What
It's All About
* Rewrite of a post at Martial
Arts Planet
I
look at martial arts forums and magazines and it surprises
me how some people still don't get what fighting is about.
People
do martial arts for different reasons, I get that, but
if you are making any claim towards being able to fight
(or teaching people to fight) then it is really quite
simple what you should be training/teaching.
When
I try to explain fighting to people I stress two points:
1.
What matters is performance against a resisting opponent.
2.
Stand Up, Clinch and Ground are all important for fighting.
Therefore,
when it comes to training for fighting all that matters
is increasing your performance in stand up, clinch
and ground against a resisting opponent (which in
training means free sparring and live drilling).
That's
what it's all about, there is nothing else! Things that
don't matter include: how many techniques you know, how
a technique looks, how many boards you can break, how
many kicks you can do in a minute, who your sensei is,
what belts you have, if you can do a back flip, how big
your library is, the brand of training gear you wear etc
etc.
Someone
can walk in the gym and say "I'm a 10th degree blackbelt
in so and so" or "I trained with so and so in
Japan", I really don't care. If we are talking about
training all I want to know is how good are you at stand
up, clinch and ground against a resisting opponent.
Now,
don't get me wrong. I'm not saying everyone must
train/teach stand up, clinch and ground. You only
need to train all three if you want to be a well rounded
martial artist or able to fight/compete in limited or
no rules arenas. It is fine to focus on just one area
if that's what you enjoy. Plenty of people just do one
and even those who train it all usually have a favourite.
As long as they except the limitations of only training
one aspect (as shown in countless MMA bouts) and their
aim is increased performance against a resisting opponent
then they will have usable tools for fighting. There are
plenty of Judoka and boxers for example who are badass
fighters even though they have weaknesses out of their
range.
When
training, ask yourself "Is this increasing my performance
in stand up, clinch and/or ground against a resisting
opponent?" and "Are there better ways I could
be increasing performance?". If you are doing a kata,
breaking boards, going up and down the mat doing unrealistic
techniques then the answers are "no" and "yes"
in that order.
If
you do not have performance against a resisting opponent
as your goal in training you are not learning to fight.
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