Question for Competitors!

[Laughing Cow]

Hi All.

This is an honest question for MA competitors.

Normally I guess you guys prepare for a fight well in advance and got a training schedule to get you mentally and physically ready for a fight.
You prepare for a certain opponent, adjust your game to meet his skill and abilities.

How do you think that this impacts your ability to deal with a random encounter that might happen?

Both positive and negative impact points if possible.

Cheers.

[Merryprankster]

You don't always know who your opponent will be. Quite frankly, most of the time, you know nothing about him unless he's a name and you can scrounge up some tapes.

So you train. You get in shape. You work on your deficiencies, then you solidify your strengths.

I can't see how being in great shape and having great ingrained responses could hurt you.

[SevenStar]

MP has caught a case of the correct.

[SevenStar]

And in the case of grappling competitions, there will be multiple opponents, and you won't have the slightest idea who will be there until you get there. Just train hard and smart.

[Knifefighter]

...sometimes training for a competition can make you less able to deal with an attack from that "random stranger". God help me if someone wants to take me down after I have just finished a brutal two and a half hour workout that was my 4th training session that day.

On the other hand... God help that same random stranger if he makes the mistake of coming after the combat sport athlete who is in his tapering phase of competition preparation.

[Serpent]

LOL. Good point!

We've always said that the best time for someone to attack our school would be right after the last class when the best students are exhausted after hours of training!

[Serpent]

Mind you, that's what adrenalin is for! ;)

[Brad Souders]

Train how u fight, fight how u train

In our school saying your sorry by accidently hitting someone is ten times worse then the hit itself. If u train your body to react in certain ways it will act that way. It's called muscle memory. Whats the old saying? Like riding a bike.

Studies show that due to the nature of how police officers train their weapon disarms for time by taking the weapon from the partner then handing it back has resulted in the officers doing the same act in real life on the field. Unfrotunally my friends learn from others mistakes.

Brad Souders

[DragonzRage]

Well first of all, I don't see how you can completely base your game on whoever it is you're going to face in your next match. It just doesn't work that way. Each fighter builds his own game based on what he's most comfortable using and what his ring experience has taught him. And at least in my opinion, if you let your opponent determine how you fight, you're basically giving up the initiative from the get-go. You want to force your game on him instead of letting him force his on you. Of course it would help to keep in mind what your opponent's strengths are. If for example you know he has a much longer reach than you, you should do a good amount of sparring with tall partners. Or if you know he's a good boxer, you should make sure you're working with good boxers. But no matter what your opponent's characteristics are, your own best weapons and strategies should show through each time. For example, in my case I have a fast roundhouse, I'm best at southpaw, and I'm much better throwing offensive punch/kick combos than I am at defensive counterpunching. These are the attributes of my game, and they will come out no matter who I face.

Secondly, unless you are a reasonably high level fighter, the chances of you knowing exactly how your opponent's game will be are quite unlikely. For the amateur fights I've done, I had basically no clue as to what to expect from my opponents.

Thirdly, competitive fighting is the best thing that will ever help your ability to use your skills in a "random" situation. There is no kind of training that can match the random uncontrolled fury of a streetfight closer than full contact competition. Its not like a training or sparring session where you can constantly strategize and experiment with different things. You're genuinely scared. You have that nervous feeling in the pit of your stomach. You're standing across the ring from a guy you don't know at all who looks strong and intent on killing you. Then he's on you so before you know it and punches are bouncing off your head and you struggle to keep your equilibrium and fight back. Adrenaline starts pumping hard. Everything outside of that ring gets drowned out of your consciousness. You don't even hear your friends who are sitting right in the front row screaming encouragement or trying to tell you to do this or that. That is when your training truly takes over. How much skill you really have ingrained is revealed. You find out how long you can really bang and pound before you simply become exhausted. My point is that its basically a real fight. You can't tell how you'll really perform under genuine pressure until you've experienced this.

The one main con that competition can have against your ability to deal with a random street situation is if you let yourself get too used to fighting within one particular set of rules. If you get too confident fighting under muay thai rules, for example, you might end up caught with your pants down in a real fight if someone simply tackles you, gets on top of you and starts pounding you from dominant position. But then that's why they invented crosstraining. No matter how you train, doing any form of martial arts is essentially like playing a specific game. But fighting is not a game. Its random. The question of how well your martial arts works in real fighting is simply a matter of how well the skills you develop in your particular game apply to a random situation. And the way i see it, the experience you get in competition apply a lot to "real" fighting.

[Laughing Cow]

Thanks, for all the replies so far.

No chance of me getting into competitions unless it is forms or push hands.

This ol' body of mine got too many injuries, plus, I doubt if they would even let me enter any ring.

Cheers.

[Merryprankster]

I doubt if they would even let me enter any ring.

Why?

[Laughing Cow]

Originally posted by Merryprankster


Why?

36yr old, busted knee and dislocated disc in lower back.

:D

[Merryprankster]

Eh. Many fighters have equally bad problems. I am sorry to hear you're broken, though.

[Laughing Cow]

MP.

Earned them honourably, but tarmac beats flesh and bones every time. ;)

I know that I could compete if I really wanted, but I feel it is bit late in life to get ready for the ring.

Plus, I think my wife's lawyer would like to discuss a divorce with me if I did.
:D

Got respect for everybody that steps into the ring, just not my game.

[Ray Pina]

I tend not to do anything different before a fight. I go to class, train with my master and play with a few martial art friends I have locally. My attitude is that if you don't have "it" you're not going to get "it" in a month or two. I compete, but my training is geared toward a steady progress. I consider myself a martial artist, not a competitor.

With that said, I learned my breath is terrible at a March fight in Philly. AFter my second bought I was terribly winded and could have used some cardio. With it being summer I'm surfing all the time now and biking and have dropped about 10 lbs already and have noticed an improvement.

I tend to do my thing and if there's a tournament I'm interested in, I feel the need to test something new that I have learned, I join and see how I do. No matter what happens you leave with a few lumps, exhausted, but with an energy pulsing through you and a sense that you accomplished something.