How good do YOU think you are?

[baronbvp]

Most of the martial artists I know are fairly humble. Even those who've trained for many years think of themselves as students even as they teach. A key difference between this forum and some others out there is that this one tends to attract people who still think they have a lot to learn regardless of how long they've trained, in how many styles they've trained, what belts they may hold, and/or how lethally they can fight.

I think we often feel less capable at fighting than we think others are, or even than others may tell us they think we are. How good do YOU think you are? What do you think you do well, and what not so well? What is your greatest strength and your greatest weakness? What would you most like to get better at?

An honest self-assessment is difficult. I'll go first: I am an older martial artist who has sampled many styles but not excelled at any of them. Being in the military, I have never been around long enough to train consistently in any one style or at any one place. As a result, my style is fairly hodge-podgy. I fight naturally more like a kickboxer than a karate guy. My lower body is fairly tight and kicks are difficult for me. I am aggressive and resilient but slender and older. I find it difficult to swivel my hips which keeps me from being as powerful as I'd like. I stay calm under pressure, have a good jab, and can switch stances easily. I don't move my head nearly enough so I absorb too many face shots. I am too much of a headhunter on my opponents. I am in decent shape but get winded after about a minute and a half of uninterrupted full contact, full speed Muay Thai.

Bottom line: I can hold my own in a fight but there are many more skilled than me who would make short work of the Baron. I think I can take the average guy on the street but I don't believe the average guy on the street is the threat. I am now taking JKD to round myself out including trapping and grappling. I focus on what works best for me personally - a key tenet of JKD. My greatest strength is the dark, aggressive side I bring out in a fight that surprises others. My greatest weaknesses are my lack of flexibility and my lack of long-term training, which I work on.

Next!

[kikal0t]

Cool thread Baronbvp and thanks for sharing with us,

i have only been training since october so my knowledge and skill in the MA's is next to nothing. I do not have any previous experience in any other martial arts, it was a case that i always wanted to but never did. In the end i just thought its now or never!

I have yet to extract a deeper meaning from what i do rather than just the physical form in terms of kata etc.

To assess yourself is really quite hard because you have to separate the fact from bias. My greatest weakness is my lack of experience and strength i'd say and that is most evident in my punches. Because of greater reach my kicks are better but nothing is quite as i'd want it to be. That said i think i could defend myself if push comes to shove but as is the case its always best to walk away.

[learning kempo-karate]

Hello, Great topic! This is a hard one. Most of us who have train a long time, and never really been in a REAL fight? ...Will never really know this answer. Until you face the real world of fighting...this is where the true test is!

The FEAR factor/adrenline response...fight or flee...heart pounding...all alone faceing our NIGHTMARE..SITUTIONS'. Very different from the training halls.

All soldiers who goes to REAL combat, learn that the training at home NEVER prepares you for the real thing. It is very different. (usually in the mind). Heart pounding and knowing you can get KILL at anytime (24/7).

NOTE: NO one can be prepare for a false crack (unexpected strike)...which most times gives the attacker the advantage.

It is more about MIND SET: If you can response in the fear mode (KILLER INSTINCT)....To fight back no matter what.

For myself I have been a few fights (before taking martial arts) younger days. (school kind only).

Today alot more train and prepare...BUT still unknown how one will do in a REAL fight. I am a lot older now (50's).

The true test is on the streets facing something you do not want to face!

Just my thoughts here...........Aloha

[50inches]

havent done martial arts that long so cant really tell, but I think im a pretty good yellow belt, but when I spar with "the big boys" I realize that perhaps what I invision in my mind, I am not always capable of doing in sparring, not to mention in a real fight.

[jaymac]

I was just thinking about this the other day. I don't know how good I am, but I do think that over all these years of training, I could defend myself in a situation if need be. I am only a Nidan and hope to continue to learn from my instructor. He is an amazing teacher/fighter/Martial Artist. I still believe I haven't even tapped into the knowledge he has about our style. I believe I am good a kata and at reaction time to incoming strikes. I need to improve on being more aggressive in class.

[The BB of C]

I get mixed responses from different people I know. All of them aren't very smart in the field of martial arts and/or fighting in their own way. So I would never look in a mirror and base what I see off what they say.

I see myself as not that good. I do not have many acrobatics and my attacks are slow. I think I am better than most people at school, even among the other martial artists there (the other 15 that there are) this is only because (they refuse to admit it there) I have beaten some of the "toghest" and "best fighters" there while playing around. They'll tell you they were playing around too but actually screw around with them in gym class and you'll see that they're trying a decent amount to land a hit.

I also see myself on a higher scale than 2/3 of the martial artists in my Kuk Sool Won school. They do not exactly come from an environment that would make them good fighters and they do not exactly recieve prime self defense training. They will not admit it to you because they think only the black belts there are good fighters, but they are not very good either.

But when I come home, watch a movie, or a video on YouTube of a freestyle martial arts tournament or something, I realize I'm not that good. As much as I have ups on the martial artists at class and the punks at school, my other family members destroy me on fighting ability. My father can jab twice as fast as my best jab without even trying and my older brother is so experienced that there simply is no point in sparring with him. And the people I see in movies are simply amazing.

In sumation; I think I'm good in my own leauge. If I have a hope of competing well, at the moment I have to stay with the little quarrels in school and humiliating the lousy excuses for fighters we call 'black belts' at Kuk Sool Won class. But I know I will be reminded of just how good I am if I try to spar with brother Dan, cousin Mike, or my father. And it won't even be competition if I go against the real professionals.

[karatekid1975]

Yes, I agree. Good thread! For me, I think I am pretty decent at forms/kata. I believe I have decent technique. And my proudest moment for that was when I got 2nd place in a tourny against BB's (I was a 2nd gup at the time)! But there's others out there that are a LOT better than me.

But I lack in sparring. And breaking. I really want to improve in these areas. Eventhough at my last test for 1st gup, I nailed all my breaks (5 stations, two boards each). But the problem is, there's hardly anyone at my age in tournies that like to break (women over 30). So, I place just because I "show up." Boy, do I hate that ... gggrrr. As far as sparring, I can hold my own, but I'd like to do more combos, improve my foot work, and my speed.

[baronbvp]

Great posts! I am better at sparring than anything else. Interesting how everyone is different. Keep this thread going!

[Rateh]

My weaknesses...

My endurance is shot. I'm not very good at sparring, can last maybe 30-45 seconds before I have to kneel down and gasp for air. I hesitate way too much. I don't handle stressful situations well, I'm more likely to freak out then give a good responce. I have no upper body strength. I'm short and skinny. I can't see what happens in sparring...I watch and try and all I see is arms and legs flying, I can never figure out who made a point on whom. Even if I DO figure that out, I wouldn't know what technique they did that scored. I have difficulty teaching outside of the basic curriculum. I'm legally blind without my glasses.

My strengths...

I'm a natural at almost every technique I've learned. I pick up on kata very easily. I have an eye for what is a correct technique and what is not. I notice the littlest details. I'm good at teaching, especially beginner students. My kicks are very good. I'm a natural on the ground. I know pressure points intuitivly.

[NightOwl]

haha, I've always wondered this myself. To be completely honest, I don't see me being too much better than the average joe you pick up off the street.

After years of going to a kata oriented gym and reaching my 6th belt, I realized that I wasn't getting much better as a fighter, and decided to quit and focus on school. Subsequently I was off martial arts for about a year, and it wasn't until the Spring before I graduated that I began to look for a style to study again. I checked everywhere from Budo Taijitsu to Krav Maga, before I found a wing chun teacher who taught a small group out of his garage during weeknights that I decided to train with. It was certainly an interesting group: many had done some sort of martial art before, and there was a tall buff guy, a tall and skinny guy, a couple of average body types, and a more elderly man in the mix, so it at least let me practice against different weight sets. Every night part of our training would involve drilling, light sparring, and a 'circle'. When it was your turn in the circle, you had to counterattack against a punch, bat, and knife attack from all of the other members. Of course since I was just a beginner, all of the 'attacks' that I got were very scripted, but when going against the more senior students, you were allowed to attack any way you'd like, including feints, multiple strikes, and tricky knife maneuvers. I can honestly say that the only people who I have yet met who I believe could disarm an armed attacker with confidence belong to that group, as against them you were allowed to go full speed and force. The sifu was also fond of saying that 'you need to get outta there!', and if anyone took too many moves to get a punch in or disarm someone he would remind them, 'I'm not shooting a movie you know.' Overall I think it was a very practical class, but unfortunately wing chun just wasn't the style for me. However after so many sticking hand drills, I still to this day find myself resorting to very sloppy and crude wing chun mushed with boxing if I am in real close to someone. That was about...1 1/2 to 2 months of training.

Afterwards, I started a MMA striking class which although it was only for about three months, improved me more as a fighter than anytime in my life before. Almost every class had us donning boxing gloves and sparring, and it got me used to being punched at. I was taught how to jab, cross, knee, clinch, and elbow (along with some kicks but I am not much of a kicker), but most importantly it got me over my fear of fighting and facing the possibility of being hit (especially against bigger and stronger guys). The second most important thing was it taught me how to bob out of the way of punches. One night while only one other student was there, we were sparring and the instructor quips in,'This isn't boxing, don't take the punch.' To be honest (as stupid as it may sound), I never really thought about just moving out of the way instead of trying to take in the blow, and that brought a radical change in my tactics. After that, I even got a chance to do a drill where you hand to hold your hands behind your back and crowd, bob, and weave to avoid taking hits for 2 1/2 min. rounds(and we also frequently did drills where you had to spar someone while you where against the wall and weren't allowed to move from one spot). Certainly it was exhausting, tough, and even discouraging at times. I thought that I wasn't improving too much , but then to my surprise I found that when I was sparring the new students coming in, I could usually do a handy job of taking them on...all that time I had been improving at the same rate at those better than me, so I hadn't had a chance to see how much I had advanced ! I am so glad for that experience, and my fighting style is almost completely made up of the boxing and MMA knees and elbows that I learned from there (along with random bits of wing chun as mentioned before).

More recently, I studied BJJ for one month, and will start again in the summer with the hope of studying it long term.

Now with that background, I have found that sparring around with people I usually catch them off guard, as they are not used to much beyond brawling that you'd find on a playground. The closest thing I got to a real fight post training was with a friend in the dorm hallway. I out punched him and probably could have landed some nice blows, but we never actually hit each other, and I learned during that time the hard way that I needed grappling training. I could get him in a nice clinch, but once I got there I didn't know any take downs, so eventually he broke out as he is much stronger than me and it went downhill from there ( the match ended when I forfeited due to being thrown around while maintaining an iron-claw grip on his t-shirt and us getting so worked up that at that point we were about ready to exchange real blows). I also sparred (not to the same intensity of full contact grappling) against a friend who took martial arts and wanted to demonstrate what they could do. After being used to fighting so many 'Haymaker Harry's' I caught gave them an interesting change to the routine, and we started to go into a lighthearted match with both of us getting in some nice hits. So all in all I'd say this: I am proud of my dodging abilities, and have almost zilch grappling and just enough striking to have a reasonable chance of beating the average person in a bar fight. As for the trained attacker? No. Way. I'm such a far cry from the skills of people who have been training and sparring for years, and if I went to the UFC I'd end up an organ donor. Haha, to be honest, most of you guys could probably eat me for breakfast (but I am high carb so I don't recommend it).