Compete to win or compete to train?

[jdhowland]

Deadhorse is a place in Alaska at the end of the Dalton Highway.

A dead horse is also something I would like to let lie and not try to resurrect, but that's the risk I'm taking with this thread. I have thought about bringing this up for a couple of years but saw no constructive purpose in any handy thread on training or the "old vs. new" banter. But, ******, I like this forum and I want to talk about it with my peers!

"It" is really just my own curmudgeonly attitude but if I phrase it as a question it might be this: Am I missing something by being uninterested in sporting competitions?

This has nothing to do with MMA vs. TCMA or sets vs. sparring. I get that. I train in TCMA. I train with my friends in sambo and jj. I train in koryu Japanese arts in which competition is unheard of. Competetive fighters who step into a ring to be declared a winner are doing something I don't really understand. I suppose it's good that they do it--it clarifies a lot of misconceptions about fighting. I'm simply not interested.

I've rarely met anyone with a similar high level of ignorance when it comes to sporting competitions. I have never seen baseball or football or basketball or golf. My only real experience with games played with spherical objects is that I've bowled a few times -- don't know anything about scoring, I just like to knock the little white thingies down. I've been at a pool table a few times and I like the physics of it, but I don't know any games. In college I was puttering around a pool table when a kid asked me to play a game. I reluctantly accepted but he had to tell me what to do. When I won he walked away muttering, "I think I just met my first pool shark." I felt insulted. As a spectator, I saw my 5-year-old daughter play Boys & Girls Club soccer a couple of times. I couldn't follow what was going on but that was okay because Mom was there to make the appropriate noises at the right times. My deep psychological trauma must have started when I was six years old and my mother gave my brother and me baseball gloves (or mitts or whatever they're called). She must have thought boys needed them for something but she didn't tell me what it was for. I thought it was cool but was disappointed that it fit only on my left hand. I had never heard of baseball and didn't own a ball so it stayed in my closet until we moved.

Never had p.e. in school. Never had family members who watched sports. Don't hunt or fish because I don't eat those things so I certainly don't want to kill them. Around here, that means I cannot hold a conversation with anyone of the masculine gender. I am embarrased when the grocery checker asks me what I thought of "the game" and I don't know if he means poker or croquet or what.

The sports I love are camping, swimming, canoeing, hiking, pistol shooting, knife throwing and archery. All stuff I can do without measuring success against someone else's performance. I know I'm not the only one with this preference, just the only one I know who loves fighting arts but doesn't care who does what in any commercial competition.

When I was six and my uncle taught me to box, it was great. Boxing seemed free from those mysterious game rules that other kids were apparently born with. All I had to do was hold my hands up and hit my brother or cousin as they were trying to hit me. When I was eight my stepfather, a long time Danzan Ryu guy, taught me jj and something called kung fu. I went nuts.

Some years ago, when the televised MMA thing started, one of my students was enthusing about UFC or whatever it was at the time. Sounded interesting, but I don't watch television, don't have television. I just like to train. Am I missing anything?

[YouKnowWho]

Am I missing something by being uninterested in sporting competitions?
There are a lot of "FUN" in sport competition. There are 3 major reasons that people train MA, those are combat skill, fun, and health. The "fun" is a very important part of our training.

When

- your opponent tries to knock you down but he can't,
- your opponent resists as hard as he can but you still take him down,
- your opponent kicks you and you catch his leg,
- your opponent punches you and you get him into a head lock,
- you make your new sklill work the 1st time,
- you make your old skill work for the nth time,

- ...

you will have a big smill on your face in you sleep for the next 3 days. There are not that many things that can make our life to have "fun". The sport competition will definitelty bring happiness to our life. The day when we die, we will not remember our boring daily job, we may not even remember how we trained our sole form at home. But we definitely will remember the "fun" from our sport competition and then close our eyes with a big smile on our face.

CMA is like the chess game. It will be boring that you have learned that game all your life and never got chance to play with anybody. When your friend come to visit you, your throw him a SC jacket (or boxing glove) and wrestle (or spar) for 15 rounds. Both you and your friend are so tired and sit on the ground laughting, that will be very good and fun life to live.

http://johnswang.com/SC_for_fun.wmv

[SPJ]

competition to learn

there will be a teacher for us, if you place 3 people together.

we may not win all the time

but everyone is a winner, if we enter into some kind of friendly spar

b/c we learn from each other or one another.

----

[bawang]

i live to win
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OvpzForHyU

[jdhowland]

Thanks, YKW. I agree. I do compete in training and if it weren't fun I wouldn't be there. But the dedication is for training and improving myself. I don't see it as a game to determine a winner. If my submission hold works, I'm happy because I was able to prove the skill set. If I pick myself up off the floor wondering wth just happened, I'm excited to learn what made the other guy's technique work so well. That makes me happy, too.

[jdhowland]

SPJ;1051748]competition to learn

Yeah! That's what I'm talking about. It never ends.

jd

[YouKnowWho]

We can lose in sparring because it's just a learning path, but we should try our best to win in competition. When you try your new move on your opponent, you may lost more than you can succeed. But that win-lose ratio will change. When your successful rate is higher than your failure rate, that will be the time you try to use that new move in "competition".

If we think that we are not ready to win then we should not compete. The losing record will discourage our training which is not good to have. I have seen someone trained very hard for his 1st tournament, after he losed in that tournament, he became a "CMA for health" guy for the rest of his life. That's very sad indeed.

[TenTigers]

train to compete.
Train to be in competition shape, skill, stamina. Mentally and physically.
Not that you need to compete, just so you can be at or near that level.

When you think of it, what are the alternatives?

[YouKnowWho]

But the dedication is for training and improving myself.
We can improve ourself in many different ways. We can punch/kick harder, run faster, jump higher, ... or we can improve the successful rate of our favor moves. If we can use our favor move to defeat 20 different opponents, we will know that our skill is better than when we can only use that move to defeat 10. That's also called "self-improvement".


what are the alternatives?
There is no other alternatives. The day that we step on the road of CMA training, there will be no return. Sometime I just don't understand why people suddently quit their trainng after they have devoted all their life into it. It will be very sad that when you are 80 years old, one day a 20 years old knock on your door and beat you up.

If we can always assume that there will be tournament to compete in 3 months, we will always train hard and try to be on our top condition. That's the best motivation for our training. The 3 months short turn goal will work better than 3 years long term goal.

[jdhowland]

We can lose in sparring because it's just a learning path, but we should try our best to win in competition. When you try your new move on your opponent, you may lost more than you can succeed. But that win-lose ratio will change. When your successful rate is higher than your failure rate, that will be the time you try to use that new move in "competition".

If we think that we are not ready to win then we should not compete. The losing record will discourage our training which is not good to have. I have seen someone trained very hard for his 1st tournament, after he losed in that tournament, he became a "CMA for health" guy for the rest of his life. That's very sad indeed.

That's interesting. You seem to be saying that "competition" is somehow of a higher intensity or higher risk than "sparring." May I assume that by "competition" you mean some publicly sanctioned event?

Yeah, I can see that. When you are concerned with a record of wins and losses there is an extra stress. I'm not sure that that kind of experience makes you better prepared for life or death combat, though.

Here's my prejudice: Martial arts are for all out fighting (and, yes, I know that CMA are not really martial but are civilian arts but I use the term loosely) and my teachers emphasized the preference for weapons. Bare handed combat sports are great as adjunct training, but it's not the same as willingness to enter the fray in a life or death struggle. Combat sports are probably the best training available outside of real fighting experience. I just don't care for it as a public event with recognition as the reward. Seems a little shallow to me.

[jdhowland]

train to compete.
Train to be in competition shape, skill, stamina. Mentally and physically.
Not that you need to compete, just so you can be at or near that level.

When you think of it, what are the alternatives?

This is right on. My old friend Quintin Chambers always emphasizes that the martial arts are not about being the best, they are about the willingness to be in harm's way when needed and about being prepared to meet that need at any level of ability. It's not about athletics, but it requires an athlete's level of dedication to be that prepared.

It was these kinds of men who shaped my thinking when I was young and impressionable. It remains with me today. Don't train for some imagined glory. Train for the worst thing that could happen.

Be well.

[YouKnowWho]

When I say "competition", I mean official "tournament" and not just 2 guys spar in the park. I came from a SC background. I have to be a "跤手(Jiao Shou) - wrestler" first. I can not skip that competition stage and automatically become a SC teacher someday. It just won't work for the art of SC.

[SanHeChuan]

I compete to train.

Having someone really trying to knock you out is a whole other experience than "sparring".

Also trying to hurt someone is not a normal experience and anathema to every other training environment.

It's bridging the gap from what you image yourself capable of and what you really do under pressure.

My goal is not to win but to fight well.

[TenTigers]

people who compete-at any level, be it point sparring, continuous sparring, full-contact, forms, ballet-whatever, develop higher skills. To them, it is not simply about being good, they have to be better than good. They are up against the other teams' best and if they want to beat them, then they have to be the best of the best. That is the benefit of competition. It requires you to go the extra mile. When "good enough," isn't good enough.
You can look at a school working out, and you can tell who competes, Lion Dances, demos, etc. They are sharper, more intense than the rank and file.
If it is a fighting gym, then you will definately see the guys who are training for the ring, and the guys who are there for their weekly workout.

[Jimbo]

That's interesting. You seem to be saying that "competition" is somehow of a higher intensity or higher risk than "sparring." May I assume that by "competition" you mean some publicly sanctioned event?

Yeah, I can see that. When you are concerned with a record of wins and losses there is an extra stress. I'm not sure that that kind of experience makes you better prepared for life or death combat, though.

Here's my prejudice: Martial arts are for all out fighting (and, yes, I know that CMA are not really martial but are civilian arts but I use the term loosely) and my teachers emphasized the preference for weapons. Bare handed combat sports are great as adjunct training, but it's not the same as willingness to enter the fray in a life or death struggle. Combat sports are probably the best training available outside of real fighting experience. I just don't care for it as a public event with recognition as the reward. Seems a little shallow to me.

When I used to compete, it helped to motivate me above and beyond the normal training routine. Because even though a competition is a sporting event, a game if you will, there is the risk of injury, just as in training. The difference is that you're competing against people you (most likely) don't know. That makes it different from training with your friends/classmates, because neither will hold back like they usually will with their training partners. It's usually more chaotic, and you'll be more motivated to beat your opponent.

And you're in a different environment, which can create more stress. This is good, because under stress you find out what's really ingrained into you. Because sometimes you find that some things you can pull out in a training environment go out the window when you're actually competing. So you learn from it, go back and correct your flaws, and next time you've improved. It's fun, and gives you a short-term goal to work towards. It's even more fun when you've prepared so well for it, the competition itself ends up being easier than the training.

As far as recognition as a reward, unless you're going to be a top pro fighter like in the UFC or other organization, the only benefit will be your own satisfaction. Nobody else will care or even remember your fighting in a competition but your own self in the long run. It's simply one way to motivate yourself, have some goals, and one way to measure your progress.

On the other hand, if you're happy with your training as it is, that's good, too. Everyone comes into MA for their own reasons, and gets what they want from it. We all reach our goals by different roads.

[bawang]

"凡比较武艺，务要俱照示学习实敌本事，直可对搏打者，
不许仍学习花枪等法，徒支虚架，以图人前美观"

"competition should show fighting ability, only have fighting, dont allow flowery practioners performing fake forms for performance"
- gernal qijiguang

" practice of flowery gimmicks, shakey spears, twirling swords, rolling forks, should be banned"
-formation treatise
1:46 is fork rolling if u dont know what that is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwAMvJmBcR0


kung fu form tournaments make as much sense as a muslim gay parade

[taai gihk yahn]

"凡比较武艺，务要俱照示学习实敌本事，直可对搏打者，
不许仍学习花枪等法，徒支虚架，以图人前美观"

"competition should show fighting ability, only have fighting, dont allow flowery practioners performing fake forms for performance"
- gernal qijiguang

" practice of flowery gimmicks, shakey spears, twirling swords, rolling forks, should be banned"
-formation treatise
1:46 is fork rolling if u dont know what that is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwAMvJmBcR0


kung fu form tournaments make as much sense as a muslim gay parade

obviously a lot of stuff in certain weapon sets is purely for performance; and of course one can argue the "ethics" of this, but obviously if one teaches or performs for a living, it's kinda dull to show the 5 or 6 moves that one would actually use in combat (e.g. - who the heck wants to see those 13 move taiji pole sets? it's like - "I poke you from a couple of different angles and we're done" - good fighting, bad viewing)

the problem is when people think a performance move is combat oriented, and then try to come up with outlandish explanations for it; CTS was, as far as I recall, pretty clear about the difference - if not explicitly, then implicitly, since when he showed apps for weapons, they tended to be limited to the basic stuff that would work - the "fancy" stuff was in the forms, but he kinda just let those go by without addressing them application-wise;

one could argue that doing tiger-fork rolls was a good coordination builder, but it violates the principle of specificity of training; of course, one could also argue that learning to handle a weapon that way could be useful if one lost control of the weapon while fighting and had to quickly get it back (I mean, I hate when that happens to me during tiger fork death matches...), but again, it's an artifact, and not how it would probably happen; but anyway...

[bawang]

im not calling out your teacher im just showing that vid as an example, flowery things fork rolling is pretty obscure but survive from 500 years or more.
the training for tiger fork is pretty simple. the drill in jixiaoxinshu is ``four flat stance, big clinch, kill, small clinch, kill, clinch up, kill, small clinch up, kill. block up, press to kill. then u turn around repeat.

obviously a lot of stuff in certain weapon sets is purely for performance; and of course one can argue the "ethics" of this, but obviously if one teaches or performs for a living, it's kinda dull to show the 5 or 6 moves that one would actually use in combat (e.g. - who the heck wants to see those 13 move taiji pole sets?
if you eliminate need for audience and remove the audience aspect altogether, there wouldnt be need for these tings.

when the generals at the top hierarchy in command of the entire country used to condemn these things, their comments should be taken seriously. there shouldnt be any thoughts of an audience, out of principle. but when even your form you salute to invisible audience in the four corners, you have a problem.

teaching flowery twirling for crowd performance for survival, teaching some forms to rich boys for some quick cash, yes thats ok, but todays globalism and technology means you mislead one guy, you mislead a thousand. because that one guy is gonna spread the bullsh1t u told him all over the world.

plus with all the social cues and constraints removed , anyone can claim to be a master. yesterdays nerds and weird guys suddenly are grandmasters today. the harmless dumb silent guai lo in the back of the room turned out to be a ticking time bomb, waiting for the time to destroy kung fu and making it another cliche fad in american culture.

when the american public mocks GOD, mocks jesus, the source of western civilization and the history of their ancestors, why would you expect anyone to have repsect for your backflips and butterfly kicks and sword twirling from some silly chinamen

[Merryprankster]

Your question is complicated.

Some people compete because they are slaves to their ego. They want to WIN so, in essence, they can show off. A guy recently ran himself off doing that where I train. (One too many party fouls on the mat/and in etiquette)

Some people compete to see where they need to improve, or want to catapult their performance to another level, so it is a training tool, for them.

Some people compete because they are born competitors, and are differentiated from the first set of folks in the sense that it's an essential part of their being. They're not doing it because of the medal or so that other people can tell them they are great.

I'm a born competitor, and I'm personally embarrassed by praise or recognition - especially if I don't feel I earned it or if something seems simple (you don't get "points" in life for doing things you SHOULD do.) I've given away all but 4 medals I've ever earned in competition, and that's because those 4 mean something to me; they represent not the wins, but the years of hard work and 16-24 weeks of specific, boring, painful, exhausting competition prep where I learned to push my mind and my body much much further than I felt like, or ever thought I could. It sounds cliche, but when you feel like you are dying, because your breathing is ragged, your heart is pounding and your muscles won't MOVE, and you say "**** IT," and attack again, and it's for real, and made of DO, not "try...."

Well, there's something to that. You can take pride in that. A personal sense of accomplishment in doing something that requires real effort and all of your resources and capability to accomplish.

Winning - well, yeah you want to win - but it's almost incidental to that.

[taai gihk yahn]

im not calling out your teacher im just showing that vid as an example, flowery things fork rolling is pretty obscure but survive from 500 years or more.
no, I know you aren't, no worries - it was a valid example, I was just putting it into some context to actually support what you were saying


the training for tiger fork is pretty simple. the drill in jixiaoxinshu is ``four flat stance, big clinch, kill, small clinch, kill, clinch up, kill, small clinch up, kill. block up, press to kill. then u turn around repeat.
if you eliminate need for audience and remove the audience aspect altogether, there wouldnt be need for these tings.
exactly - it's a long stick with three sharp points at the end - you stab, stab, stab, maybe tangle up a weapon or get it stuck in something, so you may need o twist it to get it back...


when the generals at the top hierarchy in command of the entire country used to condemn these things, their comments should be taken seriously. there shouldnt be any thoughts of an audience, out of principle. but when even your form you salute to invisible audience in the four corners, you have a problem.
teaching flowery twirling for crowd performance for survival, teaching some forms to rich boys for some quick cash, yes thats ok, but todays globalism and technology means you mislead one guy, you mislead a thousand. because that one guy is gonna spread the bullsh1t u told him all over the world.
plus with all the social cues and constraints removed , anyone can claim to be a master. yesterdays nerds and weird guys suddenly are grandmasters today. the harmless dumb silent guai lo in the back of the room turned out to be a ticking time bomb, waiting for the time to destroy kung fu and making it another cliche fad in american culture.
when the american public mocks GOD, mocks jesus, the source of western civilization and the history of their ancestors, why would you expect anyone to have repsect for your backflips and butterfly kicks and sword twirling from some silly chinamen
silly Chinaman, tricks are for white kids...

[bawang]

exactly - it's a long stick with three sharp points at the end - you stab, stab, stab, maybe tangle up a weapon or get it stuck in something, so you may need o twist it to get it back...

entanglement is the whole point of tiger fork. its for support infantry to tie up the enemy. kill stance doesnt mean you kill. it means you hold him in the kill position then yor squad mates finish. the tigerfork can break even japanese swords easily. japanese turn the edge backwards and fight with the back of the blade when they fight forks.

[jdhowland]

I only twirl my fork for spaghetti.

Lots of good responses here. And maybe I should clarify my position by saying that I totally agree with what has been said about the need for open competition. I will encourage my students to try it if it ever becomes available here. The only other kf school I know of is a Wu Tan group 160 miles away and they don't do competition. There is a sports arena less than a mile from my school that regularly features amateur "championships" (at a pretty low level of skill, I've been told). Might be a good venue for some of us.

I don't know the rules and I'm pretty sure I don't have the specific skills to train others for this kind of competition. My cambo partners don't have strikes. My jj has good groundwork but leaves out the strikes in competition. My kf has it all to varying degrees but because of time constraints we work mostly standing up. The classical Japanese stuff is good for preparing to fight a 16th century Japanese soldier, but that hasn't happened in a while. Overall, we have plenty of knowledge. Three of my students are instructors in other arts. We just don't have the interest in what's going on under some stage lights somewhere else.

Watching any competition bores me and the idea of spectator sports makes me want to scream, "Get off your butts and go do it yourselves! Get some exercise!"

So maybe I just want to clarify my thinking on this. Is the semi-clandestine/anti-sporting attitude I share with my teachers preventing me from learning something valuable? Even though I'll never be a fan of professional fighters, should I watch what they are doing on YouTube? Life is short and I'd rather train.

[jdhowland]

[QUOTE=bawang;
when the american public mocks GOD, mocks jesus, the source of western civilization and the history of their ancestors, why would you expect anyone to have repsect for your backflips and butterfly kicks and sword twirling from some silly chinamen[/QUOTE]

Huh? Not sure I understand this. Are you saying "jesus" is a source of western civilization? Western civilization started in Anatolia 8000 years before Rabbi Yeshua came to town.
It is probably wrong to mock gods, but some are better than others. btw I am very interested in the history of my ancestors who used the word god properly and not as a substitute name for some foreign tribal deity.

I hope the twirly swords and backflips will die out from the public conception of kung fu. But it probably won't anytime soon. We should all go back to the old ways and not call our "styles" anything but Joe Blow's fighting or Rick's Stick headcrunching technique. That way popular media won't shame the name of kung fu. My art is no longer Chinese. It comes from China. But my personal arrogance and stupidity should not make people think poorly of the ancestors.