Technique should be easy? Size and Power don't matter?

[NightOwl]

I consistantly train in situations where my attacker is much stronger than me and prepare for what I would do to defend myself.

I think that this is a good idea. It's healthy to get experience with all body types, especially with those bigger than your own IMO.

[KarateEd]

Force = mass x acceleration

Therefore, if two combatants can accelerate a punch or kick equally, the more massive person will generate more force. However, some difference in mass can be compensated for by increased acceleration. For example, Primo Carnera was a giant of a boxer back in the 1920s-30s and defeated many opponents due to his size alone, but he was rather slow in the ring. He was whipped by Max Baer, a smaller but quicker man, getting knocked down 12 times or so in a match in 1934. Of course, both these guys were heavyweights.

As tori says, MA training should allow us to exploit the errors made by untrained and unskilled opponents, minimizing the advantage of size.

However, I don't think an opponent's size and/or strength should be dismissed because it does give him an advantage (see above formula), but it shouldn't capture our minds either. Of course, to avoid it "capturing our minds" we need to, like tori says, train with bigger, stronger opponents regularly.

The ability of an untrained, heavy strong fighter to tackle and bear you to the ground should never be underestimated (which is why some form of grappling training is highly useful). This can present a serious problem for any trained fighter.

Being rushed and driven to the ground is perhaps what I think about most when I consider being attacked by a larger, untrained person.

[bushido_man96]

I'm of the opinion that most here are, that size and strength is not something that can be overlooked, or downplayed. Technique is very important, as well.

Now, if we look at the techniques that actually go into most of the kinds of fights that many of us will ever be in (excluding competitons), much of the technique that we will see is fairly simple technique. We all stress the idea of "keep it simple, stupid" when it comes down to smack time; someone with no formal training is most likely going to do simple stuff. Their technique may not be exact, but the increase in size and strength can greatly play to their advantage, and may be enough to overcome their lack of technique.

In the end, along with learning Martial Arts technique, it is also important to supplement MA technical training with strength training and conditioning.

[ShoriKid]

Bes way of putting this was done by a small guy on a history channel show on MA. To paraphrase, a well trained little man will beat an untrained big man, but a well trained little man will lose to a well trained big man.

Technique is most important, but attributes; size, strength, speed matter a while lot during a fight. Whether self defense or a matched fight, stronger people have an advantage. One of our newly minted blackbelts asked how much strength mattered. I told him that it mattered, that for ever pound of muscle/unit of power your giving up you need not just one unit of skill to over come it, but an exponential increase in skill.

Royce Gracie is a good grappler, but the reason he doesn't win matches against anyone with much skill is that he is constantly overmatched in power. When he's won lately, its been against someone who has very little grappling skill.

Night Owl, I saw, I think, that you said getting to the ground helped negate some of the power/size difference. I always found the oposite to be true. I'd generally rather face someone with a size/power advantage on my feet. There I feel more mobile and able to negate the disadvantage. Perhaps it's that I prefer standup to grappling, even though I enjoy both.

[NightOwl]

The Gracie's dominance came about because of the equalizing power of the ground. However once people got used to the ground game they lost that edge, which is to be expected over time. It is a lot easier to restrain someone bigger than you on the ground than it is standing up in my experience- if someone isn't used to it, I can keep someone in a scarf hold for a (relatively) long period of time using mostly just the leverage of my hips even if they are bigger than me.

[bushido_man96]

We can also see from the most recent Gracie/Hughes match, with the evolution of the MMA athlete since the UFC's inception, that the balanced fighter, who can strike well, and manage a ground game, proved to be too much for Gracie's superior ground game.

[NightOwl]

Yep. Which is why I think some basic take down defense (especially sprawling) is important to learn for ANY martial artist. Once you can defend against a grappler, you can fight on your own terms.

[ShoriKid]

NightOwl:

The Gracie's dominance came about because of the equalizing power of the ground. However once people got used to the ground game they lost that edge, which is to be expected over time

Here is where I disagree with you Night Owl, at least in part. I see Gracie's early success being due to the skill imbalance, not that it's easier to nutralize a size disparity on the ground. As the second part of your statement indicates, once he lost the very large skill advantage, he was no longer able to dominate.

bushido_man:

We can also see from the most recent Gracie/Hughes match, with the evolution of the MMA athlete since the UFC's inception, that the balanced fighter, who can strike well, and manage a ground game, proved to be too much for Gracie's superior ground game.

This is true. However, I think what hurt Gracie the most in that match, in which all of the real action took place on the ground, was that Hughes, despite not being as skilled on the ground, was skilled enough that when combined with his strength advantage he was able to dominate on the ground. Sure, he had to pound Royce with strikes to finish the fight, but, he achieved that feat by gaining superior postion. A position which Royce, who is a far better grappler, couldn't escape.

NightOwl:

Yep. Which is why I think some basic take down defense (especially sprawling) is important to learn for ANY martial artist. Once you can defend against a grappler, you can fight on your own terms.

I would say that this statement here is why fighters with strong wrestling backgrounds have done so well in MMA type competitions. They are able to dictate where the fight occures. If they want to stand up, you have to by-pass a very strong take down defense. They can clinch and control you there or take you do, since they know how to deal with the best defense vs. most takedowns, the sprawl. Combine a strong takedown defense, ie. sprawl and clinch work, with some solid take downs and you can decide where the fight takes place. That allows you to implement whatever style you want.

[NightOwl]

I think we might be arguing semantics to a point here- skill level on the ground vs someone who has little no no experience there makes a huge difference because of the skill disparity as we've both agreed. However I would also argue that this is because on the ground, skill takes more precedent over streangth compared to other combat ranges.

This is do to leverage being used in different ways from standing, and to an extent lower body strength and a good portion of upper body strength in many positions being more limited. It is much easier to control someone and use submissions on the ground than standing, as the freedom of movement and relevant muscle groups standing up are a lot wider. Without the knowledge of the ground, falling back on streangth is a lot harder then at other ranges. You do sub. wrestling, so I am assuming you do some ground work, and from my experiences in judo and in BJJ and this has held true.

However it has long been shown to work that way historically - bigger and stronger guy being taken out on the ground where the skill vs strength factor is much different from standing. On this page ( https://www.jiu-jitsu.net/history.shtml) is a letter from Roosevelt commenting on matches between Japanese judo players and American wrestlers highlighting this. And of course, we all have heard the spiel from the BJJ camp.

Of course the skill is the key there as we've both covered, however the skill difference needed for a 120lb striker or wrestler to overcome a 200lb opponent would need to be much greater than someone using ground fighting.

I would say that this statement here is why fighters with strong wrestling backgrounds have done so well in MMA type competitions. They are able to dictate where the fight occures. If they want to stand up, you have to by-pass a very strong take down defense. They can clinch and control you there or take you do, since they know how to deal with the best defense vs. most takedowns, the sprawl. Combine a strong takedown defense, ie. sprawl and clinch work, with some solid take downs and you can decide where the fight takes place. That allows you to implement whatever style you want.

Definitely. I think this has allowed for striking to rise in MMA.

[joesteph]

I think we might be arguing semantics to a point here- skill level on the ground vs someone who has little no no experience there makes a huge difference because of the skill disparity as we've both agreed. However I would also argue that this is because on the ground, skill takes more precedent over streangth compared to other combat ranges. . . .

When my instructor introduced us to takedowns, I already had in "the deep recesses of my mind" from two decades ago a bit of this, including how to fall. When practicing, it was definitely based on technique, and I learned (relearned?) what we were to do fairly quickly.

Then when she introduced us to a bit of grappling, we were on our knees and were instructed in the push-pull to take the other down. When we grappled without her, my first opponent/partner outweighed me by fifty pounds. We were doing push-pull, and the first two of the three we did together, he were able to get me down, although I didn't make it easy for him, and on my back I reacted quickly with my now freed legs--thank you MMA/UFC--but we were stopped there. The third time, I wound up taking him down. I had learned by that third one how to better use the pull, and so my crude technique worked out.

I did have, at a later date, another of these on-the-knees grappling practices, with someone just twenty pounds heavier. The first time, he got me down; the next two, I got him--and it was fairly quick.

On this page ( https://www.jiu-jitsu.net/history.shtml) . . .

From that interesting article NightOwl found:

- All ancient cultures had some form of grappling and unarmed fighting techniques.

- The Greek culture gave its fighters the greatest financial and social rewards. The ancient Greeks conquered quite a bit of territory during the time of Alexander the Great, including the area that Jiu-Jitsu's techniques were said to have come from.

- Wrestling did exist in China and Mongolia before Jiu-Jitsu did in Japan, and it is interesting to note that this is where Native American wrestling most likely came from by way of migration over the Alaskan Ice Bridge.

- The pinning and throwing techniques of Jiu-Jitsu are very similar to, and in some cases, the same as those of Greco Roman Wrestling.

There is a psychoanalyst from the past, Carl Jung, who believed in the "collective unconscious." There are also sociologists who refer to "cultural universals." Jung's travels showed the similarity between mandala artwork in Tibet and among the Native Americans in the southwestern US. He pointed to the similarities between the Egyptian pyramids (which were originally "step" pyramids, not smooth-walled at all) and the pyramids ("step" in design) of the Maya of Central America.

Whether or not we choose to believe that there's a collective unconscious (deep memories inherited from ancestors of the far past, whose descendants migrated across the globe) or that cultural universals are simply logical developments by Homo sapiens, it is amazing how martial arts, frequently with great similarities, are shared by such diverse cultures. (Or, as the article suggests, there can be cultural influence traveling over the centuries from location to location, society to society, that Pankration began in Greece, was spread eastward by Alexander the Great's conquests to India, where it took root, passed on to China, and then to Japan.)