Do Tournaments hinder fighting ability?

[Esteban]

Hi,

I think both sides have a point too. It's just that my point didn't really have much to do with Mind Boxer's point.

[E]Well, as I took it, his pertinent point was that having done tournaments "could" help one in a "real" fight. You seem to favor "two-man" sets, but, if I read correctly, you have done tournaments. If I'm wrong, I apologize. But, I'm sure you've done other things, anyway: pushups or meditation, for example. I think you see what I was getting at. I didn't think either of you was "wrong."

>My point was simply that one could attain >bravery through the confidence attained from two->man drills. If this is irrelevant to you I'm >sorry you wasted your time reading it.

Your point was not irrelevant to me in the way you seem to take it. If someone gives a premise "if x" and comes to the conclusion "then y," someone else can note that it is possible to have "y" without "x." If I'd said, "there's more than one way to skin a cat," it would have amounted to the same thing. And, well, obviously I thought it was worth my time to say.

[E] "BTW, how could two-man sets actually prepare one for having a particular attitude (and non-action) any more than doing a tournament?"

>You can't drill quickly maiming and killing a >man in a tournament but you can do it all day >long in a two-man drill.

Well, a boxer's punch is considered a lethal weapon, but that aside, I think that "training to kill" and "killing" are two completely separate things. This is where I think these arguments go into fantasy land. The intention to train to kill is different from the intention to kill. When the latter is present, the former is just a detail. Anybody can learn to kill anybody in a few easy lessons, or without any lessons. A friend of mine went into fit when they took her nail clippers, but allowed everyone to keep their pencils. Anyway, imo, following the argument that "tournaments" are bad for fighting, would seem to lead to the conclusion that tournament fighters (or Cung Le or Mike Tyson) would have some sort of disability in a "real" fight. While I'd agree that a certain type of personality is more likely to invite confrontation, and that tournaments don't always foster "calmness," I'm not ready to come to the conclusion that they are negative in and of themselves. Nothing personal.

Respects,
Esteban

[toddbringewatt]

I understand you, Eseban and your post is well taken.

As to the killing business. Of course training and doing are different.

Training to fly in a simulator is not flying but it sure helps a whole heck of a lot. That's all I'm saying.

By analogy, training to kill and maim IS possible and it IS effective. It happens and it works in many, many cases, i.e. the military, etc.

Again, you really aren't training to maim and kill when you are tournament fighting. You just aren't, regardless of what a boxer's punch is considered to be.

Anyway, this all started out as a comment about bravery and that I got more out of my two-man drills for reasons listed above than I did out of tournament fighting.

You can train for reality or you can train for tournaments and certainly tournaments can greatly improve fighting ability. But if you're training for reality then you are going to have to train for reality. And that includes a need to go way beyond the tournament approach to fighting.

So I'm making a point about bravery and I'm making a point about what one is really training to do after all and the potential limitations of relying on tournament fighting only to prepare you for actual combat. That's all.

"Bruce Leroy. That's who!"