Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Yum
Its the individual, not the style that makes the fighter.
Bruce Lee himself said that an individuals attributes make him a superior fighter.
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I still only agree with that statement 50%. If it were true, then no school would dominate competitions. No school could bring home all the trophies. That school that produces champions has to be doing something right.
It would be either that or they recruited fighters for their school.
I agree that personal attributes play a big part, but I think that what Bruce meant when he stated that was that you can't take technique A-J and expect them to work for every person. Fat people won't fight like skinny people. Tall people won't fight like short people. They can try, but most won't enjoy success because they are trying to go beyond what they have to work with.
However, Bruce had a number of techniques that he taught. And using those finite amount of techniques, he helped each fighter to find their strong points and then pick which tools to use according to what those strong points were. But they were still using the tools that he deemed efficient for fighting.
The same is seen in TMA's. Just because they don't initially train for a custom fit doesn't mean that they don't encourage personal exploration once you've mastered whatever tools they see fit for combat. Each man will lean toward using whatever favorite techniques he has, and he will then begin developing personal strategies for using them.
Still, I say that there are superior methods of combat and teaching those methods of combat. People who are faster and stronger would excel with less effort, but the method would be the same.
I gave this example before. Early on in the UFC, its no secret that BJJ was dominating the event. It wasn't that they were any better conditioned. They weren't stronger or even necessarily faster. It was purely technique based wins that dominated. BJJ was one of the few arts earlier in NHB where the fighters would keep good form when they fought and didn't resort to brawling and flailing. Most other styles looked just like each other because once they got hit, they reverted to brawling.
If the previous statements about it being about the individual were true, that would mean that every man using BJJ had to be in better shape, faster and/or stronger, and more well rounded than the men they were beating. I KNOW that wasn't the case.
It had to do with what they learned, not with particularly who they were. Brazilians were winning in all the events. From Rickson in Pride, to Renzo in WCC, to Royce in UFC.
That wasn't a coincidence. That wasn't by chance.