Style vs Training

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Wing Chun
1

Something got me curious and I thought I would post my thoughts and questions. Looking at MMA, I believe it is a generalized method of training rather than a specified way of combat. Some look at MMA as a style I don’t, that is why I don’t understand the endless comparison’s.

So now, using this example, it would be great to figure this out. If someone took a totally untrained person (no boxing, grappling or MA experience), who is in relatively decent shape, and showed them a good bag rountine (not how to hit the bag, just the routine), had them spar, grapple (again no coaching on technique or strategy) and showed them a conditioning routine for them to go thru on a regular basis. Now, how would this guy do, after 4 weeks of this with let’s say 10 workouts a week. This would represent someone that is conditioned to fight but has no real skills, only those learned from his own thoughts and understanding from his experience over the last 4 weeks.

Now, what would happen to his effectiveness is he was trained in a specific Martial Art or a bunch of them (WC &/or Boxing, Wrestling &/or BJJ). By what do you think he would improve? I wonder what the ratio between conditioning and skill breaks down too.

James

2

[QUOTE=sihing;899976]Something got me curious and I thought I would post my thoughts and questions. Looking at MMA, I believe it is a generalized method of training rather than a specified way of combat. Some look at MMA as a style I don’t, that is why I don’t understand the endless comparison’s.

So now, using this example, it would be great to figure this out. If someone took a totally untrained person (no boxing, grappling or MA experience), who is in relatively decent shape, and showed them a good bag rountine (not how to hit the bag, just the routine), had them spar, grapple (again no coaching on technique or strategy) and showed them a conditioning routine for them to go thru on a regular basis. Now, how would this guy do, after 4 weeks of this with let’s say 10 workouts a week. This would represent someone that is conditioned to fight but has no real skills, only those learned from his own thoughts and understanding from his experience over the last 4 weeks.

Now, what would happen to his effectiveness is he was trained in a specific Martial Art or a bunch of them (WC &/or Boxing, Wrestling &/or BJJ). By what % do you think he would improve? I wonder what the ratio between conditioning and skill breaks down too.

James[/QUOTE]

How do you teach someone a “bag routine” or get the sparring or grappling, without teaching them how to do it???

3

I can’t see the point of pursuing such a hypothetical because it would never happen.

MMA is not a “generalised way of training.” It is a point of view that assumes that to maximise one’s chances in fighting, or martial competition, with as few rules as possible, you need to have skills in unattached and attached striking, in the clinch or on the ground, or at least have meqns of countering or neutralising those with skills on those areas.

Your post indicates you feel that MMA does not require much skill. Unless you have superb physical attributes, that notion is profoundly incorrect.

That notion displays not insight, only ignorance.

4

[QUOTE=sihing;899976]Something got me curious and I thought I would post my thoughts and questions. Looking at MMA, I believe it is a generalized method of training rather than a specified way of combat. Some look at MMA as a style I don’t, that is why I don’t understand the endless comparison’s.

So now, using this example, it would be great to figure this out. If someone took a totally untrained person (no boxing, grappling or MA experience), who is in relatively decent shape, and showed them a good bag rountine (not how to hit the bag, just the routine), had them spar, grapple (again no coaching on technique or strategy) and showed them a conditioning routine for them to go thru on a regular basis. Now, how would this guy do, after 4 weeks of this with let’s say 10 workouts a week. This would represent someone that is conditioned to fight but has no real skills, only those learned from his own thoughts and understanding from his experience over the last 4 weeks.

Now, what would happen to his effectiveness is he was trained in a specific Martial Art or a bunch of them (WC &/or Boxing, Wrestling &/or BJJ). By what % do you think he would improve? I wonder what the ratio between conditioning and skill breaks down too.

James[/QUOTE]

If the guy is doing bag work and is sparing all the time even for 4 weeks he’ll develope some skill. How much is uncertain. Not much for sure but more then he had before. What makes a good fighters is not all tecnique or conditioning. Some people you can’t just mess with. The fighting spirt is the most important element not training or tecnique .

5

If a physical confrontation lasts more than 30 seconds, conditioning is going to play a huge role in the outcome.

That being said, you can take the best conditioned guy in the world, and, if he has no fight training or experience, he will get dominated by someone who has fight training, but less conditioning.

An yes, style matters. That’s why you can’t take a guy who is a world class wrestler, put a stick in his hand and expect him to do well in a full contact stick fighting match.

6

Fighting is easy

Compared to developing real wing chun skills, Fighting is easy.

Get anyone from a poor background, with little hope and care for society…..put him in the following program:

2-hours punch bag routine, 2-hours kicking a padded post, 4-miles run, random mistreatment (on a physical & psychological level), S&C routine – all on a daily basis.

Take him out for regular fights….let him taste pain & flow of adrenaline….build his confidence with experience of violence…

In 6-months’ time – wahlah! You would have someone that’s very capable in fighting (for real, not in some pansy make-believe sparring in a club environment), and I would be confident enough to state that this person would be able to beat most members of this forum in a REAL fight.

This program is real simple, but it develops most attributes needed for fighting: courage, violent mindset, strength, speed & timing, endurance\stamina (cardiovascular fitness), resilience to pain, body conditioning.

In fact, this was how two of my friends were trained. They were debt collectors, trained by the triads for the role of enforcement. All they did on a daily basis was to hit bags and kick post, spar – literally until their hands & shines bleed. Their leader would take them out to cause trouble, picking fights whenever possible. After a while, they got so good at fighting, they would fight multiple opponents at once. One of them had developed such a powerful punch that when you held a punch pad for him, his punch would make a loud crack and more often than not, hurt the person holding up the pad. On a few occasions, I have seen them knock people out with single punches.

Time is important to those ‘organisations’. They don’t have 5-years’ training people to use wing chun.

7

Still not sure what the parameters of the question are. But, if this mysterious chap pounds away at a bag and rolls around on the ground without technical guidance, he will be an unsophisticated, unintelligent fighter. Sure, the physical aspects of the training may give him the feel for bashing things in. But this is not fighting. Even an intelligent streetfighter is given feedback from his experience which he can apply in order to improve.

I sincerely hope MMA is not considered to be a generalized method of training. I am sure many would argue that it is as valid a martial art as any other, albeit, with a shorter history.

I just realized that I have seen a few “home-trained” fighters compete in MMA competitions organized by my grappling coach. These guys usually end up getting picked apart by other newbie fighters who have had the benefit of some coaching.

Suki

8

[QUOTE=sanjuro_ronin;899983]How do you teach someone a “bag routine” or get the sparring or grappling, without teaching them how to do it???[/QUOTE]

For the bag routine, you tell them the routine, not teach them how to do, e.g. make him do rounds on the bag, starting with 4 2 min rounds, 30-40 seconds rests inbetween. The rounds increase every week. You can also explain the idea of pacing, and not to go all out for the 2min duration, stuff like that. The only thing you don’t do is show him proper punching and kicking technique.

Similar thinking for the sparring and grappling. You don’t correct them when they are sparring with a parnter, just get them in there for rounds and rest inbetween, same with grappling.

James

9

[QUOTE=stonecrusher69;899995]If the guy is doing bag work and is sparing all the time even for 4 weeks he’ll develope some skill. How much is uncertain. Not much for sure but more then he had before. What makes a good fighters is not all tecnique or conditioning. Some people you can’t just mess with. The fighting spirt is the most important element not training or tecnique .[/QUOTE]

Yup I agree, one would of course gain some improvement just from performing the task, and his own ability to improve his technique just from trial and error type thinking.

I agree also with your statement about fighting spirit, the thing is things like that are inconclusive and there is no way to measure it until the two fighters are out there. The one that walks away obviously has more of the fighting spirit than the other.

The thing is, IMO without the actual teaching of a particular style of hitting or grappling, one’s improvement is not nearly as high as if he was taught the proper mechanics and techniques.

James

10

[QUOTE=Wu Wei Wu;900012]Still not sure what the parameters of the question are. But, if this mysterious chap pounds away at a bag and rolls around on the ground without technical guidance, he will be an unsophisticated, unintelligent fighter. Sure, the physical aspects of the training may give him the feel for bashing things in. But this is not fighting. Even an intelligent streetfighter is given feedback from his experience which he can apply in order to improve.

I sincerely hope MMA is not considered to be a generalized method of training. I am sure many would argue that it is as valid a martial art as any other, albeit, with a shorter history.

I just realized that I have seen a few “home-trained” fighters compete in MMA competitions organized by my grappling coach. These guys usually end up getting picked apart by other newbie fighters who have had the benefit of some coaching.

Suki[/QUOTE]

MMA compared to a system like WC, IMO is much more generalized, in the sense that you are learning much more than just a particular range of fighting (like really getting into the science of boxing, or Muay Thai, but just skimming the surface to get the basic skills). Some MMA guys train at MMA gyms, other’s like GSP go to the specific places, like a boxing gym to box, a wrestling gym to wrestle and a kickboxing gym to kickbox. He is training in specific gyms to learn and train in their method, to combine it himself in application. If you have the time and energy this would be the way to go, instead of going to one gym to train all of it, maybe the information is not specific enough or the quality is not high enough to fulfill your needs. Just generalizing here, as I am sure there are gyms out there that have top notch Muay Thai guys, Boxing coaches and Grappling Experts all in one place, the thing is you would have to be there all day everyday to gain great skill in all areas, average people don’t have that luxury.

I think Bruce put it best, he said one cannot fight from a pure naturalness state as this would be too unscientific and lack economy of motion and logic; and that one cannot fight from a purely scientific POV, here you would be fighting like a mechanical man. The key is to be naturally unnatural, or unnaturally natural, combining both the learned skill in a specified environment and your ability to make those skills come out naturally without thought or thinking to interfere.

James

11

I think that certain styles demand a certain more athletic ability than others, certain systems attract fighters more than others.
MMA is, at its core, a basic blend of various MA, as we know, BUT as one progresses it can be as advanced as any other system out there, more so actually.
Of course the vast majority of fighters that are of the elite level have a sold core in a specilaized system, that may well be the case for many years, or perhaps not.
As training in MMA gets better and better the technical skills of fighters brought up in MMA will eventually equal those that are average in the specilaised areas.
I don’t think they will ever match the elite level simple because, one can only do so much of many things compared to someone doing everything of one thing.

12

i dont think its a style thats why its called mma as in different martial arts mixed togeather. If you in to the mma school they normally teach mauy tai or kickboxing and some grappling style.

13

I think the easiest way to look at it is that MMA is a rule set for a combative sport.

How you train and what you train is up to you. I am sure different fighters train in different ways and as the sport matures the training methods will continue to improve.

14

[QUOTE=sanjuro_ronin;900042]I think that certain styles demand a certain more athletic ability than others, [/QUOTE]

Certain styles demand that you do in training what you would have to do for real… that’s the only difference. The reason these styles “demand” more athletic ability is because they are closer to what is demanded in full-on physical confrontations.

Anyone who tells you that athletic ability is not needed is either clueless or blowing smoke up your ass (including the BJJ marketing B.S. that promises this).

15

[QUOTE=Knifefighter;900062]Certain styles demand that you do in training what you would have to do for real… that’s the only difference. The reason these styles “demand” more athletic ability is because they are closer to what is demanded in full-on physical confrontations.

Anyone who tells you that athletic ability is not needed is either clueless or blowing smoke up your ass (including the BJJ marketing B.S. that promises this).[/QUOTE]

Granted, but I think we all can agree that TKD demands a tad more athletic prowess than Ba gua or WC for example, don’t see many of those people doing lead leg hook kicks and 360 deg spinning kicks, do we?

16

[QUOTE=sanjuro_ronin;900064]Granted, but I think we all can agree that TKD demands a tad more athletic prowess than Ba gua or WC for example, don’t see many of those people doing lead leg hook kicks and 360 deg spinning kicks, do we?[/QUOTE]

Using WC or Bagua in a physical confrontation is going to take just as much athletic ability as using TKD in that same confrontation. People who can and have used the former in confrontations get this. The problem is with those who don’t understand this and sell the B.S.

17

[QUOTE=Knifefighter;900070]Using WC or Bagua in a physical confrontation is going to take just as much athletic ability as using TKD in that same confrontation. People who can and have used the former in confrontations get this. The problem is with those who don’t understand this and sell the B.S.[/QUOTE]

Well, even though we weren’t discussing confrontations, I agree that ALL systems require a certain level of physical ability to be effective.
My point was that certain system require more than others, regardless of how effective they are.
Not to say that all TKD practioners are uber-athletes, far from that.
Typically though, in a system that prides itself with head high kicks, areal and jumping kicks, a certain athleticisim is a plus and as such, a typical practioner of such a system will be more athletic than one that doesn’t require them to be so,

18

Just generalizing here, as I am sure there are gyms out there that have top notch Muay Thai guys, Boxing coaches and Grappling Experts all in one place

There are such places, and not necessarily big and well known either. As in every profession, there are specialists and generalists, ands some who combine general competence with some specialist skills.

the thing is you would have to be there all day everyday to gain great skill in all areas,

Not really. It requires commitment, but most of the advanced guys at the place where I go can work all ranges quite well and some compete or have competed successfully at advanced levels. Even the school owner, who has fought Shooto professionally in Japan and medalled in black belt BJJ competition in Brazil and Australia, doesn’t train or teach full time.

average people don’t have that luxury.

“Average” people don’t get really good at even one aspect of fighting. Average people drop out of MA after a few months. But to suggest you have to be superhuman or live like a monk to succeed in “MMA” is to limit your own possibilities or admit to limitations which aren’t necessarily there.

19

With regard to TKD, it is interesting that the Cuban guy that was in medal contention and got DQ’d and banned for life tried to kick the ref in the head, a clear undefended shot, and the ref hardly blinked, let alone got hurt.

Not saying you can’t fight with TKD, but that even the techniques of elite level competitors aren’t always the deadly strikes one might imagine. To which I imagine there are parallels in every art.

20

[QUOTE=sihing;899976]Something got me curious and I thought I would post my thoughts and questions. Looking at MMA, I believe it is a generalized method of training rather than a specified way of combat. Some look at MMA as a style I don’t, that is why I don’t understand the endless comparison’s.[/QUOTE]

I see what your saying James. I wouldnt call it generalised but its no secret there are arguments for both sides. Grapplers dont strike when rolling, boxers criticise MMA strikers technique etc etc…generalised compared to only training in one dicipline but specialised in relation to cage or no holds barred fighting IMO.

what would happen to his effectiveness is he was trained in a specific Martial Art or a bunch of them (WC &/or Boxing, Wrestling &/or BJJ). By what % do you think he would improve?

Think about the best skilled people in MMA buddy, its my opinion that the best MMA fighters are those that started out in a TMA early in life… they land actions others never tried untill the last few years… you wont see a spinning back kick in the first 40 odd UFC’s IMO…

That said…

The person is the deciding factor IMO. some people are just athletic, they have a nack for picking up stuff physically, others…not so much :o

I feel tech is more important rather than conditioning, some fully fit guy may waste himself and gas out because he wastes energy when punching and the unfit guy conserves energy through knowledge and practice etc thats but one example.

Without proper instruction people can make a situation worse though. In a VT sence a guy can cross his arms giving you an advantage or lean to far loosing balance, a guy could see a RNC and try to do it muscling a guy to the ground only to cross his ankles in front for the experienced unfit opponent to take advantage of…

So i feel your question is too vauge and hypothetical to know for sure… one can postualte for discussions sake but at the end of the day i say it depends on the individual training the style…

and thats why i love MA’s, no ones gunna save my a$$ but ME ! :stuck_out_tongue:

balance is needed IMO, not enough conditioning make the difference with skill and vice versa.

LOL
DREW