Fixing the training model

What It Takes to be Number One

If you continue your tournament competition, you will lose some day. You need to know when to start and when to stop - stop when you are still the champion.

 
What It Takes to be Number One

If you continue your tournament competition, you will lose some day. You need to know when to start and when to stop - stop when you are still the champion.
It seems to be a numbers game to you. That is not what being a champion beyond the ring is about at all. Everybody loses in competition at some point. What you do with the defeat is what defines you. It is a petty person who stops competing completely when they are on "top".
 
What It Takes to be Number One

If you continue your tournament competition, you will lose some day. You need to know when to start and when to stop - stop when you are still the champion.
Stop when you’re becoming a shell of your former self. Stopping when you’re still the champ tells me you know there’s someone out there better than you, and all you care about is protecting some record or title rather than fighting. Keep defending that title until it’s taken away or you’re too old or injured to defend it any more.
 
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One of the best quotes ever. I have it on my desk.
I worked at Fordham University as an athletic trainer for several years. Vince Lombardi is an alumni. And his speech was absolutely no where to be found. I thought it should’ve been in every single team’s locker room, but most people looked at me like I had 3 heads every time I brought that up. Wouldn’t Lombardi’s speech in the football locker room at the university he played for be a no brainer? People think it’s politically incorrect. IMO those are the same people who didn’t bother reading past the first paragraph. Morons.

Edit: Come to think of it, there’s a small pamphlet sized one in a trophy case no one ever looks at, and in a corner behind a few trophies. If you noticed it, it was entirely by accident.
 
It seems to be a numbers game to you. That is not what being a champion beyond the ring is about at all. Everybody loses in competition at some point. What you do with the defeat is what defines you. It is a petty person who stops competing completely when they are on "top".
If you have won the national champion in your field for the past 3 years. Do you want to compete the 4th year? the 5th year? Until one day you may lose?

Why?

I can see that 2 years national champion may be better than 1 year national champion, and 3 years national champion may be better than 2 year national champion.

But is 4 years national champion really better than 3 year national champion?
 
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If you have won the national champion in your field for the past 3 years. Do you want to compete the 4th year? the 5th year? Until one day you may lose?

Why?

I can see that 2 years national champion may be better than 1 year national champion, and 3 years national champion may be better than 2 year national champion.

But is 4 years national champion really better than 3 year national champion?

Yes, 4 is better than 3.

And 15 is better than 4.

If you can't see that, you're not truly driven.

Choosing to "quit while you're on top" is worse than losing.

Second place is first loser, but it's still higher than last year's champion who chose not to compete. Even last place in a competition beats everyone who didn't turn up.

Everything is a competition to me, even if I'm the only competitor - I can still compete against myself. I can handle losing, but it doesn't mean I have to like it, and trying but failing is better than not trying because you think you might fail ;)

Omg, I'm turning into a motivational meme.
 
That’s it. You’ve got the idea.

I don't disagree, but you'd need to be more specific to get the results you want.
For example, bouncy tag freestyle karate is a sport. Kata competition is a sport. Xma is a sport. None of them will make you a fighter.

Also you run up against Hoshin's point: narrowing the focus of training narrows the field of students you will get, skewing the results.
 
I don't disagree, but you'd need to be more specific to get the results you want.
For example, bouncy tag freestyle karate is a sport. Kata competition is a sport. Xma is a sport. None of them will make you a fighter.

Also you run up against Hoshin's point: narrowing the focus of training narrows the field of students you will get, skewing the results.
You have it exactly right. I don’t disagree at all. The point is not that every sport makes one a fighter. The point is that competition is application of technique which builds actual skill. So,, a guy who competes in point fighting will be able to do what they train under pressure, It might not be fighting, but it will be real skill. People who don’t compete, or otherwise using the skills in context, are not ever moving out of training, And so, we get people who are experts in martial arts styles who cannot fight. Further, we get entire styles where this is a problem. And it’srelevsnt that these same styles argue that this is because they are somehow harder or take longer by design.
 
You have it exactly right. I don’t disagree at all. The point is not that every sport makes one a fighter. The point is that competition is application of technique which builds actual skill. So,, a guy who competes in point fighting will be able to do what they train under pressure, It might not be fighting, but it will be real skill. People who don’t compete, or otherwise using the skills in context, are not ever moving out of training, And so, we get people who are experts in martial arts styles who cannot fight. Further, we get entire styles where this is a problem. And it’srelevsnt that these same styles argue that this is because they are somehow harder or take longer by design.

They usually are harder and do take much longer to learn than the more streamlined combat sports. But that being true doesn't exclude the failure to train the skill of fighting effectively as a reason for limited numbers of skilled fighters being apparent.

People who are experts in a martial art but can't fight are no different to the point fighting experts in this context. They have mastered some skill set that was the actual goal of their training but that wasn't fighting, such as Kata performance, technique, chi sau, breaking boards, 1 step drills etc.

The issue comes in only if they don't know that they are not learning to fight. Most that I have met were pretty aware of that fact and trained for other reasons.

I think this concept of the deluded traditionalist needs to be examined more closely as I think it's a straw man.
 
I’ve read a few comments here and there suggesting that mma incorporates boxing, wrestling, and similar arts because they’re quicker to learn. While I would point out that it still takes between 8 and 10years to earn a black belt in BJJ, which is a pillar of mma, I would agree that, in general, the average student acquires usable, functional skill much faster. I believe this is because of the way it’s trained.

I propose that If you applied a competitive training model to any style, you would learn it faster. Any style. Budo taijutsu. Wing chun, aikido. What do you think?

I don't think BJJ is the pillar of MMA any longer. It might be Wrestling for the ground. BJJ is def. still there, but the main reason you will always see BJJ in all MMA gyms is because that's what makes the most money for the gym owner. BJJ has an enormous circuit for competitions, so it gives hobbyists, medals to shoot for. You can probably find a BJJ competition event every month. The popularity is just huge compared to the little that there is for TMA.

There are good reasons why MMA fighters don't flock to Wing Chun, Aikido, etc. to train. Their styles are just inferior. There are some techniques that can be used from TMA, mostly for surprises, but they're not bread & butter techniques. Like Jon Jones took up TKD to get in some sneaky kicks and you can see some Capoeira in McGregor's movements....but they ain't taking up TKD & Capoeira, full time and lose millions.....in McGregor's case, it could be $100,000,000+.
 
...or otherwise using the skills in context...

I think this is a crucial point of this conversation. What context are you referring to with your original question?

Are you wondering how quickly someone could learn a style if they focus on competing in that style? or maybe are you wondering if people could learn more quickly if they added competition to their "traditional" training.

If the latter, I think my view of the answer to that question is somewhat answered in Josh Waitzkin's book "The Art of Learning" in his discussions of how he learned Tai Chi from William C.C. Chen. When he first started he was just learning his instructor's Tai Chi form but as he added push hands practice to his training his understanding of the form he was practicing increased and that understanding improved his push hands technique. My own personal experiences learning Wing Chun are consistent with this as well. I picked up the techniques much more quickly because my instructor was constantly 'freestyling" the double sticky hands drill and I had to adapt quickly because I don't like getting hit in the face ;)

Or have I completely misunderstood and the context of your original question is completely different?

In a cross section of 100 martial artists I would say very few would participate if they were punched in the face every class, however that is the expectation when you do MMA. MMA has a very condensed appeal with a bell curve of mostly young fit guys who actually want to fight. Put that group in any martial art and the results will be similar.

Hoshin, I'd like to hear more of your thinking along this line. Are you saying that the athleticism of the MMA participants enables them to learn more quickly? Or maybe their desire to fight that would enable them to learn other arts more quickly?

I don't say these things because I believe in the ‘brute' nature of men or that men must be brutalized to be combative. I believe in God, and I believe in human decency. But I firmly believe that any man's finest hour -- his greatest fulfillment to all he holds dear -- is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious."

- Coach Vincent T. Lombardi

I remember reading this in high school for the first time. I LOVE this last piece of the quote. Thanks for bringing this back onto my radar.
 
Are you saying that the athleticism of the MMA participants enables them to learn more quickly?
The MMA approach is different from the TMA approach. In the

- TMA approach, you follow the path that your style has designed for you. Since you can only have 1 path. If your path is slow, you don't have other option.
- MMA approach, you can find any path to reach to your goal. Since you can have many different paths. Some paths are fast and some paths are slow. Usually MMA guys will pick up the fast path.
 
I don't disagree, but you'd need to be more specific to get the results you want.
For example, bouncy tag freestyle karate is a sport. Kata competition is a sport. Xma is a sport. None of them will make you a fighter.

Also you run up against Hoshin's point: narrowing the focus of training narrows the field of students you will get, skewing the results.

Yeah ok. so we add another layer.

Less restrictive rule set.
or multiple rule sets.

It is concepts that build on concepts.

So lets say our MMA fighter also goes out and does some bouncing or police work.

That adds another element of context again.

These are not conflicting they are complimentary.

The conflict is created by marketing strategy.
The toothpaste factor.
 
If the latter, I think my view of the answer to that question is somewhat answered in Josh Waitzkin's book "The Art of Learning" in his discussions of how he learned Tai Chi from William C.C. Chen. When he first started he was just learning his instructor's Tai Chi form but as he added push hands practice to his training his understanding of the form he was practicing increased and that understanding improved his push hands technique. My own personal experiences learning Wing Chun are consistent with this as well. I picked up the techniques much more quickly because my instructor was constantly 'freestyling" the double sticky hands drill and I had to adapt quickly because I don't like getting hit in the face ;)

Kit dale is an advocate of this.
 
I don't think BJJ is the pillar of MMA any longer. It might be Wrestling for the ground. BJJ is def. still there, but the main reason you will always see BJJ in all MMA gyms is because that's what makes the most money for the gym owner. BJJ has an enormous circuit for competitions, so it gives hobbyists, medals to shoot for. You can probably find a BJJ competition event every month. The popularity is just huge compared to the little that there is for TMA.

There are good reasons why MMA fighters don't flock to Wing Chun, Aikido, etc. to train. Their styles are just inferior. There are some techniques that can be used from TMA, mostly for surprises, but they're not bread & butter techniques. Like Jon Jones took up TKD to get in some sneaky kicks and you can see some Capoeira in McGregor's movements....but they ain't taking up TKD & Capoeira, full time and lose millions.....in McGregor's case, it could be $100,000,000+.
I am sure there are some out there but you don't see BJJ very much east of the Mississippi.
 
I am sure there are some out there but you don't see BJJ very much east of the Mississippi.
Maybe my sense of direction is confused but I'm in Massachusetts and BJJ and it's corresponding competition is all around.
 
I'd like to hear more of your thinking along this line. Are you saying that the athleticism of the MMA participants enables them to learn more quickly? Or maybe their desire to fight that would enable them to learn other arts more quickly?
specifically im not saying either of those. skills are learned at a fixed pace that are determined by the individual. i do not think that any style or MMA is any quicker than any other style BUT some styles, including MMA are more effective at creating good fighters. i do have a problem with using anecdotal evidence like most MMA guys do, saying MMA has good fighters ....therefore MMA is superior to other styles in creating good fighters because of competition.
the US Navy Seals are an elite group within the military, why??? using the MMA logic, one would answer that Seals are elite because of superior training but this is not true. the Seals are elite because of their selection process. the price to pay for admission is greater than all other branches (exception Green Beret). in the same way MMA as a full contact sport has a higher price of admission. not many people are willing to except injuries and pain as a normal everyday cost of training. those that are willing are a small group of people within martial arts. if karate had a higher price to pay for training (which it used to have) then the results would be the same as MMA. you wouldnt see a 45 yo mother of 4 doing karate to get back into shape to wear her bikini for the summer. styles like karate have lowered the "cost" as a business model to be "inclusive" for everyone not just the amped up 25 yo who wants to take his hormone testosterone anger out in the ring. karate schools actually frown upon that 25 yo guy punching the 45 yo mom in the face. in an MMA school the mom realizes very quick this is not the place for her and she washes out with all the other people who knew better to not sign up in the first place.
 
If my "door guarding" moves don't work on you, I will retire myself right at that moment. During the old China time, if I announce to the public that I start to smoke opium, nobody will be allowed to challenge me any more (It won't prove you anything if you defeat me, an opium smoker).

If I can't win, I may have chance to lose. If I don't want to lose, I'll need to start to smoke opium and retire.

smoke_opium.jpg

Smoke opium and retire....I have no experience, but I think I could get into that.
Might have to get a big tv, though.
 
Maybe my sense of direction is confused but I'm in Massachusetts and BJJ and it's corresponding competition is all around.

I'm with you, bro. Heck I was studying Gracie Ju-jitsu in Massachusetts in 1991 when nobody had ever heard of it.
 
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