So what areas of your training do you enjoy and what do you not like doing?
For myself when I was heavily into TCMA I enjoyed the iron body, hand conditioning and power generation work and general conditioning stuff, I also liked the sticky hands work and the sparring. Believe it or not I also really liked application work and chin na and doing my sets.
I also loved doing the lion and unicorn dance and working various weapons.
What I didn’t like was the fact that as I advanced further and further into the senior ranks my fellow students were less and less inclined to spar or do any real contact work, and preferred to perfect their sets and weapons work and would rather hit telephone books, boards etc than each other. I found this to be really frustrating, maybe it was something to do with me being relatively young for the rank I held, most others in the advanced classes were in there late 30’s, 40’s or 50’s and I was still in my mid 20’s, have others experienced this with their advanced class mates?
I also didn’t enjoy the fact that when I got to a certain level I was told right now you learn the real stuff……...what had I been learning the past 4 years...rubbish? Or the fact a lot of the stuff was kept secret or hidden until you reached a certain point
I also didn’t enjoy the endless stance work (probably because coming in with a background in weightlifting and conditioning I didn’t see the point of a lot of it) and practising kicking or other techniques in the air as opposed to actually hitting pads and bags, the classes either didn’t have them or even more frustrating where they did have them they didn’t use them.
Finally I didn’t like how as the contact level of the sparring we did do went up, the techniques we were taught seemed to go out the window and when questioned why things like the locking and throwing and trapping we were being taught didn’t work we were told we weren’t working hard enough on them.
How I train more sports orientated stuff I enjoy the fact that the conditioning is inbuilt in the fighting and sparring and drilling work so you don’t need to work on it separately in class. I like the fact that there is much less uncertainty about what works and what to do in this or that situation, you know what works for you in various situations because you train in them daily, and you have faith in your coaches because you see them or the guys they train compete in various full contact events.
I also like the open and transparent way things are taught, there are no secret techniques, no hidden training methods, you are taught correctly from day one
I also like the fact that power production and proper mechanics are very easy to understand and the fact you get instant feedback from the various training tools and sparring partners you have, no more guessing if I am producing power in my short range shots, I now know
I enjoy the fact that I can work stand-up, clinch and ground virtually every session and spar whenever I want to.
Things I don’t like, as you get older conditioning gets harder and harder, and I hate the younger lads who don’t need to rest the night before training or do any form of warm up(
I also dislike some of the people associated with the MMA world, especially now its becoming so popular, I hate seeing people in the local weight lifting gym wearing tap out tops when they never train or in the local pub cheering on the fights on sky sports like they know what they are on about (but then the number of weirdo’s in TCMA was much higher)
I also dislike the fact that I don’t get to work weapons stuff or self defence stuff as much as I used to, although n the flip side I feel much more confident in my abilities now than I ever did in my TCMA days, and adding in some realistic street training is not that hard…and at least now I don’t have any false beliefs in my abilities…I still shudder about he fact I felt comfortable training against a knife and felt I would be able to defend myself if attacked by one.
I dislike getting hit hard in the head. stand up only sparring is something I make myself do because I know I benefit from it, where as grappling or full MMA sparring is something I love to do…the irony is I have received more injuries from grappling and being thrown than I have from being hit (bloody nose and mouth and a few times seeing stars/ being knocked out compared to damaged shoulders, dislocated fingers and toes and damaged ankles and elbows)
I miss some of the specific conditioning from my TCMA days and some of the longer range and close in stuff I learned…. I can see some of it meshing well with my clinch skills and longer range boxing I do. I would love to go back and train weekly with one of my coaches but time is limited and at the moment the pros and cons push me in the direction of sports training
SO what do you like/dislike about your training and what would you like to change?
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Originally Posted by David Jamieson
