Does Size Matter?

[Kevin]

Size

If the big money in boxing is in the heavyweight division, how come someone like Pernell Whittaker never moved up for the BIIIIG paydays? Pernell Whittaker vs Mike Tyson?

Ever see the documentary on the Ali-George Foreman fight in Africa? They said that Ali wouldn't watch George hit the heavy bag lest he be psyched out by Big George's power. He would stand there and methodically whomp on the bag leaving a dent which a watermelon could fit in. Probably would have damn near tore the thing in half if his size hadn't slowed him down!

"Yip Man always said that if you put two men together with equal skill, the big guy would always win," (Hawkins) Cheung recalled (IKF-Feb 2001 pg 31).
And that's from a Grandmaster of a style which bills itself as a small person's art.

~Kev

[Dion]

Size matters ????????? *disappointment or confussion* ??????


Size, strength, speed, agility, whatever "name" or better said "tool", are not a matter of making a difference or not, in combat or for that fact at any time. Instead they represent ones own ability to do something beyond the constraints of what they have been set to by societies conformed beliefs. Let go of the deceptive reality, stop conforming to whether something matters or not and face the facts of life... Anything is possible, look back through history, the proof is and has always been there, people are merely blinded by what they think is right or wrong.

I too am still on the journey to freedom or am I, when does the journey begin and when does it end... when does life begin and end? It doesn't, it just keeps going.

Ok, to let my ego go and set aside my so called "philisopical ways" in order to to give you an example in the conformed "way" that society wants to accept...

Ok, firstly I average around the 60 kilogram mark when I am not laid out for periods of time eg hurt etc you know (hey grab this one... even... DOA.. yeh for several minutes) but I have always continued forward nevering looking back to grieve over my failures... and 5'11" in height.

It's very easy to lose your "way" and humans like to sit in the background to themself and find the so called "easy way". There is no "easy way", there just is.... so just be.

Next, On one side of my family are Finnish (you know the big scary viking type people) and these boys are big and to say the least strong. One of my cousins who for a long time I "hung" with for a few years when younger, Now this guy is easy 3 times my size, BUT, as I proved, to not only him but myself, that I could be as strong as he... or could I ? I believe he could have taken himself further but wouldnt, back then being the smaller guy amoungts the giants, my strength was challenged many times and each time I just let myself do what was needed and performed their little "tricks" for them etc and in time probably due to their way of thinking I was no longer taunted as being the little guy. Also, I unlike them had something that grew a respect in them for me and that was the fact that I was also extremely quick in my movements and didnt back away when confronted and continued to find my limits, I just did what I had to when I had to and that included going beyond what is percieved as ones own strength or ones own limits.

Somewhere it was said ... Man is mightier then the mountain or The pen is mighter than the sword... they were said for not be any single answer but to be as a guide to yourself and everything but also to nothing.

Remember anything is possible, just let yourself go. You CAN do anything and NOT just what you set your hehe "mind" to.

- I have never done power lifting and prob never will but then again how do you really define power lifting and why power lift for that fact, well there are reasons for everything but not everybody...
Though I have and do use weights as a method to regain myself and nothing more, I use the weights I dont let them use me.

- I enjoy keeping my physique at a very peek level and as said to me... "theres not a drop of fat on him" or "damn how do you get all those cuts", fat is merely a store of fuel your body puts aside till it needs it because you stop using something that requires fuel. Let your self really live, try this "trick".... give yourself the (put many other ways as well) "goos bumps" feeling on a whim... Can you do it ? Master yourself before you try to master anything else.

The Physical size of something matters not, the mountain may have the size to crush a man, but man has the intelligence to move away from the mountains eminent danger..... wierder example... the falling boulder may have the size and strength(in the form of weight and gravity) to crush a man but man has his "own" strength in the form of "energy" to move out of its way, and unlike the boulder who then waits for the next chance to exert its power upon man from its "energy", man continues his unending flow of movement and strikes back at the boulder not once but many times, eventually yet ultimately breaking its solid form down to a smaller weaker one, where is the boulders strength and power then ? (hint the answer is in the answer itself but it aint. Also a science demonstration I once watched showed a normal everyday cheap white wax candle being shot through a solid board just over an inch thick, it left a perfectly round hole in the board, like as if the board wasnt there yet the board was surely the "physically" / "structurally" stronger of the two, but with the combination of simplisity the candle struck the board, and passed straight through, without give.


Free yourself, find true strength, true speed... its in you, you just don't know it yet.


Strength is within everyone, size and mass are irrelivent, awareness holds the most relivance, be aware of everything and everything will in turn be aware of you... balance... let go... just be...

First step... Never give up on anything! and that means anything, just keep trying. The answers, will, come too you.
But also do not fall victim to some conformed way of doing something, some of lifes lessons will only become apparent to you when you least expect them to, though some times the lesson has already been given, you just missed it or forgot it.... remember always forward... never holding back!

Nature can bring down the biggest of men with the littlest of things.... think about that...

Later...


Above I mentioned failures where I should have said harsh lessons, no one ever really fails, they are merely taught that one way is not always the right way, that there are manys ways to achieve a similar outcome.


[Edited by Dion on 01-05-2001 at 06:44 PM]

[Chad W. Getz]

Re: Size

Originally posted by Kevin
If the big money in boxing is in the heavyweight division, how come someone like Pernell Whittaker never moved up for the BIIIIG paydays? Pernell Whittaker vs Mike Tyson?

Sport with rules.

Originally posted by Kevin
"Yip Man always said that if you put two men together with equal skill, the big guy would always win," (Hawkins) Cheung recalled (IKF-Feb 2001 pg 31).
And that's from a Grandmaster of a style which bills itself as a small person's art.

~Kev

The trick would then be to have the better "skill". Which comes from smart training. So size does matter with all other things being equal. Of course there is still the "third truth" to deal with, which in essence says that any man can win on any given day for any given reason. But all other things being equal, I believe that size/strength can strengthen your "technique". Roy Harris says something about BJJ in America at http://www.teammaa.com under the interview with Roy Harris section that is related to this.

Or just click on http://www.teammaa.com/Roy.htm .

I stand at 6'0", over 200 lbs. I first started learning the sticks with a small little filipino man. I was also told that part of the reason the Filipino arts were deadly was that they knew how to move their body. They put their body weight behind the stikes. So logically, I thought if I could use my weight, I would be better. Basically, if a small man with good training methods and good understanding of the priciples that govern a fight, develops a method of beating guys bigger than him, than a bigger, naturally stronger man should be able to utilize the smaller man's principles and understandings and good training methods to eventually beat him. Now their are factors such as flexibility and such (see Royler's arm bar escape at ADCC 2000 or his figure 4 that Sakuraba caught him in at Pride), but we're not nit picking, are we?

I have been accused of using too much of my weight and strength behind my fighting. This suprised me though, because I just use the same principles that I was taught as "techniques" and added my own natural strengths to it. It is a very very rare day for you to find me muscling with someone. If I want to do something and someone's muscle stops me, I go around or set it up. Well, time to get back to work.

[Edited by Chad W. Getz on 01-05-2001 at 07:38 PM]

[Dion]

You still seem to be wandering along the path of "technique" and or "form" it seems and attempting to grasp out for the answer instead of letting it come to you.....

One mans "reasoning" behind developing "their way" of doing something should still not be looked upon as the right or wrong "way"... it is merely their "way"...

You see, you have answered your own query.... where when you say eg... when your muscle/strength/size proves ineffective you look for other ways... ok ok not word for word...

Why look for one way or another way... go your way... don't conform to something because you are deceived by that which you or someone else has "decided" is right or wrong... just be true and open to yourself and your own abilites... then the "moves", "power" and "strength" will be there, and be as one, when you need it, just don't fight it...

Who does your "size" or "technique" really matter to ? ... People watching you ? Your opponent combating you ? The bird flying by ? none of them ... the only one that it ultimately "matters" to is yourself...

Oh of course after repetitive practise at something will you become mechanical enough to respond and strike back at something you have yet to understand... Mechanical response is not what your after, flow remember...

...

PS: It is one thing to quote one on what they have said but it is another thing to take that quote and turn it into gospel or to take it out of context, both seem to be very common though....

Why are they grandmasters? Why do they feel they do not need to "show off" or develope themselves along the "ways" of another ? Why is it they are so gracefull ?

Is is because they are not from conforming to some gospel truth, nor constraining themselves within a set "form" or "style", but because they have passed beyond that which the normal man considers a nessecary part of life ?
Well to ask it one way anyhow...

To be the "GrandMaster" of "the masters" ... How can one be a "master" of "the masters" ???

Is Grandmaster just a "name" we place on someone because we don't fully understand how they come to be as they are and how they use "themselves" as born into or from a "style" or "way" ?

Anyone can become a perfect repetitive machine, it is the ability to shed the repetitive "machine state" that would more likely seperate them from "master" and "grandmaster"...

Ones greatness is not determined by what others think or say, instead ones greatness comes from within, from understanding, from accepting, not forcing.

It is one thing to "master" some "form" or "way"...
It is another thing to "master" yourself!

Remember.... stay free!

Conformity is like a wall, the more rules we place on what we can do, the higher and stronger the wall gets...

Break down the walls!

Damn... will all my posts be this long? hehe ahhh well as some old australian sayings go "she'll be right mate" or "you'll be right" or "she'll get there" ... and many more not only from australia but everywhere and they all hold the same truths about life... just keep going, don't drop your guard at any one time, or you will struck down with all the "power", "cunning", and "beauty" of nature... remember nature can strike the biggest of man down before he can think about or analyse it.... life is what it is.. and you are who you are... nothing else matters... just truth!

I heard this somewhere once... You can't kill a spirit or break a dream... how much truth that also holds is awe inspiring, there lies 'your' strength, not anywhere else...

[Kevin]

------------------------------------------------------------Originally posted by Kevin
If the big money in boxing is in the heavyweight division, how come someone like Pernell Whittaker never moved up for the BIIIG paydays
------------------------------------------------------------

>>Sport with rules.<<

So there is no cross over when there are no rules? Which attributes/skills come into play for the smaller guy in the street which are unattainable for the big guy? If the small guy can incorporate street tactics... can't a trained big guy do the same? Kinda like the guys who say that they would just bite the BJJ player if he took him to the ground, totally dismissing the fact that the BJJ man has teeth too!


quote:
------------------------------------------------------------Originally posted by Kevin
"Yip Man always said that if you put two men together with equal skill, the big guy would always win," (Hawkins) Cheung recalled (IKF-Feb 2001 pg 31).
And that's from a Grandmaster of a style which bills itself as a small person's art.

~Kev
------------------------------------------------------------

>>The trick would then be to have the better "skill". Which comes from smart training. So size does matter with all other things being equal.<<


I never thought that the smaller guy couldn't win (... not that naive), just that size "matters".

In the IKF article, Hawkins Cheung stated that Yip Man was able to negate the other fighter's size factor through superior skill. But I have to wonder how he would have fared if he faced a clone who packed an additional 75 lbs of muscle. Sifu Cheung also said in the article that he received private tutoring from GM Yip Man which developed his attribute(my word) of skill which enabled him to best larger foes.

>>>So logically, I thought if I could use my weight, I would be better. Basically, if a small man with good training methods and good understanding of the priciples that govern a fight, develops a method of beating guys bigger than him, than a bigger, naturally stronger man should be able to utilize the smaller man's principles and understandings and good training methods to eventually beat him.<<<

Chad... that has been my train of thought too.

I think we agree more than we disagree. But we need to difer, or this discussion forum would consist of a bunch of guys going.... yeah, yeah... I agree, I agree... good point

Later...
~Kev


[Edited by Kevin on 01-05-2001 at 10:08 PM]

[Dion]

Kevin, what is logic ?... it is usually the illogical that most surprises us or catches us off our guard... We are a logical being, as science says, we have 2 sides of the brain, the logical and the creative and they say in everyone either one side rules or the other... Win that battle first, find balance in your head before you find it anywhere else...

Hey wait did I say 2 sides ?? Now what could that have something in common with ?

No answer for that one...

Are you logical, are you creative,
or
are you both ?

Yip may have said that the bigger man will always win, but I believe that he took what he knew and threw it out of context...

Universe example ... Lets take our earth... pretty damn big and I would say has quite some "strength" in its way.
Now take say oh... a meteorite only say 1:20th the size of our earth. Now lets throw a bit of energy into the mix...
Now give that energy to the meteorite and propell it at the earth all at once (obviously providing it with a good deal of "speed" or better said "force", given in a vacuum there is no opposing "forces" to slow the meteors advance and hence it is never held back or slowed. While it travels toward the earth... yes forget about the other "matter" in the universe for a second.. that would be to complex yet and see it as the meteorite happening upon the right path toward the earth...) now at the moment of impact with the earth... instead of pulling back, the meteorite, continues into it with not less force but equal or more force as before (gravity or the "force" of attraction also comes into play in science). Now what happens to the earth when the meteorite hits ?
Well given enough "force" the earth will be destroyed...

The universe does not discriminate between big or little, the amount of "force" applied is more important not the "size", the bigger will not always provide enough "force" to create any effective outcome due to it requiring not only more "force" to initially be exerted into moving but also more "energy" will be wasted to do so... although the meteorite on the other hand has wasted very little energy to get moving in comparance and yet has immence deadly "force".

Once "force" becomes great enough then "size" or "mass" become irrelivent and so with man... provide enough "force" and nothing will stop it.

Ok ok Im no physics proffessor so my examples may not be so called 100% scientifically correct but Im sure you will understand....

[Kevin]

Logic

>>>Kevin, what is logic ?...

Logic is the science of correct or reliable reasoning.

The question is.... "Does size matter" in the context of a street altercation.

In order to determine if size matters, I took the tack of making all other factors (e.g.-attributes) equal and adding size into the mix to see if size "matters".

You have changed the factors to a degree which negates the factor of size (which I never said couldn't be done).

Lets give the Earth the same amonut of "speed" or better said "force", and lets see if size is a factor.

"Totally illogical" -Spock

JMO...
~Kev

[Edited by Kevin on 01-05-2001 at 11:05 PM]

[Dion]

Gotchyaself... hehe

The point is not whether something is logical or not...

Where does logic fit into creativity ?

Where does creativity fit into logic ?

Show me the boundries!

An inventor defies logic by creating new "things", he does although use both his logic AND creativity to produce the new one "thing"... from the two is born one.

Somewhere else it was said... Given enough force and determination, man can move mountains... not sure if thats exact but along right lines....

Where does the mountains "size" come into play when man is "forcing" it to "break" or "fall"... ultimately the mountain has to give into the unrelenting "force".
More "force" the quicker it goes... The only real defence the mountain has is "time" and the "hope" that the man will cease his oncoming "force" which ultimately wont be up to the mountain but will be upto time to tell...

Ahh heres a good example then again it may not be.....

At a fire demonstration whilst on duty, we watched the demonstrated power of the M-60 machine gun against different materials and objects, one object they had setup was a solid cement block weighing much more than any human could weigh and also almost bigger in size than a lot of people... Now guess what happened to the cement block once they opened fire on it ?

It shattered and was reduced to mere rubble...

Hmm... a "little" object shattering a "larger" object... also note the "little" object was also "softer" than then "larger" cement... Why was the small able to bring down the large ? .... With plenty of "force" also throw in some determination etc but that again is something in itself!

Sorry to use an example from such a violently percieved object but it provides the perfect example of "force" against "size"....

Also in physics there is the "rule" of opposing force... the bigger the object the more oppososing "force" will be applied to it.... surface area etc etc and we could go into a science discussion but that is not for this discussion, we need only a few examples from which I hope to try to explain...

What if applied to the earth instead ? as I mentioned ... more energy is required to exert the same force as would be required for a smaller object... to extend.. more loss than gain...

[Chad W. Getz]

I think we agree more than we disagree. But we need to difer, or this discussion forum would consist of a bunch of guys going.... yeah, yeah... I agree, I agree... good point.

Yeah, yeah...I agree, I agree...good point.

[Kevin]

Originally posted by Chad W. Getz

I think we agree more than we disagree. But we need to difer, or this discussion forum would consist of a bunch of guys going.... yeah, yeah... I agree, I agree... good point.

Yeah, yeah...I agree, I agree...good point.

Ha!

[Dion]

--------

Heh and there I was almost about to stop with just a smile but then I turned myself around something else that holds false truth....

Sheesh does he never end... hehe... nope! unrelentingly onward is me

The statement "agree to disagree" in itself is a contradiction of itself and that should not be, is it not true as well that to 'agree to disagree' is to conform to some one thing still ? ... hmmmmm

What holds more truth is the statement "agree to disagree, then agree to forget but always aware" ... ok that may not explain it to the fullest again but heck this is only an attempt at interpreting something that is ultimately everything...

Ok .. now I think I am going to have to put a few things onto a web page... Getting this vast in subject its place no longer resides in a post and I have so much I so wish to express and extend upon "the ideals" and "ways" that I feel have been taken out of context or as 'the gospel truth', there is so much that can be learnt, even from ones own ramblings, and is it not from the ramblings of madmen that truth and wisdom is born ? ... well something like that.


**Ones 'art' is not something that has definition in logic, yet its values lay in logic, and has no value in creativity, yet its definition is firmly planted in creativness**

--------

did it again heh... like a stream it never ends

[Paul Sharp]

If the skill level and conditioning are fairly close, size will make a difference.

Try rolling with a 300 pounder at your skill level.

Peace,
Paul Sharp

http://www.championjiujitsu.com

[Dion]

wheres your skill come into play when nature strikes you down with grand ferocity in the form of a weightless lightning strike formed from energy ??

Get back up after that one... if you can. heh heh

ultimately even as physics says is law, apply enough force... and the force one exerts is within themselves not within anything percieved with the mere label of 'skill level'... hey yeh expotentially as the size grows so does the mass and hence the more energy or force required to move it in the first place, but the same energy or force applied to a smaller sized/massed object will due to it requiring less in the first place produce a greater outcome...

and anyhow ultimately if you apply the same 'force' to equally so called 'skilled' but different sized 'opponents' then BOTH will be destroyed as a result... can't fight nature and natures 'skills' go far beyond that percieved at the moment by so many as "martial arts skill"...

***ONLY THE FOOLISH SHOULD TRY THIS!!!!!!****
Trick: get 2 equally wieghing and sized ball pein hammers and hit them together with the same force and see what happens hehehehe Ill tell you for those who think they should go see what happens..... The hammers explode upon impact due to the extreme force.. so ultimately if one or the other does not give then they both go out with a bang... balance is lost.

[Monkey]

Dion, one problem people still make in martial arts and the such is to take analogies and the like too far!!

Like my old kung fu teacher, he said that being relaxed and soft is better because when u bang a dead dry stick and a living green one together, the old dry one breaks. Hence 'soft' technique is better. But human muscle and bone is made from different stuff and being relaxed just makes ur muscles softer, not ur bones, so eventually if u think about almost any analogy enough, it just unravels because they can only ever be used to illustrate a concept, because every analogy is limited in its similarity to the real thing.

Just because two hammers explode together... it doesnt have much relation to a fight unless two powerful people punch eachother's fists and damage eachother's fists! But thats not what we're talking about. Balance is lost? Balance is just a term we talk about to say that when we are balanced our bodies are in equilibrium ie supported by our legs. Im not sure how u would talk about balance being lost because two particular ball bearings shattered due to a collision.
U could say that balance is lost if somebody doesnt support
themselves properly with their legs so they fall over, but.... u confuse me and lose me in word play. If others can get at what u are saying, then thats fine for them, I just cant exract any logic from it. At least not any real world logic, just abstract logic.

And what do mountains or lightning bolts have to do with combat between two human beings? I mean I could argue that size doesnt matter, only speed matters all because a small bullet at a large speed does more damage than, say, a baseball bat. Whats the point of that? Does it prove anything? No. Its just word play and completely subjective to a billion different things.

Agreeing to disagree is not a contradiction. Because the thing one disagrees about is a separate thing from what one agrees with. It just means that two people *disagree* about one thing so they *agree* to stop trying to convince eachother of their viewpoints.

U shouldnt take those sort of things further than what they were designed for!! If u dont understand their meanings, then dont use them for it only causes confusion and they outlive their usefulnesses and clutter communication. So if anything, just simplify what u are trying to say.

And nobody can make big statements like technique and skill the same, different size, big guy therefore wins.

It all depends on an innumerable number of factors. And some techniques require more strength to be effective than others!! People say that in real life Bruce Lee couldnt have beaten the grapplers of today, or he would have become a grappler himself. Now thats possible but theres no point in saying it. U would also have to think about how fast his finger jabs were and on and on. Even a weak person can do major damage with a finger jab to a big person. So size wouldnt seem to be very important there. With grappling, size obviously matters. U cant just write rules like Size Matters or Size Doesnt Matter. U have to look at a real situation and see if it matters THEN, not a theoretical one.
And even if it matters THEN, it may not matter another time.

And what about Bruce Lee's groin kicks?? I mean even if there is not much force in a groin kick, it'll put a big man down. A couple of finger jabs and groin kicks all delivered quickly and skillfully doesnt need strength. But if he was going to grapple or do a straight blast or something, then size might have a bearing, or it may mean that his power would need to come more from technique or however u would like to say it.

SO u would have to work out which techniques would be used in the fight but how would u ever know that?? Its unknowable so its something nobody can back up in an argument, one way or the other. So why say it?

All in all, although this is no rule and I cant prove it or show that its right, my hunch is that how u hit has a much bigger bearing on the power and speed of the hit than how big u are. And grappling, well I dont know enough about it yet to say but technique is obviously more important than strength and size. But its equally arguable that size and strength matters more than anything else, because depending on how the fight goes, it may come down to strength ie wrestling or strength may have no bearing eg if somebody gets kicked in the nuts.

Lee said that "one of the diseases of the martial arts is in trying to predict the outcome of a fight". I think he's right about that. One of the pointless ways of thinking about a martial arts problem is to think theoretically, ie something like if u made a clone of a man except it was bigger, which one would win? The big version or the smaller version?

Maybe the big one would have a disadvantage in speed which the small guy could exploit. Maybe the smaller one couldnt get the body weight into his strikes and so the big guy would win. But then maybe the smaller guy's punches were hitting fast enough to do more damage and so he won. Or maybe the big guy grappled with him and overpowered him.
Notice how many MAYBEs there were in there.

And we could all go on forever with an unlimited number of maybes. But what would we accomplish? We wouldnt learn anything from it, because all those maybes are all possible so we couldnt find a relationship between size and fight winnability.

It wouldnt be real and so its just a waste of time that we get caught up in simply because our minds are so complex and over active and these are the sort of things that get into our imagination when we ponder these questions. And, its one that people have been thinking about for a long time. But it doesnt really get us anywhere without considering the individual.

I say lets drop this because nobody can ever prove it one way or the other suffice to say that u can make urself faster and stronger but u cant exactly enlarge urself or shrink urself, so even if we did prove it one way or the other, nobody could take much advantage of this knowledge anyway.

There are just too many factors involved to write a rule one way or the other.

One more thing.

------
I think we agree more than we disagree. But we need to difer, or this discussion forum would consist of a bunch of guys going.... yeah, yeah... I agree, I agree... good point
------

Why do we need to differ? We should search for the truth and aspire to share our knowledge with others in the hope that we will all reach an understanding for OURSELVES.
If we can all agree about something, then we have made progress and we can move onto something else that we are struggling with.

Anyway Im hungry now so Im gonna go eat lunch. =)
Have fun.
Peace

PS Yip Man was a dope head =P

[Monkey]

PPS

That thing about the meteorite and planet earth is ridiculous and completely off the track.

Ok so its small but its moving fast. So u've proved that a large force does damage. Same principle with bullets and fists. So? What does that have to do with a large humans ability to generate a large force as opposed to a small one? Does a meteor have muscles? Of course not. If it did, and so did earth, then I think its safe to say earth would win that particular arm wrestle. But then again, so what? None of any of it has anything to do with anything.

Ok now Im really gone
Peace