After a period of extended unemployment and you know, ‘hitting the gym’ due to not having much else to do, I’ve decided to pursue this hobby of violence that seems to attract far too many chuds. I’m hoping it’ll give me a thin veneer of confidence and security, and an ability to fend off fucking assholes with my bare fists
In all seriousness, how do I become a better fighter, I truly suck at this. Any of you fight for fun? Practice a martial art, boxing, wrestling? What’s your opinion on the sport?
I did judo as a kid (up to about age 14) at competition level - I’d like to go back to it some day. I also played rugby in that time til I was about 19. All in all I’m not an absolute weapon but I am a total pain in the ass to take to the floor by an average person. I will never forget the innate balance and understanding of the balance of others from my time doing judo. When I grapple for fun with people, I seriously feel like time slows down, and I can spot when someones foot is out of place like some kind of quick time event.
OK. So I have several years experience. started in wrestling and judo for several years. Then did BJJ, boxing and muay thai for 7 years.
The basics are really boxing and wrestling. I include Judo as jacketed wrestling in this. They will be cheaper and more realistic than BJJ or Muay thai. After all these years of BJJ, the submissions in Judo are still the most common (RNC, Gi chokes, bent and straight armbars, and pins and escapes) both in MMA and in street altercations.
The basic 4 punches are also the most encountered and easy to use in mixed footing. In a street encounter if you are forced to fight, you may not have room to kick. And honestly, you won’t have the time to “cook” anyone on the ground BJJ style.
Your number 1 priority is to escape, run away and live. If you have to fight, run away if you have an avenue. If you are unable to escape, throw the guy on the ground and run. If you fall or are taken down, get up off the ground (pin escapes) and run. If you have to strike, footwork, the old 1-2 and run…
I can talk about MMA all day since I trained it for so long and have trained with so many ammy and mma fighters.
Bang for the buck techniques:
Striking: Jab, Cross,
Takedowns: Double leg, Body clinch
Escapes: Wrestling Stand up, BJJ technical stand up, Mount escapes, Side control escapes
Submissions: RNC, Guillotine, head and arm triangle (All can be done from standing)****
Nobody taps to joint locks in a real fight, they barely tap in MMA honestly. Chokes only…
If you have the time, I recommend the Southpaw podcast and program. They have a “Liberation Martial Arts” program that is made to facilitate group study without having to depend on an instructor. Most MMA and martial arts gyms are right wing both in atmosphere and philosophy, so the idea is to create a space that isn’t hostile to leftists. And the creator is/was a BJJ instructor (black belt) and a Socialist.
The spirit is a lot better than in team-based sports when you don’t actively enjoy toxic masculine shit. You can have a little power fantasy as a treat because you’re doing the punching and stuff but you’re not in a misogynistic boys club that peer pressure you to drink 3 liters of beer after training.
At least in my experience, feel free to share if you had a different experience
Look at what’s actually available to you in your area, then narrow down options by affordability. From there, start visiting gyms. Most good gyms are fine letting people sit in on a class to get a vibe for the place, and if they aren’t then that’s a red flag imo. Whichever place seems to have the best environment for you is the best pick, because if you hate going or hate the people, you won’t keep going and you won’t learn.
Wrestling and boxing are a straightforward and reliable combo. Boxing is widely available (even if you live in the middle of nowhere, there’s decent chance there’s still a boxing gym), and wrestling is available in many schools and increasingly available to people out of school with the popularity of MMA.
If you are able to get both, I personally would recommend training wrestling a bit harder than the boxing, both because you can go at a higher intensity without concussions (although sometimes collisions still happen), and because wrestling controls where a fight takes place (standing, on the ground, etc.).
One (the only?) useful thing you actually can practice on your own: standing up quickly. Look up “BJJ technical standup”, and practice getting up off the ground as quickly as possible. This won’t teach you how to get up from under people pinning you, but if you get knocked over or trip, it could make a huge difference being able to stand up before they get on top of you or stomp you.
Everything else you need sparring partners to do shit with, or it won’t really help. If you look around you might see stories about high level pros who “don’t spar”, but those are misleading clickbait – those guys already did all the sparring they needed and now they’re cutting it out to save brain-cells and extend careers. You still have to spar to develop the sense of distance management, stress, and not freaking out when you get hit in the face.
Also, if you’d like a bit of non-chud martial arts slop for fun, consider checking out Jack Slack (who just did a cool video on the Mir lock, in the context of Jon Jones’ infamous standing shoulder crank) and Heavy Hands (general fight breakdowns and predictions for UFC cards, sometimes they talk boxing specifically) on youtube.
There’s no way to spar in kickboxing without actually sloshing your noggin around?
Not that I’m aware of. Light sparring is better than beating the brakes off each other, but one of the big breakthroughs in understanding CTE in combat sports was finding out that even light sparring does some cumulative damage over time.
EDIT: now that I’m thinking about it, I’m pretty sure there has even been research showing something as innocuous as “heading” the ball in soccer could cause some minor brain damage over a career. Basically, brain is just hella sensitive.
Most martial arts is not fighting, it’s dance class.
I’m trying to stay as far away from the ritual as I can without immediately jumping into street fighting. So I’m trying to practice muaythai/boxing so incan build a sold foundation
I mean dance class is going to still teach you the basics of fighting, the mechanics of throwing a punch, the mechanics of kicking and using your body effectively. Cardio. Discipline.
This will effectively teach you to fight in most “normal guy in a bar scenarios”.
MMA will teach you a more realistic but still gamified form of fighting tactics.
However MMA can also teach you overconfidence. Most dance class will teach you to asses risks in fighting better than MMA will.
IRL the risk assessment and cardio is actually much more important than the fighting skill part, because you’re not realistically taking people 3 on 1 unless you’re yoked, train every day, etc. You’re also not going to realistically take on someone significantly bigger than you, because that’s not something you actually train for in MMA.
Also you really wanna choose your MMA gyms carefully, like you said this attracts too many chuds and many gyms especially if they’re run by them, do not take safety seriously enough because chuds excuse and permit chud behavior from other chuds.
