Sport Training Vs. Street Training.

Reviews, Videos, and Everything Else Trollshido
1

Sabai Dii, Negros,

I’ll give my little stroy first, then ask the question at the end;

I started out doing MA because I played a cool Playstation game about Ninja, then started watching Jet Li movies, then decided I wanted to be hardcore myself (hey, some slack, I was only 14).

So I tried to find a Ninja dojo, but I figured they were all in Japan or something. So I ordered a whole lot of Ninja books (yeah, even Ashida Kim, but I figured he was crazy when I read “Iron Body Ninja” and realized he really doesn’t know how to live 400 years).

Anyway, failing to find Ninja dojo, I ended up in the next worst thing; Wing Chun dojo. Some slack to my teacher, but, he actually did BJJ to supplement it for ground fighting, so he wasn’t as retard as most.

Okay, so super point is, I wanted to learn street fighting, right. I wanted real skills, and practical training that directly relates to useable fighting ability. What I got and what I wanted my have been 2 different things, but point is clear.

Eventually, I wanted to train full time. With no way to pay for it, I joined Australian Infantry. 4 years would have left me with about $100,000 US, enough for several years full time training.

Got kicked out of Infantry but after almost 1 year because had a disagreement with the local police about shit and… anyway, push came to shove, I landed in Thailand when I was 20 after job fell through, and started learning Muay Thai.

At Tiger Muay Thai, in Phuket, a lot of dudes been leaving lately and all saying the same thing; too much cardio and not enough technique and stuff. So they’re all going to a gym down the road, Dragon Muay Thai, which offers more personal and technique training.

I just payed it off and told them, dudes, this is what real authentic Muay Thai is, this is how it is learned and all that stuff.

After I thought about their comments for a bit, but, I realized they were kinda right. Sure, that was how all MT gyms in Thailand train, but all MT gyms in Thailand train to turn out athletes, not necassarily street fighters, yet many western guys training never want to ring fight, just want street skills.

Now, I do realize Buakaw is half my size (almost literally), yet I still would be nervous to fight him, pillows or not, so my dig is not UFC and K-1 world champions cannot fight, it is more so about the training, and the economy of time and energy expenditure and as to whether it relates to the goals at hand.

Little example; Bruce Lee’s one inch punch was niether excessivly powerful, nor was it very practical. Yet it was impressive that by recruiting every inch of his body in the correct attitude he was able to perform a moderatly powerful strike in such a small movement. Some dude told me after that, that you should view all things in combat as an economy, and, taking Bill Gates advice, success in business comes when you make every $ count, and I think we can all trust both Bruce and Bill.

So my original story comes into point here; at what point in setting out to become super hardcore street fighter, did I convert to sport orientated training?

Simple fact is, at one of the biggest, most well equiped, and with excellent teachers in Thailand, I was never once taught how to knee someone in the balls. Of course, I did figure it out for myself; the MT clinch is basically ideal for ball attacks, and if they lean their hips back to protect their balls they get it in the jaw instead. Still, I wasn’t ever taught anything that’d be useful outside of the ring. I wasn’t even taught how to form a fist when not wearing gloves as to avoid breaking the bones.

Then you think of what the rest of MT training is. A 4 hour lesson, a massive portion of that is cardio. Sure, to go toe to toe with a professional fighter for 25 minutes in a ring, cardio is king, you’ll die without it. But how many of you have been in street fights that last longer than a few minutes? So do you need that cardio on the street?

To me it seems the street is about aggression, explosive power, powerful strikes, and correct technique, and being able to improvise with makeshift weapons if needed. Plus, size does matter; Thai fighters are so cardio obesessed, they try to be as small as possible, with no extra fat nor bulk muscle; something that works well in a weighted fight, but fact is, a 100 kilo guy hits harder than a 60 kilo, and if you’re training for the street you want to be fucking huge.

I actually designed a diet for me through good research, I managed to go from 71 kilo to 100 kilo in 1 year exactly. About 75% of that was good muscle, the rest was fat. I am trying to get to 120 kilo, then I’ll change my diet and work on “solidifying” my excess fat. Most of the Thais laughed at me, but… why? Is it not better to be big in fighting? I know how much harder I punch now with this bigger size, so I know it was a good idea.

So when you come to view your training programme as an economy, yet your goal is not the ring, it is the street, I’d say about 80% of the Muay Thai training I was doing was either a waste of time, or could have been better directed.

I want to know if people agree? Do American MMA gyms seperate street and sport classes, or is it the same as Thailand? And does anyone agree that these ring styles should be modified in training methods for those wishing only to fight on the street?

2

Sigh… another street vs sport thread…

Don’t dis the cardio, it’ll come in handy when you are running away from the friends of the guy you just destroyed.

Also instead of learning how to destroy people, maybe you should learn to be polite, and be aware of your surroundings… Just saying.

3

You seem to like Bruce Lee for some reason. Here’s a Bruce Lee-ism that Matt Thornton or someone associated with him/straight blast gym said about street fighting: be like water, just add dirt. What he meant is that the functional delivery systems of mma/sportfighting are the things to focus on, with the knowledge that it’s ok in a real fight to do “cheap” and dirty tactics not allowed in sporting events.

To further paraphrase Thornton’s shpiels: if you take someone with serious kick boxing skills and take them aside for 20 minutes and say “hey, think about things you might do like kneeing to the balls instead of the thigh” you have an entirely different animal than some putz who spends his time thinking about “street defense.” If you take a bjj purple belt and say “remember, if you get in serious danger on the street it’s ok to fuck with the guys eyes” you have a completely different animal then some spaz who thinks he can survive on the ground with biting and eye gouging. It’s having real skills in stand up, ground, and clinch that matter, not the specific dirty tactics you might graft onto them.

Regardless, do you really think some street fighting schmuck has any chance against a trained sport fighter, even if the sport fighter obeys all the rules of mma? If you can dominate someone in the clinch and land knees, will it really matter if your default is to break his ribs or hit his chin rather than his nuts? And are you really getting into so many fights wandering around Thailand that you needed to preemptively put on 30 kilos to make sure you’d survive? Are you finding yourself in need of improvised weapons all the time? I’ve never been to Thailand, maybe it IS that dangerous, or maybe you need to change your lifestyle a bit, or (shocker) maybe your fantasy life is a bit too rich?

4

when i train, i keep in mind 2 things. when going for a “sport” environment, i can focus on my opponent, plan my game, work my strategy, adjust and readjust as needed, wait for openings and then exploit them.
when going for a “street” or self defense environment, it’s all about situational awareness, escapes, minimizing time spent against my opponent, and more situational awareness.
the techniques are pretty much the same. i’ll throw the same jab/roundhouse/uchi mata/etc. on the street as in a match. the difference is that on the street, i’m trying to get away from the situation, not win a fight.
i may not be the best fighter on this board, but i know that trying to “win” a self defense scenario can get you killed.

in conclusion, if you train for the ring, and you have good cardio, you can survive on the streets if you use the gray lump between your ears for more than just a paper weight.

other than that, this is barfing up the dead horse that we ate after beating it for 3 days after it died of aids. serch function noob.

5

Goddamnit.

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Let’s here… we’ve got Ninjers, Bruce Lee, and The D3adly Str33ts. Here’s the deal - the basic premise of any advice on this site is alive and realistic training. The only way you’re going to develop real str33t fighting ball-kicking skills is to practice it like you use it.

So the answer is to find a training partner and begin kicking each other in the balls repeatedly. This is the only way. If your training does not include ball-kicking or eye-gouging, then it’s clearly no good for the streets. Your sparring sessions need to include hevy doses of ball-kicking and eye-gouging. In my experience, you should also include some heavy drinking in your training - most str33t fights involve heavy drinking; you need to be ready.

Tequila shots, eye-gouging, and ball-kicking must become an integral part of your training. Advanced stages of your training should include baseball bats and chains. And anything else featured on the original NES double dragon.

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[quote=Pojac;2100809]You seem to like Bruce Lee for some reason.[/quote]Not really. That is the first good thing I’ve said about Bruce for ages. I am usually found knocking him because everyone thinks he is a good fighter… who never fought…

[quote=Pojac;2100809]To further paraphrase Thornton’s shpiels: if you take someone with serious kick boxing skills and take them aside for 20 minutes and say “hey, think about things you might do like kneeing to the balls instead of the thigh” you have an entirely different animal than some putz who spends his time thinking about “street defense.” If you take a bjj purple belt and say “remember, if you get in serious danger on the street it’s ok to fuck with the guys eyes” you have a completely different animal then some spaz who thinks he can survive on the ground with biting and eye gouging. It’s having real skills in stand up, ground, and clinch that matter, not the specific dirty tactics you might graft onto them.[/quote]But the point was, if someone is never intending to do sport, then wouldn’t a large portion of the training be useless or unpractical for them?

[quote=Pojac;2100809]Regardless, do you really think some street fighting schmuck has any chance against a trained sport fighter, even if the sport fighter obeys all the rules of mma?[/quote]No. Few people on the street could stand a chace against even the most unskilled of professional fighters.

The point is, a lot of people rocked up to my gym expecting to learn hardcore fighting skills from the “worlds most devestating martial art” (you’ll understand that saying if you ever go to Patong). And they wern’t there, so they left.

So, if someone wants to train only part time, just a few times a week for self defence, they will never be a ring fighter. Is teaching them sports right? Your concept of standing a chance against a trained sport fighter does not apply here.

And yes, what, would you not want to be 30 kilo bigger if you could?

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[quote=PimpDawg;2100834]Let’s here… we’ve got Ninjers, Bruce Lee, and The D3adly Str33ts. Here’s the deal - the basic premise of any advice on this site is alive and realistic training. The only way you’re going to develop real str33t fighting ball-kicking skills is to practice it like you use it.

So the answer is to find a training partner and begin kicking each other in the balls repeatedly. This is the only way. If your training does not include ball-kicking or eye-gouging, then it’s clearly no good for the streets. Your sparring sessions need to include hevy doses of ball-kicking and eye-gouging. In my experience, you should also include some heavy drinking in your training - most str33t fights involve heavy drinking; you need to be ready.

Tequila shots, eye-gouging, and ball-kicking must become an integral part of your training. Advanced stages of your training should include baseball bats and chains. And anything else featured on the original NES double dragon.[/quote]You can become more effective at the task you do by practicing to do that very task.

You’re obviously a moron who didn’t read the OP, or just too stupid to understand it.

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[quote=Hesperus;2100826]Goddamnit.[/quote]Damn what, exactly? Troll.

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How to do defend yourself in the streets:

  1. be aware of your environment

  2. be aware of your attitude

sounds gong of enlightenment

11

These type of people amuse me, here they think that simply having a few ‘deadly’ moves is the silver bullet against thugs/gangers/assrapists.

However if they don’t train effectively in how to do deliver the ‘deadly’ in the most efficient way possible (ie. so called sport martial arts) then they might as well learn how to piss and shit over themselves in order to make themselves look unappealing to the potential predator.

also why isn’t this in ymas yet?

Oh yeah what Rivington said. Mind your manners and your situation.

12

So based on what the OP said, it sounds like he has two issues with “sport” style training: Emphasis on being as light as possible and cardio. I will try to address these as individual units.

First, if your muay thai training is anything like mine, the “cardio” workout that you are talking about is endless hitting of focus mitts/thai pads. If you don’t see the benifit in this I question your intelligence, but I will do my best to explain it anyways. First, drilling tired is the best way to make sure your technique holds up when you are tired or attacked unexpectedly. Second, the rote repetition thousands of times makes it mindless muscle memory, meaning you are much more likely to throw that combo on instinct and that means you throw faster, harder, and with more assurance. The cardiovascular conditioning that happens as a result is really just a happy by-product that means I can go running a little bit less.

As for that extra weight you want to be carrying around, ask yourself how much that is actually helping you hit harder. If you really sit down on your strikes the benifit of weight is negligible, as proved by a comparision of hardest punchers by weight class on some other thread I am too lazy to look up. Its also extra weight your heart and lungs have to support, meaning you will gas faster. This is especially true in striking, there are certain clear benifits to being a heavy guy with top posistion in grappling (as my 350lb judo coach can atest to), but there is still the risk of gassing.

Also, as a P.S., that whole “I never was taught to knee in the balls” crap is ridiculous. Were you ever taught to throw a straight right to the body? Probably not. You were probably shown to someones head and it was explained to you that you can change levels in a fight and throw body shots. By that token, I am sure you were shown how to knee to both the stomach and the inside of the thighs. If you can’t change the target area by about two inches either way you are a retard. Its like teaching an eye gouge. “throw your jab, but aimed at the eyes with your fingers extended” Ta-dah!

13

A more sane way of examing the “training for street vs sport” thing is pretty simple

Take western boxing, and the punches contained therin

Would you train in the same way for a boxing match, a muay thai match, and an MMA event?

Or would your strategies, stance, and preperation alter to accomdate the presence of takedowns and leg kicks, the time limits involved, and the rules of the clinch in that particular event?

“street” isn’t one undiffentiated category any more than “sport” is. Civilian walking down the street, LEO, mental health worker, women’s defense against sexual assault and bouncer are all as different as boxing, muay thai, point sparring, etc.

If you imagine each of those subsets as essentially their own sporting event, it should become more obvious how to restructure your training to prepare for the “event” . Continum of force and definition of objectives, along with likely environment and tools available will form the “rules” of that event.

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I train for sport fighting…and compete locally in both gi and no-gi sub grappling tournys, continious sparring events (full contact to body, light contact to head) and yes lol pointfighting. I’m trying to get my back together for San-Shou before I “retire” from my “competitive hobbiest” career.

As a police officer and former corrections officer I’m thankful for the over all fitness I have from combative “sport” training/competition which has probably save my well being if not my life. I guess what I’m getting at is I train for sport fighting…and having been able to defend myself in “real fights” has been a cool “side effect”

   "competitive hobbiest"      Would that be a cool tag or what?
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Simple fact is, at one of the biggest, most well equiped, and with excellent teachers in Thailand, I was never once taught how to knee someone in the balls.

Are you that fucking stupid that you think you need special training to know to hit the balls?

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He needs the Chiek Kongo: Muay Thai for complete Assholes dvd set.

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Special appearance by Alistair Overeem.

Is it a stretch at all to say that landing a good damaging kick to the inside of the thigh is harder than landing an equally hard shot to the groin?

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hang a tennis ball from a string at groin level, and one at eye level.

kick the groin level ball, and poke the eye level ball.

Do this for five minutes, and move on with the rest of your life.

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[quote=Hesperus;2101032]Special appearance by Alistair Overeem.

Is it a stretch at all to say that landing a good damaging kick to the inside of the thigh is harder than landing an equally hard shot to the groin?[/quote]

I agree. Specially with beginning strikers like me. Even after 6 months of standup sparring, I was never comfortable with landing an inside leg kick. I was either afraid of smashing my shin on the other guy’s knees or kicking him in the groin. I purchased shin guards after a particularly bad incident.

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When I started doing kung fu back in the day, I wondered how that stuff that I loved would hold against a street attack…I mean, stances and weird swinging arms didn’t seem that “deadly”…but add a tough as nails sifu, a hardcore cardio regiment and sparring and next thing you see, the other guy was laying on the floor and my wallet was still on my back pocket. What do you know?

Same thing for kickboxing…cardio, sparring, head movement,body movement and technique and what do you know? there’s that guy on the floor again.

The same to the bjj that I do now and I can say without a doubt that a “sport type of training” added to a general awarness of your surroundings, mixed with the correct mindset at the time will fuck any and every “mean street fighter”…unless he has a steel pipe and wacks you in the head from behind…or he has a gun…ok, nevermind that.