DarthPenguin

Training time comes down more to 'sessions attended' than years. eg BJ Penn famously got his bjj bb in 3 years (and won worlds) when std time is 10-12 years but he trained basically full time. Assuming the average ma student trains twice a week every year then they probably manage 100 sessions a year, 1.5hrs per session, so approx 150hrs per year. Compare that to someone training all day 5 days per week. Assuming a 50/50 split between conditioning work and skill work that might be 20hrs skill training a week, so in 8 weeks (2 mths approx) they will have trained more than a hobbyist in a year. Their year would be like 6 years for the hobbyist. Add in being a world class athlete and they could get very very good (in normal person terms) in that 2 years. Where this falls down is prime Mike Tyson was a world class athlete, training full time with years of experience, so he has that skill acquisition times more. The one that always intrigued me was Amir Khan the boxer. Amazing hand speed, good power but a glass chin. I always wondered how he would have done in mma rather than boxing - the lighter gloves would have sorta compensated for his chin, since everyone would get hit harder, and at his weight classes they don't ko as often. Imagine his physical attributes with a lifetime of mma training - would have been interesting!

Saturday 14 October Karate Session Warm up Usual Warm up for session Kihon Worked through standard kihon from kiba-dachi rather than moving which is unusual for us. Then worked through combinations of kicks and strikes as per grading requirements Kata Ran through Bassai dai and also went over Kihon Kata and Heian Shodan Kumite We practiced footwork for kumite, taking an angle for a yoko geri or mawashi geri - working on not leaving yourself open post kick too. Then did multiple rounds of kumite Overall good session .First one for a few weeks as feeling a lot better now and i enjoyed it

100% agree here. Tbh the size/weight is more important than the height. someone equally skilled, my height but decent amount lighter i usually feel i can 'bully' a little when sparring; someone equally skilled, shorter but same or greater weight usually feels a LOT harder (especially if they can take a hit) - it's why they have weight classes and not height classes Would you say then that reach advantages are overrated? Not challenging your opinion, just asking. I think reach can be advantageous, but again, it can be situational. Someone who is 6'3" with long arms and legs but only weighs 130 lbs....typically, I am not going to worry as much about their reach. I'll take a few tags to get inside that. Now, if that person is 6'3" and 230 lbs, then that'll be a different story, even though I would still have weight on them. 100% agree and said a lot more succinctly than i managed it!

100% agree here. Tbh the size/weight is more important than the height. someone equally skilled, my height but decent amount lighter i usually feel i can 'bully' a little when sparring; someone equally skilled, shorter but same or greater weight usually feels a LOT harder (especially if they can take a hit) - it's why they have weight classes and not height classes Would you say then that reach advantages are overrated? Not challenging your opinion, just asking. For me, personally, i find that weight is more important than reach, though i would still say that reach is important. I would describe it as a bunch of different factors that can help. If someone is equally skilled and the same weight then reach does help. I think Mike Tyson illustrates the point quite well - when he was at his peak he covered up with a fantastic defence and got into close range before exploding. His defence was good enough and he was strong enough taking hits that he could get to the point when reach became a disadvantage. Reach plus size is the best (obviously) like Lennox Lewis or Wlad Klitschko, neither of whom had a great chin but were able to use their reaches and sheer size to have fantastic success. I would also say that reach helps more if it is full contact. In semi contact people can march through your strike as they don't get hurt (assuming it's continuous) and get into a range where you are less effective. Full contact you can try and hurt them before they get into their range. I think what it actually comes down to is there are a huge amount of factors at play and everything is individualised - apologies if the above is a bit rambling!

Excellent! I loved Frasier though i have already heard negative things about the reboot. Hope it's good though part of me wonders where they can go - by the finale they had pretty much exhausted most sensible plotlines; fingers crossed though!

100% agree here. Tbh the size/weight is more important than the height. someone equally skilled, my height but decent amount lighter i usually feel i can 'bully' a little when sparring; someone equally skilled, shorter but same or greater weight usually feels a LOT harder (especially if they can take a hit) - it's why they have weight classes and not height classes

Thursday 5 October Lifting session Next 'breaking back in' session Bench Press 20kg x 5 40kg x 5 50kg x 5 55kg x 5 60kg x 11 Seated overhead barbell press 25kg x 10 25kg x 10 25kg x 10 Triceps banded pushdown 25kg x 10 25kg x 10 25kg x 10 25kg x 10 Called it quits there as needed to get back to the kids - intention was just to keep getting back into it which i think i managed.

It is always a tough one tbh. As a simple example i am roughly the size of the larger individual in your example (i'm 6'4" and about 225lbs in American units). My background was mainly in striking styles until i added in bjj and i always noticed the following : whenever i went to a new striking style i could usually always hold my own sparring unless someone was a much higher level than me (i mean multiple dans etc) if i was a lot bigger than them, however, when i went to bjj for the first time it was totally different (and one of the main reasons i took it up). Rolled with a experienced white belt (got his blue soon after) who was about 5'6 and maybe 130-140lbs and got absolutely destroyed. I was nigh on helpless tbh. This may just be making the point again about skill differences though. There is a difference between being big and knowing how to use your size effectively. I think there is a clip somewhere of Conor McGregor sparring Hafthor Bjornsson and handling him pretty easily due to the skill disparity. Also look at Marius Pudzianovski (sp) the former multiple time WSM and his foray into mma. He had some prior martial arts training and he will have always been the biggest and strongest person in all of his fights but that didn't mean he won them all

unfortunately this is nigh on impossible to answer accurately. All i will say is weight classes exist for a reason and you need a significant disparity in skill to counteract this eg i think most boxing fans would concur that Floyd Mayweather Jnr is a significantly more skilled boxer than Anthony Joshua but i doubt Mayweather would stand a chance if they ever fought. You mention 8 years of training but this could be a 1hr session twice a week at a mediocre academy or every day at a world class school.

I've been tempted - thought a series S would be a good thing to get for my boy when he turns 7 at xmas time (an easy joint present) and could maybe use it too! Use a Mac rather than a PC so would likely need to go for Xbox version. Thats a useful descriptipn of the game though - as someone who has several copies of Skyrim on different platforms i can relate to it being consistently good and easy to come back to (punching dragons never gets old!)

has been really good so far. Think it's going to come down to Bills vs Chiefs again from their conference. We just need a non Josh Allen running game. If we can nail that down then i genuinely think we win the superbowl. He is always asked to do too much - throw loads plus be the main running back really. Mahomes can do it too but at least he always (historically) had a decent enough rb to carry that load. Am also please to see Purdy looking good still for San Fran. Was hoping he wasn't going to be a one season wonder and so far he looks legit

Is this not quite risky though - a semester of varying arts is just enough for a lot of people to become a danger to themselves - erroneously believing they 'can fight' and getting into situations that they shouldn't? I don't know, I guess the same question could be asked of the new yellow belt who is overconfident and thinks he knows more than he does. I don't see a problem with learning, or trying out, different styles to see what fits the student. Hopefully they have the maturity to not misuse it. Yep it's exactly the same. We used to call it "yellow belt syndrome" in fact! The difference i suppose is that in a non-semester environment you know that they will be offered more training and can get past it, plus the semester isn't an end point. In a semester course it is natural to view the end of the semester as "the end" and i can see that leading someone to thinking they have learnt all they need as otherwise it wouldn't be a one semester course would it (not that i agree with this mindset!)

interesting, when i used to use these we always had the opposite issue that we could only get rebreakable boards with the crease going horizontal and for some things we would have liked vertical! Might be too expensive but if it is something you are planning to practice a lot more again maybe it's worth getting some more boards with a horizontal crease and working between the two sets?

are you guys playing the pc version or the xbox series s/x version? I loved Skyrim so it is something that is tempting but not sure if it is good enough to shell out on an xbox for!

People enjoying the new season? As a Bills fan i was slightly worried at the start but now a lot more hopeful! We are nearing the tail end of our superbowl window so hopefully they can get over the hump this year

I also recently found out that the actor who plays Dr Mbenga in Star Trek Strange New Worlds is a 3rd Degree BB in BJJ, owns his own academy and used to make his living teaching. Apparently he is extremely good. So Ed O'Neill may now be the second best celebrity BJJ practitioner!

Are people still playing this? Myself i have found that progress has slowed down a LOT. I don't play it as much as it just isn't as fun as the older games once you hit the post-campaign 'grinding' phase. I am used to it from all the previous games (i started with Diablo 1) but they have somehow sucked a lot of the fun out of it. Personally i think it is due to the level scaling but others may disagree

Is this not quite risky though - a semester of varying arts is just enough for a lot of people to become a danger to themselves - erroneously believing they 'can fight' and getting into situations that they shouldn't?

I would say that over here it used to be the main reason for kids taking them up - though i would also say that the training has 'softened over time' since i was little. I would say now that more kids seem to take them up for fun/exercise/parental nudge - maybe due to fistfights (even in self defence) becoming less socially acceptable and common. People used to have a little more honour i found - if someone picked a fight and got a kicking then it was viewed as cost of doing business. Nowadays they come back with 10 friends and weapons.

Monday 2 October Lifting Session First lifting session in months! Decided to go for a light one just to get back to moving and see how i felt in the subsequent days (was slightly more fatigued than usual but nothing concerning) Trap Bar Deadlift 70kg x 5 80kg x 5 90kg x 5 100kg x 10 These felt slightly sticky at first but smoothed up by third set. Could have gone a lot heavier but didn't want to push it too far Back squats 40kg x 10 40kg x 10 40kg x 10 took these extremely easy to get used to squatting pattern again Banded biceps curls 25kg x 10 25kg x 10 25kg x 10 took these light but they were also just as a check and as something to get me back used to moving seated good morning with kb 4kg x 10 4kg x 10 4kg x 10 i saw these online a while ago and thought i would start doing them. Felt a nice stretch in my inner thigh area when doing these so will keep them up Not going to bother listing poundage and time taken for this session or next couple as they are getting back into it sessions

sounds like a couple of really productive sessions! The side spin kick sounds useful also - sometimes these kind of reality checks are good (plus better in a training environment to a real fight). Reminds me of a discussion i had with someone years ago : our usual training was semi contact but someone asked me if i was willing to do a few full contact rounds. We were similar belt levels (so that was fine) but he was a LOT smaller than me. Checked with him if he wanted to do it but he was adamant. Then after he complained that i basically just through front kicks, jabs, the odd straight and the odd low roundhouse. Was annoyed that i wasn't trying spin kicks etc. I pointed out to him that the reach difference meant i could do the techniques i chose with zero risk to myself as he couldn't reach me. Asked him why he thought that in an actual fight i would expose my self to any risk with no benefit. Was like a light went on in his head!

As a Mariners fan i admit to being disappointed that we got close but missed out. Now i'm hoping for a Verlander win tbh - he is (to my mind anyway) a genuine great and i would like to see him have another world series on his resume. Have a feeling it will be the Braves though - Acuna is having one of those seasons that seems almost destined to be capped off with a title

fingers crossed! I've just splashed out on a decent amount of new equipment for the house so am looking forward to getting back into it using the new gear Is there anything more motivating than buying new equipment?Yep! Am quite pleased - decided to splash out on a new power rack with a landmine attachment, a dual pulley machine with 2 x 90kg stacks, a ski erg and some more kettlebells. Plan to also get a grappling dummy and some kind of punchbag (my son wants some more mats to practice his ukemi and som epunching mitts to practice on). Looking forward to playing on it all though not to building it!

Congratulations, enjoy the shiny belt!

fingers crossed! I've just splashed out on a decent amount of new equipment for the house so am looking forward to getting back into it using the new gear