“Secrets” of the Filipino Fighting Arts
Words from a Modern-Day Warrior

This installment is dealing mostly with the martial arts student/fighter, rather than the teacher.

While I believe in following a teacher’s example, respecting his plan for you, and allowing yourself to be trained–rather than to try and teach yourself–I believe that every martial arts student controls his level of learning and develpment by the amount he “puts in”.

It’s one thing to attend class and train when you are not in class, but to go out and find “training” partners is another. Of course when I speak of training partners, I am referring to sparring partners. Often within a school, it may be difficult to find others with similar approaches to the martial arts. In one of my discussions with an East Coast-based FMA teacher, she mentions how in a school there may be a large number of students who are less than fully serious about training. So where does that leave the hard-core, dedicated student?

I have always encouraged my guys to go out and find partners to train with. One of my students, a year ago, attended a tournament but was lost and arrived too late to fight. He reviewed video of the divison he was to have fought in and saw a guy defeat another of my students, who mentioned that he wanted a rematch. Well, the guy who was late also wanted to see how he’d do, and guess what? They approached him, asked if he’d like to spar more, and the group (there were about 5 of them) left the tournament to go to another student’s home to mix it up. Today, they are all friends who regularly spar with each other, and everyone attends a different school.

Tournaments are a great place to find guys who want to throw up hands, but have limited access to others with similar endeavors. They are also good places to find guys who are not afraid to fight and will “bring it” a little harder than some of your own classmates. This builds confidence in fighting someone unfamiliar, and gives you more opportunity to try your wares, so to speak. Finally, when you have had an abundance of matches under your belt you are more relaxed when fighting and will find it easier to try new techniques and strategies. Adapting to new tournament formats and fight rules are easier as well.

Streetfighting is not much different (aside from tactics used and rules) in that everyone is somewhat nervous. However the ones who have fought more are usually less nervous, and some are not nervous at all. We want to achieve that level:  having no anxiety in combat at all. This is a place few can arrive. By having more fights in your past, you are reaching that goal every time you cross hands with a guy. This is why we find more veteran point fighters jumping into full-contact fights, even when they had not trained particularly for those events. The more you fight, the more comfortable you will be in facing opponents.

When a martial artist has avoided fighting matches, he must resort to ridiculing combat sports and putting down those who do. They make themselves feel better by downplaying the confidence of martial artists who participate, by talking in concept:  “If we fought for real, I would kill you/If you fought in a real fight, you would find that your tournament experience won’t help you/I am training for real thing; not a game of tag.”  Most of these people who treat the ring this way often do no fighting other than some light sparring with friends. And what is that, but a small version of a tournament anyway? Are they fighting to the death? No! They are fighting with rules too!

It is a numbers game–how many opponents you have had + how many lessons you have learned from those matches. It is also some algebraic magic that will have you sorting out your sport experience, and how it applies to the street. But the bottom line is that your timing, your knowledge of distance, and your reflexes will improve through point fighting and at a much higher rate than any other form of training or fighting.

Thank you for visting my blog, and please look out for my new book (coming soon, in December 2009), Mustafa Gatdula’s How to Build a Dominant Fighter in 12 Months! Look on my Offerings page!