"Begin With the fight"

[David]

This is an interesting post on Steve Morris's blog. His idea is rather than start with movement patterns, light sparring and progressing to all out fighting- he thinks it should be the other way around! I think his point is very interesting but there is something about it that seems a little disturbing...
If your goal is to be purely an effective streetfighter his ideas seem very sound. I know that you guys train primarily for realistic self defence but where do we draw the line? Ultimately a great fighter needs the mentality of a 'pit bull'- almost psychotic- but does there come a point where to become a better fighter is to become less of a human being and more of an animal?
I'd be interested on the opinion of Burton and some of you guys 
http://stevemorris.livejournal.com/21547.html

[Army Mark]

Interesting post. He makes a good point about training with real contact although Burton explains the resistance aspect way better and so does Matt Thornton when he talks about aliveness. I dont think you can start with full contact and expect to be a good fighter if you have not learned the fundamentals yet. You can see the army milling video at the bottom of his blog and you will see two guys with horrible boxing fundamentals. Just coming out and swinging wildly without a solid structure and knowledge of the basics will get you jacked up against a real trained fighter. Full contact training is absolutely a must in order to achieve that next level but you have to work up to it. As far as fighting in the streets goes I dont think it will help much when youre facing a real good fighter. Street fighting will make you tougher which is important but most people who fight on the street do not go up against real fighters. They brawl in bars against drunks or people who will get tired after a minute of swinging. (Watch felony fights and youll see what I mean). While that type of experience is more valueable than doing kata it will not save you should you fight against someone who knows what they are doing.( This is especially true when it comes to ground fighting where even the toughest brawler will be in trouble against a solid grappler.) So basically I think full contact training is very good (I do plenty myself) but it must be done with good control not only for safety, but also to make sure that you are using your fundamentals instead of just brawling.

[James McRae]

I think that martial arts training is a balance between realism and safety, which can be illustrated in the following resistance scale from 0-10:

10  Complete realism (full contact; high risk of injury)
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 5  Moderate balance (medium contact; realism with moderate injury risk)
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 0  complete safety (no contact; no realism)

Beginners should start towards the bottom end of this scale, working on tool development and open hand sparring games that emphasize speed, accuracy, and technique over power.  This allows a student to develop timing, distance, positioning, etc. without the risk of serious injury.  The more a person trains, the more his sparring should move up the scale to the full-power, full-resistance end of the spectrum, but it should only rarely reach level 10, since the risk of permanent injury is very high even for a skilled martial artist.  I've been training in JKD since 1998, and I usually spar at about level 7 with my experienced training partners. 

Having a beginning martial arts student spar full contact is like having a beginning guitar student try to improvise a solo during a live performance: it is going to be ugly, embarrassing, and demoralizing.

[David]

Thanks for your replies-
Basically I agree with James that training for most people should be a matter of progressive resistance- as Burton's method.

However-this fellow, when he was 60 years old, tore apart a professional MMA fighter in a few seconds after being challenged at at a seminar a few years ago. It wasn't pretty: Pure explosive agression and violence, exactly what he spoke about in his post.

So, Army Mark, it is not true that this method cannot work against a real skilled fighter.

The point is that if a 60 year old can defeat a professional MMA fighter there is obviously something to what he says!

My question is that does it create a healthy individual or a psychopath? And is it possible to reach the level of ability of Steve Morris without that 'Killer instinct' getting out of control a bit?

 

[Terry]

I think training goals come in to play.  "Why do you train"  If I am defending my family and have no choice?  Or am I just a marial artist who is trying to improve as a whole person?  Not ALWAYS taking everything to the most extreme.

I would ask where do you start to worry about not having enough control over yourself, and you are just hurting another human being because you are just in an animal mindset that all you can do is hit with a sledge hammer when all you need is a tack hammer. 

I also wonder if people train or teach this way, because they havent put time in to develope other skills or knowlegde to draw from.

And I have met alot of people that have trained for many years spinning there wheels.  Not everyone that has trained the last 20 years, did the same quality of training.

[Shelt]

I agree with much of what the author states and the reasons why. Much of what makes MT, MMA, grappling, etc so good for actual fighting is that it's movements and techniques are straightforward and basically highly efficient, normal, methods of moving for us, unlike some crazy-assed, convoluted pattern of movement seen in many martial arts.

Emphasizing "fighting" over more technical aspects serves a purpose. Take for example the milling vid, the idea is to take a bunch of guys from all manner of backgrounds and teach them unlock aggression and no-quit attitude, but it's easy to see that one guy had a lot more going for him then the other. In that environment the objective is to jumpstart a captive group, it's not like a recruit just just grab his gym bag and walk out.

Many people don't have the ability to flip a switch and turn it on, others can. Starting lower on the scale we can build people up slowly until they become accustomed to pressure, contact and aggression. If we started out with a "milling" type structure most will quit in short order out of fear, confusion and just being unable to cope with the pressure. We'd also have a lot of injured people because those that can flip a switch may not have control of themselves and end up hurting others or even themselves in a rage.

By starting out on the lower end of the spectrum and working up, both (those who can flip the switch and those that can't) types of people can benefit and improve. Non-flippers learn to deal with pressure and develop their ability to access aggression, while flippers learn to temper their ability to turn-on and become much more precise in their application of force...rather than repeatedly mongo smashing willy-nilly with wild strikes  they are able to much more efficiently, and thus more powerfully, strike their opponent.

Morris wrote, "The sparring has to support the fighting and not just be playing about."  This I find avery important. One thing I try to emphasize when I teach class is to using real tools in real ways when sparring. For example, in the open hand game I tell people to use REAL movements, techniques and targets. The OBJECTIVE is to warm up, develop movement, distancing and footwork.....realistically. That is not accomplished by making it a game of tag whereby you dodge your opponent like a ballet dancer and  and strive to get your touch in anyway you possibly can. 

When I look at two people "sparring" I can tell the emotional context in which they are acting. People who approach sparring as a "match " are much more upright, chin up, hands relaxed and they have a calmness about them. This is an excellent state in which to develop tools and attributes and more importantly.......have fun. When people are doing Cr8s "Shark Drill" they are much more tense, chin tucked, intense.......downright jumpy     This is also the state I try to get people into when having them do the "Waianae Boy Drill." I hate seeing the WBD done as a tippy-tap drill and frequently emphasize the emotional context of the "Butt Clench Range.

Drilling and sparring must have the objective of realistically dealing with a given problem while using progressive resistance to develop skills and abilities over time.....otherwise it'll develop skills that fold under pressure or people who have a false sense of ability.

i forget why the hell did I right all that??? too many kids and noise gong on for me to think straight     arrrrghhh!

ME HUNGRY, NEED FOOD!

[Josh]

Flipper?



I didn't know dolphins could grapple...

[Army Mark]

Good replies on a very interesting topic. Overall I do think that Mr. Morris makes very good points in his article. All I am saying is that fundamentals have to be developed properly and used correctly in full contact or near full contact sparring correctly as opposed to just swinging wildly. Mr. Morris has been doing martial arts for a very long time and has quite an impressive resume (check out his website). He also teaches MMA so I could definetly see him beating an MMA fighter who decided to challenge him.( However I seriously doubt he was swinging wildly, hands down, chin up and no balance like the soldiers in the milling video and beat a pro fighter. )Even fighters who throw so called wild punches (Chuck Liddell for example) have a very solid knowledge of fundamentals which they have developed through proper training as well as full contact sparring. Someone who has no training whatsoever but a lot of killer instinct will be at a huge disadvantage against an aggressive, determined and highly skilled fighter. A perfect example of that was seen on the Ultimate Fighter 7 when the fighters fought to get into the house. Dan Cramer (who trained with American Top Team and worked in a country club) absolutely demolished Jermiah Riggs who was a tough country kid with practically no skill but street fighting experience and lots of heart and toughness. (He was getting pounded on for 3 rounds but would not quit and lost a decision). My point is that without proper fundamentals aggression and will can only go so far. But all that aside I think Mr. Morris is a legitimate martial artist who has alot to offer. This is a very good topic and I definetly want to hear Burtons opinion on it.