You are terrible, even if you don’t know it.
Let’s hit this right off the bat, this article applies to you. Unless you are a Professional MMA fighter in a top level promotion, an Olympic Level Judo-ka, or equivalent this article applies to you. It’s safe to say you aren’t any of those things, because people like that don’t waste precious training time reading stupid **** on Internet Forums, but we will get to that in the next section. Now that we established an audience, you, yes you reading this, suck at Martial Arts. I know, you have over 10 years of experience, have some crazy (possibly made up or exaggerated) street situation where you proved your martial prowess or teach Martial Arts Professionally. It doesn’t matter and it is ok, for most of us this is a hobby, something we do in our spare time. And for you that teach full time for a living, not everyone that does something for a living is considered an expert or authority in their field. The issue is very few people see what it is to be good at Martial Arts. I have trained with numerous instructors of multiple different disciplines, and after 15 years of training and multiple black belts I can get the better of them or make them work for it. And at the end of the session, they must think I’m pretty good, but in reality I just know they suck just as bad as I do. I know I suck because when I roll with a Mundial Champion, or Randori with a National Level Judo-ka I get ragdolled and it turns into a exercise in survival. This is equivalent to being a College Senior. High School Freshman look at you as a knowledgeable highly educated figure in your field. However, the real experts in the field see you as just a beginner that doesn’t know anything but has potential. People reading this article, fall between High School Freshman (beginners/White Belts) and College Seniors (You or your instructor). But the true expert in hand to hand combat see you all as you really are. Terrible. Now you ask, how do I start being good? Well….
Getting good at Martial Arts takes far more work than you are putting in
I think it’s crazy that people think they can get good at a skill they are putting so little time into. Take your career, Let’s assume you are a doctor. You go to undergrad for 4 years, 4 years of Med School, then another 3-7 years of residency before you considered a full doctor. Assuming a standard 40-hour week (I know doctors work more than that) That is over 22,000 hours of time training, studying, learning and practicing. That doesn’t include the continuous learning and improving on the job. Now, after work you decide to try Martial Arts and want to be good, so you go into it hardcore and do 3 1.5 hour classes a week. At 4.5 hours a week, using the same calculation, it would take you nearly 100 years. If you are immortal that is awesome, go for it. If you one of us mere mortals, you’ll need to spend more time on the mat. The fact is the people that are good and can fight at the level you want train full time, 8 hours a day, technique, strength and conditioning. Now, if supporting yourself and your family is your priority and not training, like most of us, you’ll just have to accept you will never be good. You may be good enough, to be happy with your skill, and that is ok. But you’ll never be on the level of the elite.
You are out of shape, and no amount of technique will make up for your poor diet
Do you know who loses a fight? The first person that gets tired. How do you feel after a 5 minute sparring round? Are you exhausted 3 mins into it? How many rounds can you do, can you go hard for 5 minutes, get a fresh partner and keep going? At 30 minutes do you need a break? So yeah, you are out of shape. Part of it is your Strength and Conditioning regimen (we will get to that) but most likely you have a shitty diet. How many calories is your Martial Arts workout burning? If you aren’t even sparring in training it’s probably not nearly as much as you think. How many calories are you eating after training, it’ probably more than you think. This is why a lot of Black Belt instructors are overweight. With 20 years of poor diet, and getting less exercise than they think your instructor is now in their 40s and overweight. Yes after 20 years, they have some skills they can show you, but don’t expect them to do 10 5 minute rounds against opponents that are pushing the pace, they will be lucky to do 2 rounds and they usually against people far less skilled so they don’t need to tap into the non-existent cardio. At this point, I don’t care how good your technique is or most likely, how good you think it is. Once you get tired, or that tight sharp technique gets sloppy. Hands drop from the head to the chest, elbows come away from the body and your sprawls behind a second too late.
This is where the CCW carriers talk about their concealed pistol. You know what is important in shooting accurately? Breath Control. Even if you are awesome at the range, have you even tried to do wind sprints, then try to do shoot? I watched a “CCW expert” get so tired that he missed 10 out of 10 shots on a target 15 yards away and then grabbed his pocket knife instead of his spare magazine and tried to jam it in his magazine well. This is assuming you can get to your weapon at all times and your mass and lack of flexibility doesn’t pin your pistol between you and your seat.
Size and Strength matter
Now that we addressed that you are fat and out of shape. The next bombshell is that you are weaker than you think. And the end of the day your technique is going to be as good as you can apply them. Yes, technique come first, but strength and power follows technique. Unless you are putting in the hours I described above (you aren’t) your technique isn’t going to be perfect. So when are fighting someone, how long will your muscles last till they burn out. When you are trying to finish a choke, how long till your arms give, when you are boxing, how long till you strikes have little power behind them. Just because you have the strength for the first minute, doesn’t mean you can continue the rest of the round, or the next 4 rounds. Once you can’t put any power behind your throws, strikes or joint locks, your technique really doesn’t matter.
To learn to fight, you need to fight….a lot
If you aren’t sparring for at least 30 minutes every training session, then start. It is the only way to polish your techniques to the point they are usable against some trying to attack you. If you come from a school where you learning techniques that are too dangerous to spar with, then stop reading, you are too fucking stupid for this article. Go find a site where you can join people who think natural oils cure cancer or vaccines cause autism and all you morons can be together. For the rest of us, to learn to fight you need to fight. Choose whichever ruleset you want and go for it. The rules are there to allow you work on technique against a fully resisting opponent trying to do the same to you without getting injured so you can do it again next round, and then again the next day. Swimmers swim, Lifters Lift, and Fighters Fight. If you want to play the “I’m a Martial Artist not a Fighter” card you can, but let me leave you with this, you can be a Fighter without being a Martial Artist, but you can’t be a Martial Artist without being a Fighter.