The seven S's and one D to determine the probable outcome of a fight.
When handicapping a fight weigh each quality. Not each quality is equal in determining the outcome and the strength of each will change in each situation but they are:
1) Skill
2) Strategy
3) Stamina
4) Size
5) Strength
6) Speed
7) Psyche ( ok, technically not an S)
1) Durability
Factors like size speed and strength generally only factor in if other qualities are equal. They are not as important as durabilty, psyche, skill, stamina, and strategy.
When talking about skill, one of the most important things is being well rounded so that a good strategy can not easily defeat you by taking the fight to an area where you are unknowledgeable. You must be able to, at minimum, DEFEND yourself in all ranges, be able to transition from range to range, and be able to finish in at least one of them. These ranges include open range standup (both striking and grappling), the clinch (both striking and grappling), & the ground (both striking and grapling). Each range can be more specifically catagorized to include many distances and angles in standup, many clinch positions, and many positions on the ground.
There are certainly base arts that have proven to be most realistic such as Muay Thai, Wrestling, and Bjj but guys like Loyoto Machida have shown that arts like Karate can be used in real situations against the best in the world too. The thing is, its in how you train. Muay Thai, Boxing, Wrestling, & Bjj they all use real sparring in their training. This "aliveness", as one mma trainer calls it, seperates the techniques that really work from the ones that dont against a resisting opponent. Loyoto trained Karate in this fashion, which the reason why he has been able to make it work imo.
I'll say one more thing about finding techniques that work. There have been many times that I have seen a move and thought its too flashy and not practical but then shown different when sparring. What I'm getting at is I believe there are things in all arts that can be added to your game, some of them just need to be practiced so you can develope the timing and ability to do the move automatically when the situation presents itself. Having said that, there are a lot of moves too that simply are not realistic, like Segal's fail proof choke escape. Some arts have simply accumulated too many techniques that are not realistic because they never spar hard. That is not to say that the art is useless. But like in all things, I think its best to keep it real.
When handicapping a fight weigh each quality. Not each quality is equal in determining the outcome and the strength of each will change in each situation but they are:
1) Skill
2) Strategy
3) Stamina
4) Size
5) Strength
6) Speed
7) Psyche ( ok, technically not an S)
1) Durability
Factors like size speed and strength generally only factor in if other qualities are equal. They are not as important as durabilty, psyche, skill, stamina, and strategy.
When talking about skill, one of the most important things is being well rounded so that a good strategy can not easily defeat you by taking the fight to an area where you are unknowledgeable. You must be able to, at minimum, DEFEND yourself in all ranges, be able to transition from range to range, and be able to finish in at least one of them. These ranges include open range standup (both striking and grappling), the clinch (both striking and grappling), & the ground (both striking and grapling). Each range can be more specifically catagorized to include many distances and angles in standup, many clinch positions, and many positions on the ground.
There are certainly base arts that have proven to be most realistic such as Muay Thai, Wrestling, and Bjj but guys like Loyoto Machida have shown that arts like Karate can be used in real situations against the best in the world too. The thing is, its in how you train. Muay Thai, Boxing, Wrestling, & Bjj they all use real sparring in their training. This "aliveness", as one mma trainer calls it, seperates the techniques that really work from the ones that dont against a resisting opponent. Loyoto trained Karate in this fashion, which the reason why he has been able to make it work imo.
I'll say one more thing about finding techniques that work. There have been many times that I have seen a move and thought its too flashy and not practical but then shown different when sparring. What I'm getting at is I believe there are things in all arts that can be added to your game, some of them just need to be practiced so you can develope the timing and ability to do the move automatically when the situation presents itself. Having said that, there are a lot of moves too that simply are not realistic, like Segal's fail proof choke escape. Some arts have simply accumulated too many techniques that are not realistic because they never spar hard. That is not to say that the art is useless. But like in all things, I think its best to keep it real.
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