Your Fighting Tip

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A good TMA school will include application drills in the training.

Sparring can be part of that, but there are lots of ways to spar and some ways are better and more useful than others. Open, heavy-contact sparring really isn't all that necessary for most people, if they are training for personal self defense and not training for the ring. Heavy sparring leads to injury, and that can build over time and turn into bad stuff down the road. If you choose to do that because you are involved in a combative sport, that's your choice and it's fine. But to pretend like that approach to training is THE yardstick against which all training must be measured, is simply not true.

No, you do not need to do heavy sparring, and yes, you can still develop good self defense skills.


Yes, there are risks in MMA for injuries, much more so than TMA. But it's just fun. Most do it for the adrenaline rush. This why MMA is taking over. It's just fun to compete. You can't really compete by pretending to nut & eye strike. No one wants to watch nor participate in that.

Training SD techniques and sparring light to medium is certainly valid and certainly better than nothing. I never implied that it was useless. Just that training in MMA and sparring light to hard for KO's will prepare you for the real fights much BETTER, whether they be in the ring/cage or in the streets.

The main problem with SD play fighting is that it never addresses the high possibility of getting punched in the face, repeatedly...especially if their SD techniques fails. SDs' chins _USUALLY_ have never been tested for real. Not just the chin, but the rest of the head, body, legs, etc. Most people get a rude awakening the very first time they got punched in the face. Some freeze up or panic. It takes time and dedicated practice to get used to this and to continue to fight.

Even Bruce Lee thought that he could just end the fight vs. Jak Man Wong with a few eye & throat strikes in a matter of seconds. Ended up with 2 stories. One from his wife & Bruce himself claiming that he won while the other by Jak Man Wong who claimed that Bruce Lee tried to kill him with deathstrikes in what was supposed to be a friendly match, yet he managed to beat Bruce after ~20 minutes of fighting. What was certain was that Bruce renounced Wing Chun as his sole base training and started cross training what works....Boxing, Muay Thai, Wrestling, Judo, etc. <- I'll get in trouble for this one.

Another problem with light sparring only, and I'm guilty myself, is that you often take really high risks such as throwing 5 tapping jabs, doing risky moves, etc. because you know the other guy is only going to tap you back. I've thrown a jab, uppercut, hook and uppercut combo with one hand just yesterday during light sparring and landed all 4 punches. The opponent was a noob and I was just not taking him seriously. Got yelled at by the coach because that was not real Boxing and a good Boxer would have dropped me.
 
Kinda confused, now...

You've trained in Brazilian JuJitsu by Japanese Judo practitioners? Ain't that kind of like doing woodcarving in marble?

My senseis started out from a long line of Judokas. They switched to BJJ after admittedly getting whooped in their own Judo studio by visiting BJJ's. And BJJ is what pays the bills nowadays. What Judo dojo can charge $150-210/month with a 12-month contract minimum?

I cross train in all sorts of TMA's. I try to bring in what works against pure Muay Thai guys at my gym to use on them. So despite my posts, I'm very open to various techniques, just as long as they make sense and I will try them out in sparring.
 
MZ1, it apears you have a faulty idea of true TMA. We don't pretend and play. We do get hit in the face. Those schools you refer to are not TMA. Heck they aren't really even real martial arts schools, in my opinion. You are painting TMA with a broad brush that isn't accurate for most. Many schools' training includes testing thier training with hard sparring, rolling, and/or both. Have you ever trained at a reputable TMA school?
 
Yes, there are risks in MMA for injuries, much more so than TMA. But it's just fun. Most do it for the adrenaline rush. This why MMA is taking over. It's just fun to compete. You can't really compete by pretending to nut & eye strike. No one wants to watch nor participate in that.

MMA is not taking over. Those who are interested in it, do it. Those who are not, don't. I don't see any mass-exodus from TMA schools to MMA schools.

Training SD techniques and sparring light to medium is certainly valid and certainly better than nothing. I never implied that it was useless. Just that training in MMA and sparring light to hard for KO's will prepare you for the real fights much BETTER, whether they be in the ring/cage or in the streets.

The main problem with SD play fighting is that it never addresses the high possibility of getting punched in the face, repeatedly...especially if their SD techniques fails. SDs' chins _USUALLY_ have never been tested for real. Not just the chin, but the rest of the head, body, legs, etc. Most people get a rude awakening the very first time they got punched in the face. Some freeze up or panic. It takes time and dedicated practice to get used to this and to continue to fight.

Even Bruce Lee thought that he could just end the fight vs. Jak Man Wong with a few eye & throat strikes in a matter of seconds. Ended up with 2 stories. One from his wife & Bruce himself claiming that he won while the other by Jak Man Wong who claimed that Bruce Lee tried to kill him with deathstrikes in what was supposed to be a friendly match, yet he managed to beat Bruce after ~20 minutes of fighting. What was certain was that Bruce renounced Wing Chun as his sole base training and started cross training what works....Boxing, Muay Thai, Wrestling, Judo, etc. <- I'll get in trouble for this one.

Another problem with light sparring only, and I'm guilty myself, is that you often take really high risks such as throwing 5 tapping jabs, doing risky moves, etc. because you know the other guy is only going to tap you back. I've thrown a jab, uppercut, hook and uppercut combo with one hand just yesterday during light sparring and landed all 4 punches. The opponent was a noob and I was just not taking him seriously. Got yelled at by the coach because that was not real Boxing and a good Boxer would have dropped me.

you don't have to do "free" sparring of any kind. There are other interactive drills that work well for developing self defense skills.
 
Mz1

I use to find these threads irritating but now I find them fascinating. I am assuming you are young, at least compared to me, and all I have to say is back in the old days probably around the end of the last ice age, in your view, the guys I trained with were TMA and we did not use pads or protective gear and we got injured from time to time. We did not spar using &#8220;ninja techniques by pretending to eye gouge someone&#8221; we did not &#8220;pretending to kick them in the nuts&#8221; and we did not do it for real either we kind of wanted to have people to train with and liked each other and those types of techniques are not conducive to getting people to train with or making friends. But we did kick the living daylights out of one another, we got punched and we got slammed on the ground allot (no padded floors then either so you learned how to fall too) and we got hurt, oh and the joint locks were not all to comfortable either. That was way back, probably before you were born, but I could be wrong there, and it was right around the time Enter the Dragon came out as a new movie. That was Japanese jiujitsu. After that I trained another TMA or it could be argued it is a sports MA but it was before TKD was an Olympic sport and we did not use padding or protective gear there either, and again no &#8220;ninja techniques by pretending to eye gouge someone&#8221; we did not &#8220;pretending to kick them in the nuts&#8221; and that was way back when Chuck Norris was known as a fighter not a movie star, and in none of that did we ever &#8220;pretend strike&#8221;. We did get hurt, bruised and battered from time to time though and learned to block and avoid getting hit but not a whole lot of pretending.

I later switched to CMA and again that training was totally devoid of &#8220;ninja techniques by pretending to eye gouge someone&#8221; we did not &#8220;pretending to kick them in the nuts&#8221;. But that was the first time I ran into protective gear. Left that school and went to other CMA schools and never ran into protective gear again. Of course some of those were not training all that hard either but others were and again when you do that, you will get injured.

Now I am far from the longest or oldest MA practitioner on this page, there are others that started before me and likely took more beatings that I did. But what I find most interesting is that it seems that about every 2 years or so a guy, like you, shows up on MT to show us all the error of our ways and telling us all how badly we train, how horrible TMA is, and how he trains for real and it so much better than all others. They all appears to be on a quest to prove their point for some reason or another and do not seem to realize that it is mostly opinion and that if they approached it just a little different they would get a whole lot further. Most seem to have a little training in TMA or a lot in one style or possibly two and they then go off and judge every single TMA worldwide based on their little exposure to it or their extensive exposure to a little of it. Some have been arm chair MMAist but they tend to use a lot more vitriol and outrageous clams than you are. But yet not one seems to have figured out they did not invent training for real or pressure testing or whatever the newest buzz word is to make them sound like they have discovered something. It was there long before they came along and it will be there long after they leave.

Now am I saying all TMA school train fighters&#8230;lord no&#8230; I have seen some pretty pathetic examples of things referred to as sparing over the years and I have seen the occasional &#8220;pretend strike&#8221;, &#8220;ninja techniques by pretending to eye gouge someone&#8221; and the &#8220;pretending to kick them in the nuts&#8221;. But let me ask you, have you ever gouged someone&#8217;s eye out while training or kicked them in the nuts or hit them hard enough to make them fall down. Sadly I have done two out of 3 of those over the years and almost did the other and been the victim of 2 and a half out of 3 of those myself. Also sadly been in more than my fair share of fights (use to have a job that required it) and I am not at all thrilled with any of that. It is one thing to talk about a thing and berate others for not doing it but it is a completely different thing once you have done it, you tend to spend less time talknig about it afterwards.

There are both good and bad TMA schools and good and bad TMA practitioners just like there are good and bad MMA schools and good and bad BJJ schools and good and bad practitioners of both. I am willing to admit there are likely fewer poorly trained MMA people of BJJ people but before you go off halfcocked and get a big head out of that you also have to know there are fewer MMA schools and fewer BJJ school than there are TMA schools and the TMA styles have been around a lot longer. I have recently head of a BJJ school that is doing much the same as some of the TMA schools around today and making getting a belts easy&#8230;and you know what, that actually makes me a bit sad but the reality is the longer a style exists the more likely it is to get corrupted by those less than qualified to teach who are more interested in the dollar than the style or their students

The biggest difference form really training TMA and really training MMA is this. One trains to fight someone he hopes to never see again and the other trains to fight someone he will see again.

I have said my piece, I'm done, I leave the tilting at windmills stuff to you and the next guy that comes along.
 
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You being an MMA practitioner does not make you the authority on street fighting either. :)

Which is why I never claimed that streetsfights must inherently be different than cage/ring fights, you did. And I never claimed that both must be the same neither.

I talk from my experience, my limited time in law enforcement, my multiple contacts in law enforcement, many years in various arts, and common sense.

There are cops, feds, SWAT, Marines, Army Rangers, etc. at my MMA gym. I beat some and lose to some. What's the big deal? If they're new and with no other fight training other than the mediocre H2H training they've received from their perspective organization, then they're just a little bit above the average, new White belt.

You talk a lot of friends you have that do this or that. You talk about how much of a bad *** you are. Good for you. Self defense training in martial arts isn't for you. It is for the regular joe. Fully resising opponents are neccessary, but not too soon and not too often.

I'm just saying that MMA is better than SD for both applications whether it's in the ring/cage or streets. I can't help it if you're sensitive to this.

If you think knocking out an attacker or getting into position to choke them out is easy all the time, you are a fool.

Well you certainly are a fool if you think that I think this, :). Once again, you're another person who likes to fabricate what I supposedly think or say. Show me where I said this.

As you say, SD is situational and believing everyone is a drunk chump who will be an easy fight just isn't realistic.

Again? Show me where I said this, otherwise it's the second time that you made up lies.

Sometimes they are even well trained.

I know that, thank you.

You've watched a lot of videos, huh? Explains a lot.

You too. And you make up lies about what I supposedly said, twice.

Finally, yes, you will absolutely fight how you train. No exceptions. If you train in fantasy, your ability to defend yourself will also be a fantasy. Train in reality, and your defense skills will be realistic. Everything in between is aplicable as well.

Thank you for helping me debate your own self. But I wouldn't go as far as you did in implying that SD training is "fantasy".
 
MZ1, it apears you have a faulty idea of true TMA. We don't pretend and play. We do get hit in the face. Those schools you refer to are not TMA. Heck they aren't really even real martial arts schools, in my opinion. You are painting TMA with a broad brush that isn't accurate for most. Many schools' training includes testing thier training with hard sparring, rolling, and/or both. Have you ever trained at a reputable TMA school?

I never said this at all. I know that there are TMA schools that will spar hard and do have fight teams. Some TMA schools have allowed me to spar hard, usually vs. their instructors (most don't though). I fight in WKA events and they're run by Karatekas from a Karate school that's now added MMA. There are plenty of TMA guys locally that can kick my ***.

I just said that many TMA schools don't spar hard nor fights in full contact tournaments. This is why they're losing students fast to MMA.
 
MMA is not taking over. Those who are interested in it, do it. Those who are not, don't. I don't see any mass-exodus from TMA schools to MMA schools.

I guess what I mean is that those who wants to train to fight are leaving TMA for MMA. Making a living being a TMA'ist was pretty tough before, but recently has just gotten much more difficult due to MMA.

you don't have to do "free" sparring of any kind. There are other interactive drills that work well for developing self defense skills.

Luckily, most SD people, never have to rely on these other interactive drills in real life attacks to prove or disprove your assertion....as they're extremely rare....and running or threatening to call the police, usually works.

Sparring hard and fighting tournaments doesn't guarantee anything neither as I'd be the first to admit that there's unpredictability in the streets, prison, etc. But I'll still stick to my notion that MMA w/fight and hard sparring experience is way better than your TMA constructive sparring & drills.
 
I guess what I mean is that those who wants to train to fight are leaving TMA for MMA. Making a living being a TMA'ist was pretty tough before, but recently has just gotten much more difficult due to MMA.

well yes, people who LIKE to fight would be best served in a school that makes competition a big focus. Not everyone who trains martial arts likes to fight, including those who can defend themselves quite well. For most people, self defense would be a necessary evil and not something to be enjoyed, but done if circumstances make it necessary.

Luckily, most SD people, never have to rely on these other interactive drills in real life attacks to prove or disprove your assertion....as they're extremely rare....and running or threatening to call the police, usually works.

Sparring hard and fighting tournaments doesn't guarantee anything neither as I'd be the first to admit that there's unpredictability in the streets, prison, etc. But I'll still stick to my notion that MMA w/fight and hard sparring experience is way better than your TMA constructive sparring & drills.

it's true, most people have very very little chance of needing to ever use their skills. And it's also true, I expect trained martial competitors can probably defend themselves quite well.

and what you may think of other kinds of drills, well, honestly I don't care. The fact that you don't put much stock in them really doesn't affect me, and you are welcome to believe what you want.
 
I'm not a fighter, I've never claimed to be. There are a lot of people on this board that I respect from their words and how they handle themselves when they disagree with people. A lot I'd like to train with for a few days. And those people, those are the ones I'd REALLY be concerned about dropping me in an instant. The ones that don't need to talk about themselves. You however... dude, I'm not sure there is a soul in this thread that believes you are what you claim to be. I give your trolling a 2/10, only because a few have bit and debated you.
 
Mz1
I use to find these threads irritating but now I find them fascinating. I am assuming you are young, at least compared to me, and all I have to say is back in the old days probably around the end of the last ice age, in your view, the guys I trained with were TMA and we did not use pads or protective gear and we got injured from time to time. We did not spar using “ninja techniques by pretending to eye gouge someone” we did not “pretending to kick them in the nuts” and we did not do it for real either we kind of wanted to have people to train with and liked each other and those types of techniques are not conducive to getting people to train with or making friends. But we did kick the living daylights out of one another, we got punched and we got slammed on the ground allot (no padded floors then either so you learned how to fall too) and we got hurt, oh and the joint locks were not all to comfortable either. That was way back, probably before you were born, but I could be wrong there, and it was right around the time Enter the Dragon came out as a new movie. That was Japanese jiujitsu. After that I trained another TMA or it could be argued it is a sports MA but it was before TKD was an Olympic sport and we did not use padding or protective gear there either, and again no “ninja techniques by pretending to eye gouge someone” we did not “pretending to kick them in the nuts” and that was way back when Chuck Norris was known as a fighter not a movie star, and in none of that did we ever “pretend strike”. We did get hurt, bruised and battered from time to time though and learned to block and avoid getting hit but not a whole lot of pretending.

I later switched to CMA and again that training was totally devoid of “ninja techniques by pretending to eye gouge someone” we did not “pretending to kick them in the nuts”. But that was the first time I ran into protective gear. Left that school and went to other CMA schools and never ran into protective gear again. Of course some of those were not training all that hard either but others were and again when you do that, you will get injured.

Hey hi. It's funny how you've been trying to tell me how overly macho I try to pretend to be while here you are telling me about how badass you are in your glory days, training w/o safety gear and slamming hard guys on hard floors (oops that didn't sound right) and such.

Were you a gladiator or something? I know those guys are pretty old and didn't have titanium safety gear and such like we do today. I know Fred Flintstone used to start his car with his bare feet, but does that mean it's better? We train with safety gear is because we want to to avoid injuries, in order to keep training as hard as possible and often. Oh and teeth, they're nice to have. And I don't think you can condition your teeth to not get knocked out.

Now I am far from the longest or oldest MA practitioner on this page, there are others that started before me and likely took more beatings that I did. But what I find most interesting is that it seems that about every 2 years or so a guy, like you, shows up on MT to show us all the error of our ways and telling us all how badly we train, how horrible TMA is, and how he trains for real and it so much better than all others.

That certainly is my opinion, that MMA trains more realistically than TMA. Early UFC's and especially UFC 1-4 proved a lot of this.

Now am I saying all TMA school train fighters…lord no… I have seen some pretty pathetic examples of things referred to as sparing over the years and I have seen the occasional “pretend strike”, “ninja techniques by pretending to eye gouge someone” and the “pretending to kick them in the nuts”. But let me ask you, have you ever gouged someone’s eye out while training or kicked them in the nuts or hit them hard enough to make them fall down. Sadly I have done two out of 3 of those over the years and almost did the other and been the victim of 2 and a half out of 3 of those myself.

Yes, been kicked in the nuts and have kicked others in the nuts by accident. It takes more skills to fight someone under strict rules. If an MMA fighter trains at kicking with speed, power and precision at LEGAL targets of fully resisting opponents who are also fighting back, how easy would it be to not worry about any rules at all and kick someone in the nuts in a streetfight?

Also sadly been in more than my fair share of fights (use to have a job that required it) and I am not at all thrilled with any of that. It is one thing to talk about a thing and berate others for not doing it but it is a completely different thing once you have done it, you tend to spend less time talknig about it afterwards.

Aww c'mon now. You certainly are proud of these fights, which is why you're bringing them up. I bet you talk about it often at bars or on Bingo nights.

The biggest difference form really training TMA and really training MMA is this. One trains to fight someone he hopes to never see again and the other trains to fight someone he will see again.

Both fights still starts out with the same intensity and brutality. Eating an elbow to the face is no different in the ring/cage as it is in the street.

And what if I fight my next door neighbor in the street? How can I hope to never see him again? And should I be using my ninja death strikes on my next door neighbor too? And I've only seen three guys that I've fought before in the ring and cage.

I have said my piece, I'm done, I leave the tilting at windmills stuff to you and the next guy that comes along.

That was more like an essay, but OK, have a good one friendo.
 
Hey hi. It's funny how you've been trying to tell me how overly macho I try to pretend to be while here you are telling me about how badass you are in your glory days, training w/o safety gear and slamming hard guys on hard floors (oops that didn't sound right) and such.

Were you a gladiator or something? I know those guys are pretty old and didn't have titanium safety gear and such like we do today. I know Fred Flintstone used to start his car with his bare feet, but does that mean it's better? We train with safety gear is because we want to to avoid injuries, in order to keep training as hard as possible and often. Oh and teeth, they're nice to have. And I don't think you can condition your teeth to not get knocked out.



That certainly is my opinion, that MMA trains more realistically than TMA. Early UFC's and especially UFC 1-4 proved a lot of this.



Yes, been kicked in the nuts and have kicked others in the nuts by accident. It takes more skills to fight someone under strict rules. If an MMA fighter trains at kicking with speed, power and precision at LEGAL targets of fully resisting opponents who are also fighting back, how easy would it be to not worry about any rules at all and kick someone in the nuts in a streetfight?



Aww c'mon now. You certainly are proud of these fights, which is why you're bringing them up. I bet you talk about it often at bars or on Bingo nights.



Both fights still starts out with the same intensity and brutality. Eating an elbow to the face is no different in the ring/cage as it is in the street.

And what if I fight my next door neighbor in the street? How can I hope to never see him again? And should I be using my ninja death strikes on my next door neighbor too? And I've only seen three guys that I've fought before in the ring and cage.



That was more like an essay, but OK, have a good one friendo.


Yup, pretty much the response I expected..... Condescension, missing the point, making assumptions, arrogance.... standard arm chair MMAist stuff..... you are not what you are claiming are you&#8230;.. and you are pretty young too aren't you..... if you were what you claimed you would not feel the need to respond the way you do&#8230;.. but eventually you will go away just like those that came before you with the same exact silliness so continuing this would be a waste of my time....... you also did not succeed at making me angry either, which I am fairly certain was your goal in order to continue your ridiculousness.... have a nice day youngster

My opinion of Mz1 and this entire thread he has here

:trollsign
 
Wow Mz1, bravo for all your astounding observations. I barely even know where to begin and am debating whether or not I even should address what you said, because now I do believe you are merely trolling.

I have to go to work now, but I'll get back to your nonsense when I come back.



Also on a different note, I'm glad so many of you seemed to understand what I wrote despite my poor splleing, runningwordstogether, and over all lack of basic writing skills. :)
 
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MZ1, it apears you have a faulty idea of true TMA. We don't pretend and play. We do get hit in the face. Those schools you refer to are not TMA. Heck they aren't really even real martial arts schools, in my opinion. You are painting TMA with a broad brush that isn't accurate for most. Many schools' training includes testing thier training with hard sparring, rolling, and/or both. Have you ever trained at a reputable TMA school?

I think you may be right, but the problem is, and i have it, is that finding a quality tma school is incredibly hard. Especially when you know what you want and which orgs have stupid rules that limit the SD applicability of there art. I think the TMA orgs are to blame for this. By not rigidly and harshly setting and enforcing standards you end up with ALOT of mcdojo schools, and in the case of the ATA an entire organization that is mcdojo.
 
I think you may be right, but the problem is, and i have it, is that finding a quality tma school is incredibly hard. Especially when you know what you want and which orgs have stupid rules that limit the SD applicability of there art. I think the TMA orgs are to blame for this. By not rigidly and harshly setting and enforcing standards you end up with ALOT of mcdojo schools, and in the case of the ATA an entire organization that is mcdojo.

yeah, that is the problem. My sifu teaches in his back yard, doesn't advertise, doesn't even really accept students and you don't get to even meet him unless you've got a contact with someone who can give you an introduction. I trained with another sifu for over 11 years before he finally took me to meet his sifu, who then became my sifu. Without that introduction I never would have gotten in the door. I think a lot of the better sifu sort of work on this kind of theme. It's not a business, they aren't trying to make money. They are trying to teach the real art, and few people have the patience and dedication to follow thru and learn it.

A lot of the training methods do not look like what a "real" martial art "should" look like, to a generation raised on combat sports like MMA. People have a notion, based on their experiences and what they've seen, about what a fighting art should look like, and a lot of TMA incorporate practices that don't fit that description. But if you understand the purpose of those practices, and the approach to training that these TMA take, you realize that it develops long-term skills and longevity in the art. THis is stuff that may take a bit longer to develop, but the ultimate potential is very high and you can keep practicing it at a very high level well into old age. But only if you follow the methods that the system includes. And that means you don't spend years getting your head pounded and your joints smashed in competitions and lots of heavy sparring. That is a good road to a short career with a lot of cumulative injuries building up.

That heavy sparring and stuff does develop skills, and it develops them fairly quickly, I don't deny it. But it's not the only way to do it and if you aren't interested in competition and you have some patience with the process, then there's little reason to do it that way.

But yes, you've got to find the right teacher and that's often not an easy task. They may not live in your area.

where are you, by the way?
 
Flying crane i live in NE indiana, near fort wayne. There is no shortage of TMA here, its just that by the standards i have researched on this site and google that most are junk. Tho its not for me i have found my martial path and enjoy it. When the time is right i may join that tma school that i feel is quality, if only so i can practice with my kids and help them.

My tip is, if your art practices take down defense, dont just pay it lip service, spend time each week practicing it.
 
Flying crane i live in NE indiana, near fort wayne. There is no shortage of TMA here, its just that by the standards i have researched on this site and google that most are junk. Tho its not for me i have found my martial path and enjoy it. When the time is right i may join that tma school that i feel is quality, if only so i can practice with my kids and help them.

My tip is, if your art practices take down defense, dont just pay it lip service, spend time each week practicing it.

Yeah, I don't know anyone in that area that I might recommend. I get your frustration with the situation. Sometimes that's just the way it is. I grew up in a small town in Wisconsin, and I knew I needed to get out of there if I wanted to train quality martial arts. I moved to San Francisco, where many good teachers live. I understand that making a move like that is not possible for everyone, and it would be much more difficult for me to make the move now, than it was right after college.

Get the best instruction that you possibly can. If you discover better instruction, take that instead. There's a tip.
 
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