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I agree that a bad fighter will rarely beat a good fighter, regardless of style. The thing is, would a good fighter in style A be a more effective fighter in style B? Do the champions of style A beat the champions of style B? Is there a strong correlation that comes from that? If you control all variables except the style, and the styles come out as equally effective, then I agree that it's only the individual that counts. The best evidence (not really conclusive evidence, but the best we have) - MMA - suggests otherwise.

BJJ Front sweep - From open guard (assuming your closed guard is broken or you've ended up on your back unable to close guard), your feet are on their hips, Charlie Chaplin style, grab their gi sleeves or wrists, and if their forward momentum is insufficient, pull them down and compress your legs as you keep your feet on their hips. Straighten your legs out directly above you to get your opponent in the air, then roll them over your head, as you do a back roll and finish in the mount. My problem is executing a back roll - I've never been able to do it. We used to have to do it in phys ed. classes but I never could. I've been told that you need to tuck your head in to the side, or something like that, but if I do that I end up rolling to the side... Back sweep - From open guard, as with the front sweep, but your opponent is sick of being front swept, so they keep their weight back. Grab their heels, push with your feet on their hips to put them on their back. Now, from here, I know you're supposed to do something to stop them closing guard and let you pass through to mount, but I can't remember. It's the first class I've done back sweep, so maybe I need to see it again, or hit the books... Shootfighting Front kick - need to get my range right so my leg is still bent at contact, and lean my weight forward into the kick, but still avoid leaving my leg out there. Also need more drive from my hips, and need to stop falling over and doing a half-side kick. Need stronger abs to let me pull my knee up tight into my chest. Combo - Right cross, follow him as he falls back, outside head control and knee, keep outside head control and push him over. If you have good head control and get his body nice and bent over this should be simple. We drill it with a Thai pad/focus mitt for the right cross and a kick shield for the knee. This I have down reasonably ok. Takedown as response to shirt grab (not sure if the takedown has a technical name - I suspect the Judokas might know) - Cover your head as soon as he grabs your shirt(gi) to defend the headbutt. Right elbow pushes down on their left forearm and left hand gets outside head control. Right hand grabs their right wrist. Use head control to bend them over and walk them around until you have them positioned so you can step through with your right foot well past their leg and use your right leg as a fulcrum to take them down. From here you could mount, kneeride, whatever you like.

Nope. Unless you kick some hard, protruding bone like the elbow or perhaps the ankle, or their shin. When you're conditioned, you can deal with that to some degree too. It's a very common method in Muay Thai and Kyokushin, probably lots of others too. In our shootfighting system we round-kick this way.

Nope, it's solid, cannot really push it back. I guess am clean right? Maybe, but you don't want to guess! Get it checked and find out for sure

Are you able to "cheat" the rotation any before you're airborne?

I wasn't sure if this should go in this forum or perhaps in Health, Training and Fitness, but if so..move it, I guess The idea of this thread is like the MA Training Log, except, you record a technique (or techniques, if you like) that you've just been working on. In this way, you can receive tips from others who know this technique, compare to other methods of performing the technique, get new ideas for drilling the technique, new ways to describe them, and perhaps expose new techniques to others who might not have heard of them otherwise (with the usual caveat emptor about trying techniques you read about on the Internet ). Good idea?

Well done Kez! How's your belt look? Any fancywork or just the classic black?

Excellent post, full of valuable info

Can you show us a picture of that, Matt? Muay Thai fighters wear Pra Jiad on both their arms, which I believe is for traditional, mystical reasons. I've never heard of Western boxers doing anything like that.

This I agree with. If it helps you, then practice it. But then you say: The reason that different styles exist is that they teach different techniques, train them differently, and use them in competition differently. If you, hypothetically, could test various methods of delivering a round kick with all other variables controlled, then one would prove superior to the others. Depending on one's goal, the "chamber and snap, strike with instep" method may be more or less effective than the "swing the leg around with the body, keep the leg bent and strike with shin" method. That is, the element of one style would "help you" more than the same element of the other styles. However, comparing an entire style against another is a more complex proposition. MMA provides us the best proving ground that exists for martial arts styles. If certain MAs emerge with better results, over a large enough sample, than certain others - and they have - then that tells us that their combination of technique, training and suitability for use against resisting opponents is better. When I see "ATA Taekwondo", the images that come to mind is of little kids getting black belts inside 1-2 years, fighting with hands down and weak chins, no leg kicks, etc. I may only be seeing the worst view of an overall good style, but that's the only view I've seen. That's why people dog on ATA. I'm sure you practise hard. The question to ask yourself is, would you be a more effective fighter if you put that hard work toward a different style, or additional styles? Working smart, after all, is every bit as important as working hard. If I were to invent my own style - Head-Butt-Do - consisting entirely of headbutts - and work with superhuman effort towards perfection - I probably wouldn't be that effective a fighter, because of deficiencies in the style.

I try to visualize the techniques, I find that helps. At the same time, I do realise that at the moment, I am not as flexible, co-ordinated, or as used to the processing and assimilation of instructions and general movements as my classmates (I just moved up a class) so I am not too annoyed with myself for not being able to front sweep - I've never been able to back roll in my life, so I know it will take some work. Really, seven lessons is very very few. Do you remember what you were like after your first seven Shotokan lessons? I don't know about a "moment where it all falls into place" but it will gradually get easier and easier. You might experience such moments with individual techniques - though, in truth, it will more likely be a gradual approach toward the correct technique - but probably not the whole art. I'm trying to work with the attitude that I progress on nobody's timetable but my own. I will get that black belt, even if it takes me until I'm the age my instructor is now, and he's Helio Gracie's age!

You could, but that's not really an option if you'd rather try and out-grapple the person than try and out-strike them.

Make sure you cover up. If you cover up and move in quickly, you shouldn't eat anything too hard.

The standup class includes that, it just stops short of actually grappling on the ground (which is where the BJJ class comes in).

This may seem obvious, but have you been throwing hard strikes against thin air? With only your connective tissue to stop the strike, that can cause joint pain...

You're right, but BJJers can slam too If Judo or BJJ was going to be the only style you learn then I would agree with you on that point, but you already have TKD for standup, so I would say you want to do as much ground as possible. You might want to ask them about the injuries. What sorts of injuries did they seem to have? Did it seem like they were cranking joint locks hard? A BJJ rolling session should look reasonably aggressive, but still friendly. If these guys looked like they were out to hurt or humiliate their opponents then that's probably a bad environment. Either way, you'll end up learning a lot of useful things I think

Hi Rainbow_Warrior, As my standup and grappling classes are separate, 50/50, but in the combined beginner class, it was probably close to 70/30 or 60/40. I think that's about the right mix, because for most people striking is much more instinctive than grappling. Most people have punched something at some time, whether it was another person or an inanimate object. The most grappling most people have done is a crude headlock or a tackle.

One of the things we train a lot is what we call "the shell", where you grab the head as if to rub in hair gel (or rogaine, as is more appropriate for some of us ) and cover the face, looking out through the small gap between the forearms. While it's hard to be very proactive from the shell, it is useful if someone suddenly "kicks off" on you, in no small part because your hands will probably move that way anyway as part of your natural flinch response. It's also a technically easy technique to use under pressure. If your attacker threw 20 punches at full, adrenaline-fuelled force, how many could you parry or execute Karate-style blocks successfully against? We drill it in stand-up, with one partner moving up and down the length of the mat in their shell, with the other partner continually throwing punches aimed at the face (and blocked by the shell), and on the ground, where the partner on the bottom takes a few punches on the shell before bridging and rolling the top partner off of their mount, or working the guard to control and possibly sweep the top partner.

Hmm... He doesn't move well, so I would think it best to get off the tracks and attack him from the sides. Inside leg kick to cross combo, or to outside head and arm control for some knees. He looks rather big and tall to be getting outside head control on though. I don't think I could get him in a head tie without eating punches either, but if I could find a way to knee him I definitely would. He's obviously not got the conditioning to deal with that. His balance doesn't look the best either and I would think a skilled grappler could shoot for the double-leg and bring him down. I'd also be looking to cut him up with elbows if I found myself close enough and safe enough to do so.

Howdy, After having graded up, my training is now on Monday and Wednesday. Unfortunately, baseball training is now also on Wednesday, so I'm left with training once a week (BJJ, then shoot afterwards). Can you improve with this little training?

Mine is a fairly normal boxing stance. Length is about the same as a brisk walking stride, width is about hip to shoulder, facing at a 15-30 degree angle, knees bent slightly, back heel off the ground, weight on the balls of the feet.

Good work What did you have to do to pass grading?

You think it's hillarious to tell fighters in a movie or TV (or real life, for that matter) to sweep the leg. You pronounce the initial 'r' as 'h' in all names, whether they are Brazilian Portuguese names or not. "Look kids, there's Honald McDonald!"

I would use them: low, to the inside of the leg, to knock the attacker off balance, or mid-thigh, to the outside of the leg, to compromise their mobility and encourage them to drop their guard to protect the leg. Mid-thigh to the inside of the leg is probably even more effective for this since you're delivering serious force to a target near the groin You might also want to consider whether you can round-kick hard enough to do damage, or only hard enough to distract. Both are useful, but know that you're not going to give the guy a dead leg with a little slap kick. Oh, and unless you're very fast, keep your hands up

Boxing has definitely fallen in popularity compared to 10, 20 or 30 years ago. I think this has more to do with a lack of exciting fights, exciting fighters, crooked promoters and bad judges decisions than a rise in the popularity of MMA. Boxing just isn't that marketable right now. I suppose MMA is tending to capture much of what may have been the younger boxing demographic in the past, but MMA fighters are not the household names that boxers are, and most people don't even know what MMA is - the most they know is whatever was said on some "ultimate fighting expose" on the news. Still others think that anyone who can't win with their fists alone is a wimp, or that MMA fighters are all failed boxers or pro wrestlers (why wouldn't they fight there if they were good enough, since that's where the money is?). Boxing has fallen off the radar a bit but if it bounces back it will bounce back well, since the mainstream knows and understands it. MMA enjoys no such understanding yet, so it's in the balance. As for unification, I think two different sets of champions is ok - indeed, it makes for interesting topics of discussion in MMA, with the Pride and UFC champions being compared to each other, but four is too many.