his name/name of school. Or if you don’t remember, what city were you in?

34

His name was Grundy or Gandy or something like that. It was in north Dallas area, maybe Richardson area. That’s about all I remember about it. The place was in a strip mall on the east side of the highway by a car dealership. Anyway, it was nowhere near as impressive as it sounded. He simply underestimated me and didn’t see it coming. However, he also had something similar planned for me as far as I could tell, so I simply took the surprise and got out. Had he known I was anything but his stereotype of a Krotty guy, he most certainly would have dusted me, if my experience with other BJJ browns, even purples, is any measure. I suck at it…I just think it’s cool to study.

35

Often, half the class is spent training and half is spent deriding the TMA as useless and silly and talking about how much more badass “we” are for practicing our MMA style.
:rolleyes:

36

There is something a bit more important re: competition that nobody has touched on–we’ve talked around it, but not right at it.

At its core, fighting is a relationship. It’s not necessarily a positive one, but it IS a relationship between two people about WHO BEATS WHO. It IS comparative. It’s not about “attaining your potential.” It’s about winning. It’s about who is better that day–perhaps even on any given day. I mean, kick him in the jimmy and run is nice and it’s what we all strive for–but some time, you may run into a situation where issuing a beatdown is the only way to go.

If some TMA types don’t like that, it’s because they bought into a great deal of bull****.

Now, this doesn’t mean that you can’t do the MA’s for some other reason–but if you want to have fighting skill then it’s vital to get into “who beats who” at some point. You’ve got to be exposed to that environment (within reason–no barfights! :)). Sparring often just isn’t the same. You really have to have a special set of training partners that can make sparring like a competition without letting ego become involved.

You don’t HAVE to compete…but I think the benefits outweigh the negatives.

37

Merryprankster,

RE: “At its core, fighting is a relationship. It’s not necessarily a positive one, but it IS a relationship between two people about WHO BEATS WHO. It IS comparative. It’s not about “attaining your potential.” It’s about winning. It’s about who is better that day–perhaps even on any given day.”. This is only true in a non-lethal combat context. REAL life-or-death combat is not about relationships, self-actualization, or attaining your potential. It isn’t about beating somebody. It’s about neutralizing the threat, period. If this includes “winning”, letting someone know they’ve been beaten, killing someone, maiming someone, poisoning someone, or whatever, that’s fine, but it’s merely a consequence of neutralizing the threat. In real combat, fixating on beating someone can get you dead. For military personnel, it’s about accomplishing the mission objectives. For civilians, it’s about surviving as intact as possible long enough to return to the safety of a normal life.

RE: “I mean, kick him in the jimmy and run is nice and it’s what we all strive for–but some time, you may run into a situation where issuing a beatdown is the only way to go.”. Absolutely agreed. And of course, even then, it’s not about beating somebody. It’s about neutralizing the threat. If this can be accomplished by nancying up in a dress and running down the street in high heels, so be it. If it must be accomplished by severing his carotid artery, so be it.

RE: “If some TMA types don’t like that, it’s because they bought into a great deal of bull****.”. Once again, agreed. For years before the UFC came along, I went around claiming that most martial arts, as practiced, were absolute bullsh*t in real combat. They still are, unfortunately.

RE: “…but if you want to have fighting skill then it’s vital to get into “who beats who” at some point.”. Close, but not quite. It’s vital to get into pressure testing your skills until you can successfully use them against full resistance. If this means “beating” someone else in the process, that’s fine, but it’s secondary.

RE: “You’ve got to be exposed to that environment (within reason–no barfights! :)).”. I more or less agree. I’ve been in situations that make barfights look like warmup practice.

RE: “Sparring often just isn’t the same. You really have to have a special set of training partners that can make sparring like a competition without letting ego become involved.”. I agree 100%…if maximizing your functional combat skill is the primary objective, this simply HAS to be done. There is no mystical or osmosis-based substitute.

38

Originally posted by Water Dragon
[B]Here’s te way I see it. If you want to be able to use your art, you must compete for a period of time. Competition does not mean it must be the UFC, or Pride, or Pro San Shou or Muay Thai. It doesn’t even have to be in public. You can compete within your own school.

I think the problem is that a lot of people think they can learn how to fight without fighting. That they can gain a useable grasp of their art without ever facing the risk of a busted lip, a black eye, a broken bone, or a badly bruised ego. This is just not true.

That being said, no one is going to be out there competing their whole life. It’s something you do and then move on. If you don;t want to compete, that’s cool. Just understand that there will be limitations as to how good you can become. [/B]

Agreed…with but with some clarification…the way I teach free sparring (no equipment, full speed, everything goes except for eye/throat/groin contact…but still targets, just no contact to these areas) is you are not competing against anyone…but you are practising to make the art work for you instead of resorting to a ‘brawl’. Your partner is your feedback…it is a learning situation and not a competition. It is an opportunity for the Sifu and the student to find the student’s strengths and weaknesses (and to improve on them) in as close to a real streetfighting situation as possible. This is the closest senario to prepare the student for the harsh realities of defending oneself on the street. My Sifu prepared me this way and it works (saved my life on more than one occassion). I continue to teach my students this way. On the otherhand…tournament competition with tag matches, rules such as no head hand strikes, no strikes to the back, groin etc. do not prepare the student for successfully defending themself on the street. Even with the new ‘no equipment matches’ such as the Gracies promoted, there are rules that put the match into the realm of ‘not being prepared for the street’ and also favoured the grappler, although it was a lot more realistic than regular tournament competition, however based on priniples…I am not in agreement with the concept of these matches.
Yes there are some techniques which are too dangerous (every art has them) and cannot be used in anything but life and death street self-defense.
The only one a student really has to compete against is himself…to be the best he can be physically, spiritually and mentally and to do so with integrity and honor.

GHD

39

Some good stuff guys.

40

Originally posted by Gold Horse Dragon
[B]

Agreed…with but with some clarification…the way I teach free sparring (no equipment, full speed, everything goes except for eye/throat/groin contact…but still targets, just no contact to these areas) is you are not competing against anyone…but you are practising to make the art work for you instead of resorting to a ‘brawl’. Your partner is your feedback…it is a learning situation and not a competition. It is an opportunity for the Sifu and the student to find the student’s strengths and weaknesses (and to improve on them) in as close to a real streetfighting situation as possible. This is the closest senario to prepare the student for the harsh realities of defending oneself on the street. My Sifu prepared me this way and it works (saved my life on more than one occassion). I continue to teach my students this way. On the otherhand…tournament competition with tag matches, rules such as no head hand strikes, no strikes to the back, groin etc. do not prepare the student for successfully defending themself on the street. Even with the new ‘no equipment matches’ such as the Gracies promoted, there are rules that put the match into the realm of ‘not being prepared for the street’ and also favoured the grappler, although it was a lot more realistic than regular tournament competition, however based on priniples…I am not in agreement with the concept of these matches.
Yes there are some techniques which are too dangerous (every art has them) and cannot be used in anything but life and death street self-defense.
The only one a student really has to compete against is himself…to be the best he can be physically, spiritually and mentally and to do so with integrity and honor.

GHD [/B]

As has been pointed out though, you can’t really get the full effect merely from sparring in your school. That is a group of guys that you train with regularly. They tend to cooperate way more than someone from another school, especially in competition. Also, when you train with the same people, you begin to know them, and it makes fighting them somewhat predictable, as you know what to expect from them. This is where you can see high value in competition.