INTJ Martial Arts

[qGrav]

I think Bruce Lee's work broke everything down to no style is the best style. Which meant all styles (strikes,grappling,defending) must be known in order to grow as a fighter. I was thinking about getting into MMA and I have recently learned Krav Maga, which is the IDF's hand to hand survival techniques so that if I get into a fight to kill such as a knife or gun threat I will be able to lethally defend/protect myself. Besides the fact that I know Krav Maga, I am learning Muai Thai(mainly for the clinching) and Machida Karate(from the DVD's,for strikes in point situations) and Eddie Bravo Jiu Jitsu(no gi evolutionary) from his books. I am practicing with real people and I am learning very fast. I want to do MMA tournaments, I do an improved version of P90X Doubles everyday to build stamina and intensity, do you think a fighter can be self trained and make it very far? If he is an INTJ and is logical and very systematical on how to approach a fight situation?

[rusty]

From experience, I'm not sure there really is a good INTJ "way" to fighting. Fights can happen so fast, no sort of logical approach is going to work in an actual fight. Experience is key, as well as a solid, instincitive grasp your chosen martial art.

I practiced Judo as a child, which I attended classes for three times a week until preperation for my exams took up too much time during my teens. But the training I did back then is pretty much drilled into me; my first instinct with an attacker who is close enough is get in close is to grapple then when they're off-balance, get them on the ground and go for a choke hold.

When I started practicing Kung-Fu at the start of my 20's, I found the change to long fisted style combat a bit odd. I'm not a big person, and although I can kick and punch extremely hard and fast I prefer to get in close and make use of my opponents momentum. This why I found Chin Na, which concentrates on locks and holds to be more interesting, and much more effective as well as the more "soft" styles of kung-fu.

Just like there is no such thing a fighting fair or fighting dirt, there's no thinking mans way to fighting. It has to be instinctive which is why you need to spar as often as you can, and focus on one aspect of your technique at a time. For example, it took two years before I could instinctivley know when the best time to perform a simple front-kick was, and rely on my "muscle memory" to perform the action for me.

[Vic]

If you are talking about getting into mixed martial arts I don't think you can really train yourself. Learning these different styles separately does not teach you how to combine them like MMA fighters need to do. Mixed martial arts is more than the sum of its' parts. Just being a good stand up fighter and a good ground fighter does not necessarily mean you'll be a good MMA fighter off the bat. If you are fighting stand up, you likely have practiced to defend mostly against other stand up attacks instead of takedowns etc. Whereas in MMA you need to know whatever you're doing, how to defend against and counter anything the opponent can throw at you.

Books and DVD's can be good to get some ideas, but you need to practice them in real life against opponents in order to make any use of the techniques. Knowing how to throw a knockout punch does not mean one can throw a knockout punch.

The other thing depends on who you train with. If your friends are trained in the various fighting styles you're trying to learn, then it could be very valuable. But if they're just people off the street, being able to defend against them in a practice scenario doesn't necessarily mean your technique will work against a real MMA opponent.

This goes double for Krav Maga. You didn't specify where or how you learned it. If you learned Krav Maga from books/DVDs and have little to no actual fighting experience, I would not take a chance thinking you're able to 'lethally defend yourself' against a gun or knife.

If you're really serious I think joining one of the numerous MMA places would be the way to go. Yes, it is possible to learn and train on your own, but going to a place and training with and against actual fighters would be easier and probably have better results.

[Autoptic]

MMA is technically just the sport. It's not real fighting.

[Necrosis]

MMA is technically just the sport. It's not real fighting.

Thats true but if I had to put my money on a street fight between two guys and one did MMA, he gets my vote :-D

I always wanted to learn some type of martial arts but it's rather expensive and time consuming. Neither of which I have in abundance of atm. I think the logical aspect helps if your studying your opponent ahead of time. Watching his videos, learning how he attacks and when. But ultimately when you get in the cage, it's all about experience and instinct. Good fighters are just instinctively good fighters.

[Carpe Diem]

OP, don't try to pull some "INTJ can learn multiple fighting disciplines by themselves through logic" bullshit. This isn't 300 BC. I question the quality of your Krav Maga program, as most of them turn out to be complete shit, and if you are learning Muay Thai off a video that is also completely garbage. You need to be in a MT gym, grinding away at the conditioning. Same with grappling, in your case 10th Planet JJ. Unless you are some sort of godking, there is no way you'll learn the basics and proper foundation needed for more complex grappling from solely a book and a few days of training with the same people, again you need to hit a good Judo/BJJ school and work with all kinds of people from there.

It's all about aliveness, and that includes training with new people.

[rusty]

OP, don't try to pull some "INTJ can learn multiple fighting disciplines by themselves through logic" bullshit. This isn't 300 BC. I question the quality of your Krav Maga program, as most of them turn out to be complete shit, and if you are learning Muay Thai off a video that is also completely garbage. You need to be in a MT gym, grinding away at the conditioning. Same with grappling, in your case 10th Planet JJ. Unless you are some sort of godking, there is no way you'll learn the basics and proper foundation needed for more complex grappling from solely a book and a few days of training with the same people, again you need to hit a good Judo/BJJ school and work with all kinds of people from there.

It's all about aliveness, and that includes training with new people.

Harsh, but never a truer word spoken (well...written)

[qGrav]

My Krav Maga was learned from a school, now since I know that they are pretty much just a waste of money and anything they say I can learn on my own. To say you cannot approach a fight logically means you're foolish and have a lack of experience, I have people to train and spar with and everything I learn is MMA centered. The grappling and striking AND defending are set up to be able to switch effectively. I have all I need to train physically and mentally. The "styles" I'm learning are transitional phases of one system. I think I can self train and be an efficient fighter. There is no mystic force that holds martial art knowledge only taught, through licensed instructors.


Judo and Kung Fu are an impractical mixture. Fail.

And what difference does it make if you are in a "dojo's" gym or your home gym if you have the equipment you need, and train hard everyday for months before fighting

[Zodd]

I don't see why this couldn't work, as long as you keep sparring with experienced allrounded fighters, from there on you can see what works and what doesn't. Martial arts are invented from scratch by people like you and me, it's not that god put a book of fightingtechniques on the world which you must read to become a fighter. Having a trainer that allready knows these things by experience and learning from him is just a lot easier and for most people the only way. But you allready know Krav Maga, and have techniques recorded in books and dvd's by very experienced people. What you don't have though is feedback from a expert (or do you?), so when you do something wrong and you don't know you're doing it wrong there isn't an experienced person to correct you the right way. But maybe you know when your doing something wrong yourself. Learning from dvd's can be great I think, I've seen one disc of the machida-do collection ( countering, trips, takedown defense) and it really is like in the dojo. He first explains what problem occurs, then what he does against it, why he does that and then you see it from all angles and in slomo's and after that he shows it in a sparring session.

But for everyone it would be a lot easier to learn from a gym I think. I know you have a money problem but can't you figure something out? Can't you go to a gym and explain your situation and show that you're really eager to learn? Maybe you can show that you are good and you can pay them by winning tournaments and giving them the prizemoney.


Whats wrong with Judo and Kungfu?

[rusty]

To say you cannot approach a fight logically means you're foolish and have a lack of experience,


Hmm...I beg to differ. There's basic strategy, such as gauging your opponent and basing your attack on this. For example; I am a small person so I will prefer to re-direct the energy of your attacks, get in close and use your own momentum against you.

You in turn will use long range attacks such as punches and kicks, or try to over power me when I get in close. But the actual, fighting part. The bit that gets all heavy, that's instrinct and training. Action and reaction. There's nothing logical there, and I know this because I was stupid enough to get involved in enough fights to learn that.

I got knocked on my backside and more, enough times to learn it the hard way. The more I think about it, your statement might actually fit you more than me.



Judo and Kung Fu are an impractical mixture. Fail.


I'm not really sure where this comes from. It's not as if I were saying they were a perfect mixture, just explaining that in my experience, it takes many years of focusing on one thing for it to become instinctive.

I'm detecting some major beligerence here. Are you on steroids?

[Warrior]

MMA is technically just the sport. It's not real fighting.

Much truth here. I train in Krav Maga and my instructor also trains MMA fighters. Several of the assistant instructors have fought MMA as well. The training is different. The successful MMA fighters all said they had to "relearn" how to fight for self defense purposes when they stopped training MMA.

Having said that, an MMA fighter does have some advantages. They are usually in decent to very good shape and they have some experience getting hit, both of which can go a long way.

---------- Post added 01-18-2010 at 08:57 AM ----------



And what difference does it make if you are in a "dojo's" gym or your home gym if you have the equipment you need, and train hard everyday for months before fighting

Mainly that the equipment that you need is a person fighting back and telling/showing you what you are doing wrong. Usually those are hard to come by at home. That's the biggest disadvantage of learning to fight in a home gym.

[Carpe Diem]

To say you cannot approach a fight logically means you're foolish and have a lack of experience...

About the only "logical" thing about fighting is this:


If Opponent A is stronger than you and more skilled, you will have a low chance of victory.
If Opponent A is stronger than you and less skilled, you have a decent chance of victory depending on his skill level and yours.
If Opponent A is weaker than you and more skilled, you have a decent chance of victory depending on his skill level and yours.
If Opponent A is weaker than you and less skilled, you have a high chance of victory.


That's it.

The rest of it is conditioning, skill set, instinct, reaction time and a bit of heart. There is no "Ok, he's going to throw a roundhouse kick, I grab it, sweep his leg, pass half guard, full mount, armbar" No. You just do.

[Aronnax]

And what difference does it make if you are in a "dojo's" gym or your home gym if you have the equipment you need, and train hard everyday for months before fighting

The difference is in practicing partners and an experienced teacher to catch your mistakes before they become bad habits. It's very hard to improve without some degree of sparring.

Fun facts about Judo: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was derived from judo, many of the modifications made were to compensate for Helio Gracie's smaller frame.

The reverse ude garami was used by Masahiko Kimura, a judoka, to defeat Helio Gracie. When the reverse ude garami was integrated into BJJ it was called the "Kimura" in honor of the judoka who broke Helio's arm.

[OneHertz]

Everyone has a plan until they get hit...

[Zodd]

Fun facts about Judo: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was derived from judo, many of the modifications made were to compensate for Helio Gracie's smaller frame.

Sambo is also very similar to Judo but with more submissiontechniques and in Combat Sambo also strikes. Fedor and Aleksander Emelianenko, Gegard Mousasi, Sokoudjou, Yoshihiro Akiyama, Karo Parisyan, Kazuhiro Nakamura are all judokas. Helio Gracie also was a third degree black belt in judo and the kimura got it's name in bjj from his defeat against mister Kimura who "Ude Garami'd" Helio.

[Vic]

To say you cannot approach a fight logically means you're foolish and have a lack of experience...

And how much experience do you have? The matter-of-fact way you stated you will be able to 'lethally defend yourself' against a gun or knife makes me question your experience. I don't know any people with training in defending against weapons who talk about a knife fight like such a sure thing, let alone so casually mention they'll be able to kill the attacker. Even against an unskilled opponent it's a very easy way to end up dead.

I have people to train and spar with and everything I learn is MMA centered. The grappling and striking AND defending are set up to be able to switch effectively. I have all I need to train physically and mentally.

I don't think anyone is saying you can't approach a fight logically. But that's not going to be enough. You didn't answer whether the people you train with have any training in the styles you are learning. But even if they have, let's say you train with the same two people day-in and day-out until you can easily beat them. What happens when your opponent fights nothing like the people you practiced against?


I think I can self train and be an efficient fighter. There is no mystic force that holds martial art knowledge only taught, through licensed instructors.

Nobody is claiming that one can only learn from a licensed instructor. But getting a variety in who you train against will get you used to different opponents. Just training with some friends will have you used to being able to beat your friends.

And what difference does it make if you are in a "dojo's" gym or your home gym if you have the equipment you need, and train hard everyday for months before fighting

The difference is you will have learned from books and practicing with the same few (possibly inexperienced) people. The person you will be up against will have been taught first-hand by someone with years of experience and will have sparred with others more experienced than themselves, all with different approaches. And they will have had people look at their techniques and correct any bad habits. I guess it would not be impossible, but choosing to take this route puts you at a tremendous disadvantage.

But it seems like you've already made up your mind on whether or not you want to train yourself. So I guess this thread is pointless now.

Though I would be curious to see your first real fight, if you could record it and post it here.

[AnotherWhiskey]

To me Krav looks no more that just another clever Jewish way to profit from us, stupid gentiles. Knife, gun defense? Puh-lease... Filipino stuff looked pretty decent at first sight, but I noticed that they rely on drills too much. Or am I wrong?

[firebee]

To say you cannot approach a fight logically means you're foolish and have a lack of experience, I have people to train and spar with and everything I learn is MMA centered.

Pardon, but could you please explain exactly why you think you're in a position to label people as "foolish" and "lacking experience"? Because from here it looks something like you've been training with a scattering of instructors for a little while, and with your buddies in a garage for a little while longer. This does not exactly look like a firm basis from which to criticize other people.


I think I can self train and be an efficient fighter. There is no mystic force that holds martial art knowledge only taught, through licensed instructors.

There's nothing mystic at all about the notion that physical skills are best learned from someone who knows what the hell they're doing. And if you're trying to teach yourself, then obviously you are being taught by someone who does not yet know.

[Aurelia]

do you think a fighter can be self trained and make it very far? If he is an INTJ and is logical and very systematical on how to approach a fight situation?

Without any actual sparring experience? No. While training and self-discipline is most definitely important, you have to be able to put your skills to the test by sparring with a live human being. It's the only way you'll know what your strengths and weaknesses are.

[Aronnax]

To me Krav looks no more that just another clever Jewish way to profit from us, stupid gentiles. Knife, gun defense? Puh-lease... Filipino stuff looked pretty decent at first sight, but I noticed that they rely on drills too much. Or am I wrong?

No, the FMA are serious business assuming you're being taught the original styles. Some schools have turned the intensity down because most people aren't interested, or comfortable, learning integrated knife/hand or stick/hand fighting techniques. The disarms are only there to give you an advantage, you're supposed to have a knife or a baton on you and the unarmed techniques are only there to supplement your weapon and in case you've been disarmed. When the entire point is to maim or kill the other guy it takes a lot of the "sport" feeling out of it.

[rahdam]

I didn't read the rest, but I believe Evan Tanner trained similar to the way you describe, and he had a lot of success.
Just make sure you get lots of actual practice in, both drilling and sparring.

[Firebrand9]

I'm a black belt in Bujinkan Ninjutsu with a direct line straight to Hatsumi. It's basically 900 year old classical jujutsu where the only people who lived to pass it on were the people who didn't die in battle. My instructor's instructor is Jack Hoban and he is on the board of directors for the MCMAP program. We've done some of that a bit in class, mainly to get out of ground fights. Overall, I can say it's saved my ass a few times, one time where 2 guys attacked me and I "took care" of both of them in less than 10 seconds. So, depending on your instructor, I can say it works.

My recommendation is to take something practical that works in the real world. That is, a battlefied art, not a sport art like MMA. MMA guys train hard, no doubt. But those fights have rules, and going to the ground on a sidewalk is a good recipe to get kicked in the head. Take an art where the aim is to go home safe. That's it.

A few good ones :
- Krav Maga
- Ninjutsu (not from a crackpot)
- Combat Hapkido
- Combat Sambo or Systema
- Jeet Kun Do
- Aikijujutsu

To say you cannot approach a fight logically means you're foolish and have a lack of experience

You can only do that in advance, in the classroom. Out on the street when some mugger pulls a knife on you, you're not going to have much time to think about things. It's either go time or give him your money. Strategy nothing. We have a saying in my class "When you deal with a violent encounter, you don't rise to the occasion, you drop down to the level of your training". When I first started there my instructor said to me "train as if you are going to use it in 3 weeks". I was like "Oh, good idea, train as if you may use it in 3 weeks". He then said "Not may use it, will use it.

[elprimodelyeti]

Thats true but if I had to put my money on a street fight between two guys and one did MMA, he gets my vote :-D

I always wanted to learn some type of martial arts but it's rather expensive and time consuming. Neither of which I have in abundance of atm. I think the logical aspect helps if your studying your opponent ahead of time. Watching his videos, learning how he attacks and when. But ultimately when you get in the cage, it's all about experience and instinct. Good fighters are just instinctively good fighters.
When you find someone with the right motivation, MMA comes naturally above other techniques.

[Hallow]

I think Bruce Lee's work broke everything down to no style is the best style. Which meant all styles (strikes,grappling,defending) must be known in order to grow as a fighter. I was thinking about getting into MMA and I have recently learned Krav Maga, which is the IDF's hand to hand survival techniques so that if I get into a fight to kill such as a knife or gun threat I will be able to lethally defend/protect myself. Besides the fact that I know Krav Maga, I am learning Muai Thai(mainly for the clinching) and Machida Karate(from the DVD's,for strikes in point situations) and Eddie Bravo Jiu Jitsu(no gi evolutionary) from his books. I am practicing with real people and I am learning very fast. I want to do MMA tournaments, I do an improved version of P90X Doubles everyday to build stamina and intensity, do you think a fighter can be self trained and make it very far? If he is an INTJ and is logical and very systematical on how to approach a fight situation?

Why would you post this question on this site instead of an MMA site? In the early 90's I'd say you had a slim chance. With the sport the way it is today, I'm going to be straight forward you're going to get hurt bad. Doesn't matter if you're an INTJ, ENTJ,ISTJ,INTP,etc the moment you get hit if you can not keep composure it's over. Find yourself a good MMA gym and train there. Whatever happens then is up to you.

What are your goals? Do you plan to just have some amateur fights maybe a couple of pro fights or do you really want to try to make a career out of it?

[JTG]

I came in the thread because the title is "INTJ Martial Arts." I expected conversations about killing people with mind bullets.

I'll just leave it at that :stare:

[Solaris]

Books and DVDs are meant to supplement a decent course of training, not replace it. This is like saying you are going to learn to build spacecraft just studying on your own and expect to launch yourself to the moon in two years. (prohibitive costs aside) You need competent, experienced masters to train you properly. Otherwise, somebody will own you with their polished technique, because you never learned what mistakes you are making and how to correct them, or adapt.

[crow]

Once I was a human.
I had around 200 real fights, over 45 years, and lost none.
Then I learned aikido, and took more damage training than I ever did fighting.
Now I am a crow.
I just fly away, squawking, climb high, turn, line up for the bomb run, and crap on their heads from a safe height.
Works for me.

[bushiiTOP]

Recently found this site. i've been training bjj for a few years now. any chance to spark life back in this thread?

[agkazama]

judo and aikido

[Seriously]

Kickboxing for 2 years, Thai boxing for a year and Krav Maga for a year now. Just mastered my first level in Krav.

[Mullanaphy]

Books and DVDs are meant to supplement a decent course of training, not replace it. This is like saying you are going to learn to build spacecraft just studying on your own and expect to launch yourself to the moon in two years. (prohibitive costs aside) You need competent, experienced masters to train you properly. Otherwise, somebody will own you with their polished technique, because you never learned what mistakes you are making and how to correct them, or adapt.
I agree whole heartedly. Personally train bjj and while I'll watch techniques online it's only something that I'll look to try out in my current game or work with a partner after class.

Another aspect is muscle memory and making your techniques instinctive, which involves utilizing drilling and sparring. You won't get either from DVDs\books.

Lastly, there are way too many variables to fighting (whether it's self defense or competition based) and all one can really train to do is improve their odds at winning. Then there's the the fact that styles make fights, which makes my stance on street fighting as an extremely bad idea.

P.S. If anyone is interested or has some info to share, the current games I'm working are open guard and variants. Mainly spider guard and butterfly guard.

[Ryujin]

I highly doubt you can learn martial arts and stuff from a book. It's just too physical, a book is a very awkward way of teaching it and you get no feed back. Sure, you can self teach by fighting other people and see what works, but this is starting at square one, where as Martial arts are the compiled experince of many people of time.

Also the first post mentions lethally defending against knives/guns and fighting in tournaments. The context of what you want to do will certainty define how you train and what you want to learn. There is some overlap and some middle ground (basic self defense stuff). While karate is far better than nothing for self defense, most martial arts are hampered by the fact that they are arts/sports.

I'd also agree with Firebrand9 that Combat Sambo/Systema are good ones for self defense, Systema has some odd bits, but it's techniques on striking are excellent (probably also useful for people who practice other techniques).

Paul vunak's jeet kun do (Progressive Fighting Systems) is another good one, especially for basic principles in self defense. Seems straight forward and realistic. If your going to self teach anything, I'd say his videos would be the best bet in my unqualified opinion.

[Marcus Septim]

Boxing here for almost a year now,exhilarating
The most intense physical exercise i have done

[blueback]

I think it's important to point out the difference between MMA and martial arts: MMA is a sport and the people who participate in it are athletes.

A fight, and the fighters who participate in it, don't adhere to rules. Sports do.

That being said, there are obvious differences in the training. I remember a scene from the movie Fighting (I think that's it) where the main character gets into a street fight with three big guys. He proceeds to destroy all of them with the BJJ he learned in his gym. It worked because it was in the script, not because it was in any way a good idea. If you want to see what sort of things need to happen to win a street fight against three big guys just watch that scene. For example, it would be very useful if your opponents tend to stay down when you hit them, rather than getting back up. It would also be good if they're a lot slower than you are. And, of course, attacking one at a time is always helpful. Sport training, like MMA, assumes an awful lot of rules. Fight training doesn't.

However, both of them can be greatly improved by an INTJ's logical, facts-based approach to training.

For example, it is a fact that if you're training to fight you probably won't see the fight coming. A mugger isn't going to scream before he leaps. So fight training actually focuses an awful lot on what to do BEFORE the fight even starts. Learning how people who are looking for a fight think and act is much more useful than learning a new take down. Say you have been targeted for a mugging; the most likely thing is that there are two people, one of whom will be in front of you trying to distract you while the actual attacker approaches from behind you. What do you do? If your first thought was what attack or block to use then you're wasting your time. The right thing to do is train an instinctive reaction to circle around anyone shady who tries to get your attention. Get around to at least 90 degrees from where they tried to engage you so that you can see if anyone was coming up behind you. The next thing to train is an escalation of force; start out with something polite like "please stay back" and quickly increase the tension to cursing and shouting. Or, if you're clever, an even better thing to train is to distract the distraction. If you interrupt him with "your fly is open" and it interrupts his script you've just gained a huge advantage. All this stuff needs to be trained before fighting, cuz you might just be able to avoid the fight entirely if a potential attacker realizes that you're a harder target than he initialy thought.

On the other hand, if you're training for a sport like MMA none of that stuff makes any sense. Instead your foundation should be basic physical conditioning.

The point is that both of these categories do benefit from an INTJ approach. Once you start to get into the actual fighting, of course, there is still a benefit. For example, if you are fight training it makes sense to spend a lot of time training a counter attack that covers as many attacks as possible as your first move in a fight. That way it doesn't matter what random attack you are subjected to, your first "twitch" reaction will probably address it. You don't need time to think then. The thinking happened back when you were training. On the other hand, if you're sport training it makes sense to study the videos of the person you're going to be fighting so that you know which direction they like to circle, or how they shift their weight before a take down. You could also study your own fighting to find your weakspots, then design training circuits that address your specific weaknesses.

The most important thing is not to drink the cool-aid. Don't get so attached to one point of view that you forget to fact check it.

[baal]

experience is the best teacher yet instinct is required as well
basically you can only get so far with out help then you instruction

[Fox]

Here's my experience.

A few weeks training at the YMCA at 10 years of age.

Here's how I use my INTJ Mind to win in a fight: Follow my enemies. Determine where they are the most defenseless and ambush them. Did that once. All but the ambush part.

[Autumnleaf]

Several thoughts.

Good martial arts is from muscle memory. ie Someone swings at you and you move to block or intercept instead of cringe from it. That kind of response is not consciously logical. This hit home with me when a guy jokingly kicked at me in professional school and I assumed a blocking stance, blocked his kick and started to attack without thinking about it. Thank God I go ahold of things in time. It just happens from drills and lots of time sparring. To make your muscle memory work for you you need a good coach to point out your weaknesses so you don't get flawed muscle memory that leaves you open.

If you learn a bunch of styles from reading books and get into a fight I don't think you'll have time to reason how things will go down. Even trained fighters tend to fail when the real thing happens. There's an old story about a black belt who got into a fight where the guy grabbed his hair and slammed his face against the sidewalk until he gave up. Then he got up and threw away his black belt. Don't get me wrong, Bruce Lee was the best but I don't think he ventured far outside of kung fu. If you look at Chuck Norris he stuck with tae kwon do, what I'm trained in. Pick a style and find a good teacher. Spend time sparring and you will get good. If you just mess around in your basement with some friends you might learn some but you might also learn some bad habits.

[Zodd]

@ autumnleaf

I read Bruce Lee also trained Boxing, Wrestling, Jiu-Jiutsu and many others, he was the one who threw away the idea of that you should stick to one discipline, that's why he's sometimes called the godfather of MMA and why there is speculation about how he would do if he would do MMA right now.

[blueback]

Well, Bruce Lee didn't like anyone telling him what to do, which is kind of unusual for someone raised in an asian culture. So he rubbed his early instructors the wrong way and they kicked him out/he quit. Also, he was naturally fast (freakish reaction times, like Babe Ruth), and he was so obsessive about physical training that he could beat experts in arts he'd never trained before simply by moving faster than them. In enter the dragon there's a fight scene where his hand (from rest) moves so fast the punch happens in between frames. It makes sense that a guy like that would prefer to pick and choose; I bet Superman doesn't listen to Batman's advice on diet and exercise.

Anywho, the point is that it's better to learn AN art really well than to flit from one art to another and never learn any of them properly. If you're going to change something regularly, I suggest changing teachers. Stay in the same art, but move to another teacher every now and then. The real issue with the effectiveness of an art is the teacher's approach to it. People often forget that, and start to talk about the art like it's some thing that exists on its own. Arts are passed on through people, and who they are has a big effect on the art that comes out of them.

If you want to avoid specializing in one art, find a teacher who personally knows several arts. And then move to another that personally knows several arts.

[BuShinJu]

2 years of okinawan goju, 5 years of wing chun.

Used the wing chun defensively not 2 days ago, I wish I was more bloody minded, but I think it is for the best not to be violent back if you can get away with it. I still think violence is the last resort of the incompetant and ignorant.

Martial Arts are one of the greatest things in my world, I should start again.

[operatorfivetwo]

Krav Maga , All the way. Been doing it for as long as I can remember.

[Sulla]

Whatever you pick- make sure you supplement your martial training with good gym training. Strength training will be extremely importat. Increasing body mass never hurts either. You'll raise your EF substantially if you have good weight training. Strength training is also highly correlated with pain tolerance and speed (fast twitch fibers). Two things you'll want to have if taking martial arts seriously.

Edit: Actually, if you watch the Lessner vs. Carwin fight from last night, it's a really good example of why (particularly with a submision or grappling style) strength is important. Carwin had a good defense against Brock's triangle... but it didn't matter because he was just too strong.

[blueback]

That's funny. I took the exact opposite lesson away from that. It seemed like a perfect illustration of why you should never slack on your cardio training. It looked to me like Lessner turtled and let Carwin just punch himself out. Carwin is a champion wrestler, and he didn't have the gas to do any wrestling in the second round.

[Sulla]

That's funny. I took the exact opposite lesson away from that. It seemed like a perfect illustration of why you should never slack on your cardio training. It looked to me like Lessner turtled and let Carwin just punch himself out. Carwin is a champion wrestler, and he didn't have the gas to do any wrestling in the second round.

It's true to some degree, but throwing 50+ strikes like that is going to wear you out. Lessner got Carwin to the ground because he was tired, but that submission was pure strength.