Get Punched in the Face More – A guide to progressive learning

I’ll keep this one short. I’ve been doing martial arts for the vast majority of life; from practicing karate at the age of 11, wrestling during some of junior high and high school, and to present day where I’m doing Muay Thai and BJJ. Despite this, I haven’t always been active with sparring, which can almost be separated into a different skill category.

Needless to say, I have been involved with combat sport for quite some time, and have been focusing on competitive sparring in recent times.

As a quick background, I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to understand what my bodies limits are, being able to perform a human flag, muscle ups, deadlifting 2.5x body weight and placing 35th and 43d for two years in a row with the Spartan Race thanks to a gymnastics/strength/alpine training-centric gym, and a body which attracts to such exercises.

Getting Punched is Good For You

The problem: I really wanted to increase my sparring efficiency after having seemingly plateaued; I’m able to manage myself in a sparring environment, but have difficulty in actually pushing through to the next level.

The definition of insanity (colloquially) has been: doing the same thing and expecting something to change… Some things had to change. Hence article plug:
The Secret Fight Training Method – SLOW SPARRING

The points in this article were really good, but in practice I found a different outcome.

Fighters, generally speaking, are fairly pompous and don’t want to be the guy taking a hit. They want to win. Blame it on a small dick, or a brain which fails to comprehend certain concepts; slow sparring only works with the right partner. So then what?

Well, I really wanted to try out this methodology regardless of my partner’s stance on sparring. So I did.

So what did this employ? It meant:

1. Throwing slower punches and kicks
2. This necessitated throwing deliberate and purposeful strikes (which I’m still working on)
3. Likely getting hit a considerable amount more

So what’s happened? I’ve seen a TON of improvements. Yes I’ve been struck, but luckily getting punched in the face really doesn’t bother me all that much. Yes, an opponents liver shot results in a knockdown and immediate farts, but pain is temporary, and most of all… the training sticks.

Signal vs. Noise

I realized that what was happening, was a parallel to filtering out noise, and finding the ever elusive baseline signal.

After changing things up, I soon realized that I was a reactionary fighter. It was common for me to react off of all noise, faints, taunts, etc. of other fighters. This not only provided openings, but even worse it fogged my understanding of how to fight effectively. I would have never noticed this had I not tried this new learning methodology.

By temporarily stepping back, and forcing myself to take more punishment (not an insane amount), it made me realize where my holes were, and highlighted instances where I would have normally reacted and forced myself out of position. Initially, it felt like I was in a killing field, but now… Now, I’m feeling more comfortable. I realize much more that you can fight slow, understand which punches from your opponent you can take, and which ones you can’t. Which ones your opponent things will be hard, but you know won’t be. You learn your limits, and through this way of fighting, you’re FORCED to fight SMART. If you limit your speed, you’ve got to learn movement more.

By not being reactionary, it changed the game completely. Sorting through the signal vs. the noise, I realize I can better, and more decisively choose which strikes to take. The biggest point is:

I know what matters.

I hope to employ this training philosophy for maybe a month and a half more and see what happens. I think a lot will come out of it. The most interesting thing was to see how such a small change, could have such a profound change on my training. I’d like to also apply this in other situations. By changing this mindset, it’s completely changed the TYPE of game I’m involved in.

Signal vs. Noise.

Thoughts of a ho… Now you know…