yawn. This is one of those subjects that pops up often, usually starts off with soem article from some guy who has something to prove, and that’s typically that his art rocks and yours doesn’t or your style of training sucks compared to his.
The reality is that while we all know a good martial artist, sport or otherwise, can operate on the street or in the ring, both of those arenas are approached differently.
I odn’t train to score points, cause I’m not interested in getting points, I’m interested in stopping someone from hurting me as fast as possible. That’s not to say that training to score points doesn’t translate to the street, just that street fighting doesn’t necessarily translate to the ring. It doesn’t make it any less, it’s just the training is different.
Although i feel that Matt Thornton has the tendency to overanalyze/over-explain, his basic points are always very valid.
With regards to the different competition venues, its as simple as this: The closer the format represents an actual fighting situation, the more the skills you apply in the competition relate to real fighting. In other words, competing in full contact/high resistance fighting formats such as MMA, muay thai, boxing, and submission grappling would be the best thing to help one develop functional fighting skills. Point sparring helps insofar as developing the timing to execute techniques. But the highly restrictive rules and artificial/stylized format take away the full resistance and need for powerful follow-thru. And it also negates most of the real attacks you’d likely face in a street fight. I think doing point sparring is better than no competition at all, but you just gotta keep in mind that it will condition tons of bad habits and false expectations for actual fighting. To a certain extent, the full contact formats will do this as well, but they still have MUCH greater benefit to your practical skill sets. As for forms competition, it doesn’t condition your fighting ability anymore than ballet, figure skating, and interpretative dance.
Originally posted by EvolutionFist
MK, of course you need ability. But if you put your money on ability alone you are destined to lose…
It depends on A) What you are losing and B) Against whom.
Your college prof who teaches business without ever owning or running one is like the senior student who has never fought. Any tough kid ofs the street can kick his a$$ (the “un-schooled” business owner)…[/B]
Why do you always automatically assume anyone who doesn’t fight on a regular basis will lose every fight they’re ever in? Do you think street thugs are really out there training, getting their wind up, just waiting to destroy all wanna-be martial artists?
If two kids, with no training between them fight, one will win. Usually, it’s the guy with more athleticism and conditioning.
If two kids fight, both with 5 years hardcore training, one will win. Usually, it’s the guy with more athleticism and conditioning.
Wrong, MK.
Fighters, people on the street, martial artists, etc, have other attribute sthat do not contribute to athleticism or conditioning, mainly expierence, knowledge, and sensitivity. These can only be confirmed (gained) versus real opponents. If someone has fought more, but is less athletic and conditioned then his opponent, he can still easily win. This is very true in reality situations where the odds may be stacked (and probably will) against one of the participants (the victum.) Your examples are overly simple. In the ring or in any sport format, this is much less true, because all of these “unfair” variables are eliminated almost completly.
Fight more = have more of the good stuff.
Make all of your variables for each fighter equal and what do you have left? Just luck and maybe wits.
“Why do you always automatically assume anyone who doesn’t fight on a regular basis will lose every fight they’re ever in? Do you think street thugs are really out there training, getting their wind up, just waiting to destroy all wanna-be martial artists?”
A person who never fought has just as good of a chance of winning a fight as someone who has never shot a basketball of hitting a foul shot … maybe, maybe not.
The chances of someone who has never really fought of beating a “street thug”, which by the definition implies rowdy, violent, tough guy, is now like that same person hitting a 3 pointer … it can happen, but the odds are stacked against them.
Of course if the street fight virgin is 360lbs and the “thug” 130 it’s different. But the nature of the street thug is that he won’t attack that man unless armed.
Again, I’m not taling about “competition”, I’m talking about being a martial artist. How long have you trained? I’m sure you have passed x amount of MA not related to your school.
If you play chess and I play chess don’t we want to see who’s better? If you’re a fighter and I’m a fighter …
Now, the problem here is that if you’re not really training to be a fighter you will be scared. Why is that topic being avoided? No shame in it, only natural. Of course one would be scared of a foreign thing, especially where one can get hurt. The point is to become familiar.
You’d think nothing of playing a stranger in Mortal Combat on X-box right? As a long time MA an exchange of hands should be no different, no big deal.
My point is just that everyone gets overly simplistic when they say “you either fight X times a year or else you’ll lose on the street.” I’m well aware you need to test your stuff against a “fully-resisiting opponent™.”
Make all of your variables for each fighter equal and what do you have left? Just luck and maybe wits.
Unfortunately, the only time this happens is when identical twins fight. Otherwise, one person almost always has certain characteristics the other doesn’t–more strength, flexibility, wind, speed, training, or a combination of those.
The guy with more advantages usually wins. Training is just another part of the equation.
Unfortunately, the only time this happens is when identical twins fight.
Thats what I wanted you to say!
So it comes down to the individuals and the specific variables. Thats why “complete” fighters need to have a formula that has slots for all sorts of variables… and there are more economical and more realistic ways to train to actually have a formula to even try to apply.
Formulas exist, right?
:eek:
Originally posted by yenhoi
So it comes down to the individuals and the specific variables. Thats why “complete” fighters need to have a formula that has slots for all sorts of variables…
OK.
and there are more economical and more realistic ways to train to actually have a formula to even try to apply.
OK. That doesn’t have anything to do with what I was saying, but it’s a good answer nonetheless.
Formulas exist, right?
I dunno, do they? If styles don’t exist, or techniques, can a forumula exist? Remember T-R-E-E.
Fighting in a competition has little to do with fighting ability, so much as you are actually fighting.
It doesnt matter what venue you “test your stuff” at, so long as you do it. Traditional, mma, whatever, if you dont train against resisting opponents then you cant actually say you know that your stuff will work.
If you are mma and think that stenuous form work doesnt equate to athletic training, then you apparently havent done much strenuous formwork. Add a weight vest and you’ve got a pretty **** tough workout. I go to the gym on a regular basis on top of the rest of my training, but I dont feel that the gym is anywhere near a necessity.
“being a good athlete = better fighter.”
This is very untrue. Possibly if someone was an obese slug and their opponent was an avid jogger this may hold true, but other than that, Im afraid not. Have you ever seen the clip of the two marathon bikers getting in a fight? They didnt break it up for a good 2 or 3 minutes, and I garauntee you that no one got hurt. Maybe a scratch, but that came from falling off the bike. My point is.. I give a 6 month karate student the win over either of these increadibly conditioned athletes, simply for know how. He wouldnt need to go for 30 minutes, he would just have to knock someone the f*ck out or hurt them in the first 3 or so, which by the looks of things would not be a hard thing to do.
About KnightSabre’s first post to open this thread - wherein he quotes Matt Thornton:
What I got out of Thornton’s story is that this guy at Matt’s seminar had NO grappling experience (be it standing or on the ground)…But he thought that since he was a trained martial artist (standup system) he could IMPROVISE his way out of the head and arm position with biting, or whatever.
He was sadly mistaken…
Because the system he’s been training in is TOO LIMITED in it’s scope - and probably because he’s probably NOT in very good physical CONDITION…and probably the kind of “sparring” he’s been doing all these years has not been HARD enough and REALISTIC ENOUGH.
Period.
That’s ALL I got from Matt Thornton’s words.
And the following quote is from EvolutionFist:
“Also, in my experience, martial artist that always talk down “sport fighting” and say it’s so different than the street … aren’t trained well enough to handle either situation. It’s just a nice excuse to avoid putting their training to the test…
The street variables will not change, but the guy who has been fighting skilled players will be more calm and familiar with the aproaching violence, his training and fight experience will kick in.
This is so **** obvious its really not even funny…”
Very true observations here! And it relates directly to the first part of my post…with the more traditional Chinese martial arts guy at the seminar.