Ok my issue with thinking that specificity allways means most appropriate

[Dirty Dog]

well it sort of does, I'm not sure you can say they have weaker legs, they certainly tend to have fast legs, though not in kicking as they don't tend to train that.

Fast legs are not the same as strong legs, in the same way that strong legs are not the same as fast legs. Boxers, but the very nature of their sport, are going to have a tendency to train their legs to be fast. Not to be strong. Because fast footwork is an important part of their sport.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

well in that case any ma training that doesn't deliver fitness at the level of a competative boxer is therefore deficient. Which is close to my original point

Agreed (for the individual), and we all have to decide what level of training we are willing to commit to. I will never train at the level of a professional boxer. That’s a deficiency I accept in my training to allow room for other things in my life. Note that I don’t argue the school must provide all of the training - neither fitness nor technical.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

hat sounds like a step forward, but how fit exactly, and how fit do they need to be to be quietly confident they can fight of an attacker

That depends upon the individual.

 

[JowGaWolf]

hat sounds like a step forward, but how fit exactly, and how fit do they need to be to be quietly confident they can fight of an attacker

That will vary for each person and each attacker. There no set level that defines "I'm fit enough" I do how ever place a time limit for a struggle based on an average person's cardio. Here's my thinking. 3 minutes worth off struggle wears the attacker down as well. So with that in mind the question for me becomes, "How long do I need to be able to struggle without gassing out?"

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

Hence the concept of specific being better isn't valid there either.

I mean it should work both ways.

I'm not following what you're suggesting. It was a self-defense specific school, where they tested the techniques in a competitive format.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I will never train at the level of a professional boxer.

I'm not even sure that would be something I would even be interested in unless I was going to compete professionally. I know within 10-15 years this may not even be a possibility for me even if I want to train like that. The good news is that the majority of the people on this planet don't train at the level of professional athletes, so I'm not likely to get into a fight with someone in that level of condition. Even if I were to be in conflict with one, I wouldn't try to fight someone that seems to be in better condition to fight unless there was no other choice.

If I had an argument with a young Mike Tyson or Roy Jones Jr, then I would know from the beginning of the argument that I'm not fighting either one of them. They could punk me all they want because a fight wouldn't be in my best interest. Now if they attacked me then I would have to defend myself to the best of my ability, but I know it's going to be one of those fights that you physically lose, but respectfully win because you didn't back down. It would still be a beating for me. But the world isn't made of professional fighters and the chances of me fighting someone who isn't in good shape for fighting is higher than me fighting a professional fighter.

 

[drop bear]

I'm not following what you're suggesting. It was a self-defense specific school, where they tested the techniques in a competitive format.

OK. If they are good at kick boxing and not a kick boxing specific school. Then you don't have to do a specific kick boxing school to get good at kick boxing.

You then look at the results rather than what the school was specifically designed for

 

[drop bear]

I'm not even sure that would be something I would even be interested in unless I was going to compete professionally. I know within 10-15 years this may not even be a possibility for me even if I want to train like that. The good news is that the majority of the people on this planet don't train at the level of professional athletes, so I'm not likely to get into a fight with someone in that level of condition. Even if I were to be in conflict with one, I wouldn't try to fight someone that seems to be in better condition to fight unless there was no other choice.

If I had an argument with a young Mike Tyson or Roy Jones Jr, then I would know from the beginning of the argument that I'm not fighting either one of them. They could punk me all they want because a fight wouldn't be in my best interest. Now if they attacked me then I would have to defend myself to the best of my ability, but I know it's going to be one of those fights that you physically lose, but respectfully win because you didn't back down. It would still be a beating for me. But the world isn't made of professional fighters and the chances of me fighting someone who isn't in good shape for fighting is higher than me fighting a professional fighter.

So the world is filled with mike Tyson's and Steve urkles. And nothing in between?

I mean the idea here isn't complicated. If you train harder you should hopefully get better.

Which is why professional boxers train like they train.

 

[drop bear]

That's because the people who "designed" or named the machete weren't actually making a real weapon but, instead were marketing to people who don't know better and are hooked by a catchy name.

Yep. But that is not uncommon in martial arts.

There is a rage of usefulness to marketing. And not necessarily determined by the level of expert either.

 

[drop bear]

Apologies if someone said this already, but surely bad training is bad training. Or are you arguing that sport based training is automatically good?

Evidence based training is good generally.

The martial arts designed for astronaut cowboys is not evidence.

 

[JowGaWolf]

So the world is filled with mike Tyson's and Steve urkles. And nothing in between?

ha ha ha.. yep basically. You know what I mean. There are people who train like professional fighters and then there are people who don't train like professional fighters. The gap is really big, so if you don't have to fight someone who trains like a professional fighter then it's a good day. At least at that point you have a realistic chance.

I agree with the other comments. If you train harder then you'll get better, so long as the person isn't over training.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

OK. If they are good at kick boxing and not a kick boxing specific school. Then you don't have to do a specific kick boxing school to get good at kick boxing.

You then look at the results rather than what the school was specifically designed for

I'm still not following. To clarify: they were kick boxers. They trained in kickboxing (specificity for that format), along with SD. They taught SD. They knew the techniques that they taught worked because of the overlap in techniques, and they worked in kickboxing, but taught SD with the SD mindset, and we would train the SD techniques in live sparring (likely a result of their kickboxing background). To me they blended what they knew worked with their specific knowledge of SD.

 

[drop bear]

I'm still not following. To clarify: they were kick boxers. They trained in kickboxing (specificity for that format), along with SD. They taught SD. They knew the techniques that they taught worked because of the overlap in techniques, and they worked in kickboxing, but taught SD with the SD mindset, and we would train the SD techniques in live sparring (likely a result of their kickboxing background). To me they blended what they knew worked with their specific knowledge of SD.

So you were a kick boxing school?

 

[Gerry Seymour]

So you were a kick boxing school?

I think that's a fair enough categorization for the sake of the current discussion (though it sounds like the SD training went beyond just the kickboxing, but I may have misread that). It'd be like someone teaching boxing with a SD focus, rather than a ring focus.

 

[jobo]

That will vary for each person and each attacker. There no set level that defines "I'm fit enough" I do how ever place a time limit for a struggle based on an average person's cardio. Here's my thinking. 3 minutes worth off struggle wears the attacker down as well. So with that in mind the question for me becomes, "How long do I need to be able to struggle without gassing out?"

in that case when they call it "fit to fight" they are misrepresenting it some what, maybe fit to fight if your attacker is in marginally worse condition than you are would be more accyrate

 

[Dirty Dog]

in that case when they call it "fit to fight" they are misrepresenting it some what, maybe fit to fight if your attacker is in marginally worse condition than you are would be more accyrate

That would, then, hold true for every single fight. Including professional fights.
Of course, fitness level is only one of a huge number of factors determining the outcome of a fight.
And unless you do nothing but train, you'll never be as fit as you could be.
The problem for most of the world is that pesky things like earning a living get in the way of training full time.

 

[drop bear]

I think that's a fair enough categorization for the sake of the current discussion (though it sounds like the SD training went beyond just the kickboxing, but I may have misread that). It'd be like someone teaching boxing with a SD focus, rather than a ring focus.

Kempo.

Which is my point here.

 

[JR 137]

You are teaching them the techniques they would use. Experience and muscle memory are much more important than physical condition.

This reminded me of a news story I read from Poland, I think it was...

A 20 something guy tried to snatch an almost 90 year old lady’s purse. “Granny” (as they referred to her) grabbed the guy by the family jewels and squeezed, yanked, and twisted as hard as she could. The guy screamed in pain and was easily wrestled to the ground by a passerby until police arrested him.

Sometimes, instinct and skill trump strength. I highly doubt “granny” was in anywhere near fighting shape. Maybe she was, but I’m going to bet on the rule of averages here.

 

[JR 137]

I'm not even sure that would be something I would even be interested in unless I was going to compete professionally. I know within 10-15 years this may not even be a possibility for me even if I want to train like that. The good news is that the majority of the people on this planet don't train at the level of professional athletes, so I'm not likely to get into a fight with someone in that level of condition. Even if I were to be in conflict with one, I wouldn't try to fight someone that seems to be in better condition to fight unless there was no other choice.

If I had an argument with a young Mike Tyson or Roy Jones Jr, then I would know from the beginning of the argument that I'm not fighting either one of them. They could punk me all they want because a fight wouldn't be in my best interest. Now if they attacked me then I would have to defend myself to the best of my ability, but I know it's going to be one of those fights that you physically lose, but respectfully win because you didn't back down. It would still be a beating for me. But the world isn't made of professional fighters and the chances of me fighting someone who isn't in good shape for fighting is higher than me fighting a professional fighter.

If I had to fight either of those guys (or similar), conditioning wouldn’t enter the equation in any way, shape, nor form. I’d be unconscious well before either one of us was gassed.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

So you were a kick boxing school?

I think that's a fair enough categorization for the sake of the current discussion (though it sounds like the SD training went beyond just the kickboxing, but I may have misread that). It'd be like someone teaching boxing with a SD focus, rather than a ring focus.

Sort of. Sort of not. It was a kempo school, where kempo was taught. The entire SK curriculum was taught, and was the focus (which is a primarily SD system). However, training-wise, we would have 'sparring' training days where we learned things outside the system. Exercise regimens came from their kickboxing training, and we would do kickboxing-type sparring about 75% of the time when we sparred. Exceptions were when we would do specific/situational sparring, which included multiple attackers, trying to escape a situation, sparring until we get a weapon, sparring from the ground to get to our feet (grappling itself was not a focus), etc. IMO those sparrings were realistic; we wouldn't always magically escape, i'd get 'cut' with the persons knives more times than I escaped, etc.

To clarify breakdown, at the end of every class, there was about 30 minutes of sparring, and once a week we would do the situational sparring. To me it was a nice balance of specificity training, staying true to our roots, but also practicing in a way that we could tell if what we were learning worked or not.