I have seen that an old coaching maxim is pretty accurate:
"Practice does not make perfect. Practice makes permanant."
In my opinion, a balanced approach is necessary. We train to move, strike and grapple. Both standing and on the ground. If you train exclusively in one area to the expense of the others, you may be out of balance and unprepared.
Certain arts train for max speed, others for max power, still others for weapons or superior grappling abilities. To me, the approach of 'Jack of all trades, master of none' would seem most benificial for most self defense situations.
Along those lines, sport vs. self-defense.... It's ok to train for sport, as long as you realize what you are truly training for. You can be king shit in your training hall and have an undefeated competition record. If your inflated ego gets you engaged with a serious f**k with a 2 inch blade that you never see and you attempt your best Gracie move to 'submit' him, he may just gut you like a fish.
This, of course leads into the same old argument of 'just bringing a gun' to settle everything. Which is, of course, a waste of debating time.
For each of us, we must find our own way. I like the balanced approach and I like to train sport because it has a lot of benifits as well. I like to incorporate judo and jiu jitsu into my training, weapons and firearms, as well as anything else I can learn and use with sufficient skill.
When I spar I see exactly what you're talking about. You forget all technique, and rely on strength, speed and gross motor movements and have a tendency to want to square up and duke it out.
To be honest with you, I haven't been in a fight since jr. high school. So I don't really know which parts of my training will work or not work in a shit hits the fan situation. But I train in stand up and ground fighting to use in those realms. I don't waste my time in training in high kicks because I can't do them. So why would I train in high kicking to not high kick???? Same as training in groundfighting so I won't have to groundfight Seems like an inefficient use of my limited training time!?
SZ
|