A lot of people are confused with a ‘preferred’ solution to that of having an ‘ability’. They train only on what they personally prefer and refuse to spend anytime on increasing their range of abilities.
Preferences changes base on your condition at that moment, your opponent’s preferences/dimensions(e.g relative weight/height/reach/speed, etc), and the environment.
When MMA first started, stand-up fighters absolutely don’t understand anything about fighting on the ground and got nailed badly. It is almost like a 100 meter top runner who doesn’t know how to swim get thrown into the pool – all your advantages are lost in an instant.
It is really important to develop your personal movement vocabulary as a life skill. For example, swimming, climbing, balancing, fall and roll, etc. I have taught in workshops where human kinetics college students don’t even know how to roll properly. Self-defense is not just about fighting another person, you can be fighting for survival against natural elements like fire, flood, wind, marshes, fores, hills and much more.
Some of these following attitudes that are quite common in the martial art world. They can certainly create a better version of themselves by taking a broader view.
- Internal stylists that refuses to train muscle and stamina.
- People that are too obsessed with just one plane, one line, one level, artificial rules because of their loyalty to a specific style or environment.
- People who think that ‘to destroy your opponent’ is the only way to apply your fighting skill.
- People who are believe that their knock-out power or their ground game will make them invincible.
- People who think what they naturally have is all they are instead of pushing themselves to expand from that box. The self-labeling can be anything like “I am stiff”, “I am skinny”, “I am not built for this”, “I am too old”, “I cannot …”, “I hate ….”, etc.
If you look back at the video from the last blog, some of those skills used may not have been specifically trained for the fight but just one of those things where the fighter developed through play and maybe even unrelated activities.
Exercise
Do you consciously take yourself out-of-an-imaginary-box? Please describe one related to martial arts and one that is from your regular life.