Is Cross training detremental to your Life?

[Yoshiyahu]

I was woundering. This is day of Cross training and Mixing alot of different arts all day every day.

Here is an article from a Wing Chun Site I thought was interesting...Tell me what you think?


Here is one Qoute from: http://www.springtimesong.com/wctechnote4.htm

Split second mistakes will get you beat.
When you confuse ideas or use conflicting principles in your fighting, you will lose to people who are good. If you hesitate because you don't know whether to back up, or to advance, or to turn you will lose to an opponent who has no hesitation in what they do. If you train in the methods of art A on Monday, art B on Tuesday and art C on Wednesday, then in the real fight which art will you use. At the slow speed, you have the option to use any art. At a high speed any hesitation could end your life. Many Jeet Kune Do people feel that the more arts they mix together the better. Wing Chun people disagree with this concept. If you are really serious about self defense and combat, you have to make up your mind what you really want to train! If you are just having fun and playing around then it doesn't matter what you

​

Wang Kiu said:

The good thing about Bruce Lee was that he made up his mind to hit. All his intent was to get the fist through even if there was a mountain between him and his opponent. Yip Man did not like Bruce Lee shooting his mouth off. Wing Chun used to take a low profile. Wong Shun Leung and Bruce Lee did not take a low profile. Bruce started to teach the Cha Cha in the USA because he was the Hong Kong Cha Cha champion. No one was interested in the Cha Cha. Then Bruce switched to teaching Wing Chun. Then Wing Chun people said, "what qualifies you to teach Wing Chun? You don't know the third set, the dummy etc." Then Bruce did a lot of research to change the style and called it Jeet Kune Do.

Wang Kiu Said:​

In all my years of experience, even today, I have not found one reason why anything in Wing Chun needs to be changed. Wing Chun is a very perfect art. If you feel the need to change then still keep the classical art the same. Just tell the student why you feel you need to change. But don't change the original or all will eventually get lost.

 

[geezer]

I was woundering. This is day of Cross training and Mixing alot of different arts all day every day.

"Here is an article from a Wing Chun Site I thought was interesting...Tell me what you think?"

Cross training can be very helpful in making you more aware of the opponent you are likely to face. As Sun Tzu said, "Know your opponent and know yourself and you will be victorious in 1000 battles."

That said, I must agree with what I see as the gist of the first quote. Collecting a poorly integrated grab bag of complicated techniques from a dozen different systems is a poor substitute for mastery of simple and effective technique. You know, a little idea, well understood and applied. That's what we're all about.

 

[Yoshiyahu]

Okay...So your saying just randomly pulling techniques from other styles before you have mastered one system is usesless? Also would you say it would be better to for someone to practice only their style but to regularly spar with ten high level Fighters all from different styles. Or would it be more beneficial for that person to spar with no one and just learn two or three styles?

Which would make the person a more well rounded fighter?

Check this out?
Patrick Chow Said:

When I asked Patrick if it is good to practice a few different styles at once, Patrick said if you practice one day with the elbow out and the next with the elbow in, what will you use in the real fight when you have no time to think? You will lose the fight because your mind will hesitate. You use what you practice, so you have to make up your mind what you want to practice.

I was woundering. This is day of Cross training and Mixing alot of different arts all day every day.

"Here is an article from a Wing Chun Site I thought was interesting...Tell me what you think?"

Cross training can be very helpful in making you more aware of the opponent you are likely to face. As Sun Tzu said, "Know your opponent and know yourself and you will be victorious in 1000 battles."

That said, I must agree with what I see as the gist of the first quote. Collecting a poorly integrated grab bag of complicated techniques from a dozen different systems is a poor substitute for mastery of simple and effective technique. You know, a little idea, well understood and applied. That's what we're all about.

 

[Sukerkin]

I would say that in the long run it is better to be fully competent in your art and be ready to adapt what you have as the circumstances are presented to you.

Training is all about ironing out the "What if's .." in terms of principles rather than having a prepared kata for a thousand different circumstances. Skill in your art (and luck) is what allows you to survive a conflict, not being cross-trained in half a dozen different arts.

For myself, I proved this to my satisfaction when I used to spar with a chap who was mid-graded in seven different arts. When I was low grade, he could beat me handily simply by using a technique I'd never seen before. When I was black sash (kung fu), the reverse was true as, no matter what he pulled out of his mutli-kata grab-bag, I simply applied base principles in response and was never lost for a defence or a counter.

 

[Hand Sword]

I would say that it is not detremental. In fact, it might be something that saves your life. Being stuck within a system might be a problem. Even in real life, technicians go extinct in the long run. It is those that can adapt that continue on. Training one extreme or the other (a grappler training striking, a striker-grappling) in your own style is ok and maybe be useful most of the time. But, if it is your life on the line and the other is an expert or very skilled in one of those areas, no one in your particular style can duplicate the skill and technical level of those people. Besides, even though you are cross training and add tech's, your still doing so from the view point and use of your style.

 

[Yoshiyahu]

At what point does the two styles become some merged that your no longer looking through the point of view of one style any more but you see them both equally as one style together?


When they become so merged that you no longer see the differences just the similarities. What then?


Do you think its possible to see training three or more styles as being detremental and causing you to loose your life?

For instance the movie the "The Five Deadly Venoms" There was a guy who learn all of their styles but he was not as strong as they were because he didn't specialize in one particular style. So on his own he couldn't fight one of them an win even though he had learn all their forms and drills? His master taught him all their Gung Fu. But they had only trained in one thing for longer period of time so their fighting in that one style was supeior to his combined style.


If the Snake or Centepede had caught up with him before he met the Lizard he would have died for sure.

When you confuse ideas or use conflicting principles in your fighting, you will lose to people who are good. If you hesitate because you don't know whether to back up, or to advance, or to turn you will lose to an opponent who has no hesitation in what they do. If you train in the methods of art A on Monday, art B on Tuesday and art C on Wednesday, then in the real fight which art will you use. At the slow speed, you have the option to use any art. At a high speed any hesitation could end your life. Many Jeet Kune Do people feel that the more arts they mix together the better. Wing Chun people disagree with this concept. If you are really serious about self defense and combat, you have to make up your mind what you really want to train! If you are just having fun and playing around then it doesn't matter what you train.

I would say that it is not detremental. In fact, it might be something that saves your life. Being stuck within a system might be a problem. Even in real life, technicians go extinct in the long run. It is those that can adapt that continue on. Training one extreme or the other (a grappler training striking, a striker-grappling) in your own style is ok and maybe be useful most of the time. But, if it is your life on the line and the other is an expert or very skilled in one of those areas, no one in your particular style can duplicate the skill and technical level of those people. Besides, even though you are cross training and add tech's, your still doing so from the view point and use of your style.

 

[Hand Sword]

When a system becomes yours. (As it eventually happens to all) Then, you can flow easily from one range to another as it's all adapted to your specifics.

 

[jarrod]

styles are somewhat artifical boundries set on a collection of techniques. fighting is fighting, & effective principles are universal. all styles have the same basic principles; primarily it is just the terminology & emphasis that changes.

a martial artist should be encouraged to develop their own personal style to some extent. once they do that, any art can be theirs with proper training. i'll use myself as an example:

when i box, i like to bore in; i use direct footwork coupled with circular blocks & head movement to get infront of my opponent, uproot him, then hit him.

when i do judo, i use footwork & gripping to get inside my opponent, uproot him, & throw him.

when i do jujitsu, i use circular motions with my hands & legs to get close to my opponent, then isolate a limb & attack it. isolating a limb is the same as uprooting for all intents in purposes, you're just uprooting an arm or a leg instead of a whole body.

so that's my personal style. i like to get close & destroy balance. whatever attack i do once i get there is subjective. bruce lee once said a punch is just a punch, a kick is just a kick. i think if you have a good understanding of cross training, then an attack is just an attack, a defense is just a defense.

jf

 

[Hand Sword]

Eaxactly! Well said jarrod. Everyone practices a style and tries to copy the teacher. With comfort, it eventually becomes your way of doing it, maybe with slight variations, but it still is "that style" just with a twist. In the end, from enough practice you will gain some adeptness at using your tech's and being effective with them, as countless have all ready-hence the many styles that have emerged and keep doing so.

 

[Yoshiyahu]

Excellent Post Jarrod and Hand Sword. I enjoy how you show to posistive aspects to crosstraining. But we must realize all things have pro's and con's. You did a great job of sharing the Pro's. Now let me ask you what would be draw backs, weaknesses and hindering effects of cross training?

Please share the down side to cross training. What do you think would be the down side of cross training in contrast to all the wounderful posistives you share. I am saying negate all the great pro's but please share some of the con's you see as well?

 

[jarrod]

Excellent Post Jarrod and Hand Sword. I enjoy how you show to posistive aspects to crosstraining. But we must realize all things have pro's and con's. You did a great job of sharing the Pro's. Now let me ask you what would be draw backs, weaknesses and hindering effects of cross training?

Please share the down side to cross training. What do you think would be the down side of cross training in contrast to all the wounderful posistives you share. I am saying negate all the great pro's but please share some of the con's you see as well?

i think that it is important to have a base art. often the reason people have difficulties with crosstraining is because they are thinking of the different arts as truly different, rather than individual expressions of the same idea. you can't see the similarities in principles if you don't even understand the principles of the art you're coming from. now i don't think that means you can't study two arts at once as a beginner, but one of them should get most of your attention.

so with that qualifier in mind, i can't really think of a negative. you could say that, hypothetically, training a 2nd or 3rd art takes time away from your primary art. but personally speaking, i am prone to burn out so this hasn't been the case for me. right now i train 5-6 times a week in different arts. you could say that i could spend all that time training jujitsu instead of boxing & judo as well. but i wouldn't do jujitsu 5-6 times a week for very long. i'd get bored, & drop down to a couple times a week. cross training get's me doing more, & so far i haven't suffered any confusion. i'm also very fortunate to have extremely open-minded coaches who share my interest in exploring the similarities between fighting arts.

jf

 

[Hand Sword]

Beat me to it!

 

[jarrod]

the advantage of working a night shift with little actual work to do.

 

[dungeonworks]

At what point does the two styles become some merged that your no longer looking through the point of view of one style any more but you see them both equally as one style together?


When they become so merged that you no longer see the differences just the similarities. What then?


Do you think its possible to see training three or more styles as being detremental and causing you to loose your life?

For instance the movie the "The Five Deadly Venoms" There was a guy who learn all of their styles but he was not as strong as they were because he didn't specialize in one particular style. So on his own he couldn't fight one of them an win even though he had learn all their forms and drills? His master taught him all their Gung Fu. But they had only trained in one thing for longer period of time so their fighting in that one style was supeior to his combined style.


If the Snake or Centepede had caught up with him before he met the Lizard he would have died for sure.

Are you basing this train of thought off of a movie???

Even high ranking people in (insert any art here) can lose to untrained fighters. There are people that maybe grew up in bad areas and "learned on the fly" or were picked on and had to fight a lot in their youth and had to back themselves up. Then you have people with naturally athletic attributes and are naturally quicker and tougher. We used to box and wrestle in friends basements or yards all the time. There were many things I picked up from just doing that and as a result had positive effects for me in actual fights...especially in getting off of the ground. Cross training would be no different in this aspect because you are going to react wether you are a master in one or master in none. There are "masters" out there that never even been in a street fight, let alone sparred with contact.

 

[dungeonworks]

I do see your point Yoshiyahu. Some people can and do make one art work in all aspects and ideally, a perfect base would be the way to go before cross training. The problem is that if you are limited solely to one way of fighting against another "one way" of fighting, one would be limiting itself from the other. Karate and TKD for example are technique based arts where as Wing Chun (as I understand it at this point) is principle based, therefore making it more adaptable.

Hopefully I wrote this to convey my point clearly and not with a condescending tone. I can only write from what I have learned...and I am still learning.

 

[MJS]

Sigh....against my better judgement, I decided to throw myself into this deadhorse debate once again. I will start by saying, I highly doubt anything new will come about this. I mean, look at those huge threads in this section on the same subject. The people involved will most likely not change their way of thinking.

That being said...its simple...if you want to crosstrain, do it. If you don't, then don't. Its that simple. I would suggest not crosstraining until you have a solid base art first. In other words, wait until you're in the advanced/black belt ranks. So that should put you in your base art somewhere around 5-6 yrs. If you can't understand the base system by that time, may as well hang up your belt. It should not take 30yrs.

As for being confused on what techs. to use...I don't see that happening. Heres why. When I train a punch tech., I'll usually do it the standard way the first couple of times. I then have my partner begin to resist. Resisting can come in the form of throwing other strikes, moving while I'm attempting to strike, trying to counter what I'm doing, changing from a striking attack to a grappling attack. So, this is training me to adapt and be able to flow to something else. If I'm trying to do something and its not working, I need to do something else. If he grabs me, working a punch defense is fruitless, so I need to change to a Kenpo defense against whatever grab he's doing on me.

This is the goal...to be able to adapt and flow from one thing to the next. I get the impression that some are either not working on that, or are not at that point in their training yet, because its not as difficult as some of you are making it seem. Just yesterday in a private lesson with my Kenpo teacher, we were running thru some techs. about half speed. We did each one 2 times, the first, letting me do the tech. as written, the second, with him blocking my counters. So, it forced me to simply alter where I would strike him. If the strike was towards the head and he blocked or moved me in a way that would not allow that to happen, I simply picked another target to hit with that same strike or if that strike was not the right one for that target, I simply changed the strike to something else.

So, yes, this can be done with other arts as well. However, no sense in repeating myself, as its already been said in the other threads.

 

[MJS]

Okay...So your saying just randomly pulling techniques from other styles before you have mastered one system is usesless?

Let me say this. If I can improve my kicking my taking a stretching method from TKD, I'm going to do it. If I can better a jab/cross combo by working with a boxer on just that move, I'll do it. I'll take just that ONE combo, and drill the hell out of it. Thats it, thats the only thing I'd take. Drill over and over and over, every day, hitting the bag, hitting the focus mitts.

I train in BJJ. However, my goal is not to get rank. My goal is to get good at the basics. I'm not interested in learning 40 mount escapes, 40 guard passes, or 40 side mount escapes. Instead I have my favs. that I drill over and over and over. So, when I find myself in the mount, I have my fav. techs. the ones I've worked hundreds of times, to rely on. Its not different than a punch tech. I have a huge number of straight punch defenses, however, I have my fav. ones, the ones that I put more attention on, the ones I feel most comfortable using.

 

[MJS]

Are you basing this train of thought off of a movie???

Looks like it to me.

Even high ranking people in (insert any art here) can lose to untrained fighters. There are people that maybe grew up in bad areas and "learned on the fly" or were picked on and had to fight a lot in their youth and had to back themselves up. Then you have people with naturally athletic attributes and are naturally quicker and tougher. We used to box and wrestle in friends basements or yards all the time. There were many things I picked up from just doing that and as a result had positive effects for me in actual fights...especially in getting off of the ground. Cross training would be no different in this aspect because you are going to react wether you are a master in one or master in none. There are "masters" out there that never even been in a street fight, let alone sparred with contact.

Enough said. Can't add anything more to the above! Good post!

 

[Steve]

I would say that it depends entirely upon four things: the person, the styles involved, HOW the person is training and the desired outcome.

Once again, and I know I sound like a broken record, my belief is that it's not often the techniques involved, but how they're trained that makes the difference. If the techniques are poorly integrated, it would have more to do with how the person trains than what they're training. Poorly integrated technique occurs all the time even in one style as a result of poor training. Crosstraining has little to do with it.

The intent seems to be to conclude that it's either bad or good to crosstrain, or that one should only crosstrain if the moons are in alignment or the timing is otherwise right. I disagree with any hard and fast conclusion. It all depends on the person, the styles involved, the desired outcome and how the person trains.

 

[JadecloudAlchemist]

I cross train. I was told this by a master in Japan:

"Master body movement and you can master any art"

I see more in common in the different arts than I see difference.

If you can cook one great dish people will remember it
If you can cook several good dishes people will be full.
In the end both accomplish the same thing joy.

This metaphor shows those who want to practice one art
and those who cross train accomplishing the same goal of being a competent fighter.

As humans we are always thinking we are always trying to evolve it is within our nature to be curious,adaptive,and process things to insure our survival.