Courage under Fire: The Art of takin an ass-whoopin.

This needs to be stickied.

One of the most insightful threads here in Striking, Bar none.
 
A little over a month into MT and sparring a lot more frequently. This is the perfect time for me to study this and engrave in my brain. Thanks a lot!
 
just makring this as I'll be back to read it all later, but looks pretty good thus far.
 
Great thread, i could only add "keep trying" martial arts are adquired skills, and therefore, practice (almost always) beats natural ability
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I'm a little late to the party, but nice thread!!
 
Good read, thank you. I just got back from sparring and taking a bit of an ass-whoopin' so you posted this at a perfect time for me.
 
Erm Good (Old) thread lol!

Some very good advice in the thread but no more than you should expect from King Kabuki!!

One thing about the the body full power drill that someone else picked up on, I;ve noticed that when I'm doing that drill I tend to have my chin way in the air, trying to stand taller for some reason, I guess adding a Jab to the drill would be a good way to stop this!!
 
Or remember to be off-angle when you hit the body. If you shift your weight from side to side and lower your elevation slightly, you should be able to throw effective body shots with your chin tucked comfortably.
 
What about the drill where you have your partner hit you very lightly (while not blocking) just so you get used to getting tapped.


btw Thank you Sinister and please keep posting!:icon_chee
 
I'd like you guys advice. I'm a beginning MMA fighter and am still learning the ropes. Have done martial arts though for awhile and am used to sparring. The gym I'm training at now has a pro fighter as a MMA coach. My first time sparring him he says we are going to go lightly. After showing me how hard he wants me to throw I adjust my style and begin to do so. He then tools me. And not like he's going super hard but bad enough that I ate some huge hooks an overhand right and a knee to the face that blasted my brain around my skull. How do you handle that. Should I throw all my shots with intent or continue taking the pounding and try to work on my defense and technique. Looking for some imput.
 
It's difficult with this situation, but I'll say this much:

In our Gym you get your own respect. It's a little cut-throat because a lot of guys have different trainers, and sometimes their trainers want them to go hard even if it's agreed to go light. Jesse Reid had a couple of his fighters go hard on me because I had some weight on them. So to get THEIR respect, I had to go harder back.

If you can't go over this guy's head, and you figure he might not listen to you if you ask him what was up with that directly, and you feel you CAN hang with him at least enough to let him know you won't stand for that, then you should get your respect in there.
 
I can take it. Just wasnt uses to someone Teeing off on my head. I plan to be more aggressive with him in future sparring matches. As well as just try to engage more and not be on the defensive. I figure if I can hang with the pro fighter then I'll be fine in my ammy fights till I can reach pro one day.
 
There are some people in the World who only understand a beating.
 
How much experience do you have, Blake?
 
7 years goju ryu karate. 2 years tkd and 5 months bjj. Been doing the Mma thing for close to a year.
 
Can you give a better idea of how hard your trainer was going? A lot of new guys overestimate the power their partner is putting into a shot. This is because new guys will walk into punches, or get caught while throwing. Both of these scenarios will make incoming punches more damaging. If your coach is rocking you with knees to the face as the introduction to your sparring career, though, I'm not sure what to think. I'm a big proponent of hard sparring (when balanced in a routine with slower-paced technical work), but that is excessive and pretty mean spirited if it was done in the context you've described.

Do you think you may have been tense and muscling out hard strikes without realizing it? With the warning on intensity and subsequent beating you got, in that order, my first thought was that you were just getting "settled down". If that's the case, just continue to focus on going as light as he said. This is probably the best solution to the problem either way. I find spazzes either tell you to pick it up, or just chill out (EVENTUALLY) once they pick up on the obvious difference in intensity if settling them down is not an option. Against your coach, it's probably not.

If the beating was totally unprovoked, I'd speak to the man about it and respectfully ask for a clarification of the sparring rules. Depending on his answer, you might want to reevaluate your stay at that gym. You have to train smart, try new things and learn as much as you can while minimizing the damage you soak up. The environment there sounds like a bad trade-off of risk and reward in your journey.
 
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