MMA, Krav Maga, Traditional Martial Arts And My Philosophy Of Martial Arts

Yeah, I disagree with you about the spine thing. There's a well supported correlation between head injury and Parkinson's. By the same token, I just attended a lecture from a visiting researcher who claimed that, if you plot out the mental decline in both average folks and those inflicted with Parkinson's, you wind up at around the same point at 105 in the normal folks. Which is to say that, if you live long enough, you will have the same problems.

Also spent my evening with someone who has Parkinson's. He seemed to like me alright, asked me if my girlfriend liked me for my muscles or my personality (I said neither). He then spent about two hours lecturing me about classical music. Parkinson's is not the worst thing to happen to a person I guess.

By the same token, comparing a pro boxer with an ammy MMA'er is spurious.

 

If you are training ANY system properly you will get hit...the idea is to make it occur less frequently

 

That is just the explanation i heard about his diagnosis, however, there was some distinction made between whether or not he had Parkinson's disease or Parkinson's syndrome, but granted, I don't know what the difference is, if there even is one. I've also had people telling me his family had a history of the disease, so i really don't know what to believe, but the few times I've heard him speak since he retired, his mind doesn't seem shot, so i figured head trauma was probably not the underlying cause, granted, if the statistics are there, i can't refute them.

 

I don't know the difference either actually, or even that there was a difference! I am certainly not an expert or even someone who has more than a passing understanding. The fact that I attended a lecture doesn't make me a guru :[

Yeah I mean, when you start pulling in genetic factors and stuff, things get very messy within a particular case. Regardless, it seems like things like head trauma and lack of sleep are both strong predictors of senile dementia. So, if you box, make sure you get enough sleep :]

 

I'm still curious as to the op's design concepts, I would like to hear more about his ideas on how to train his system and what his thoughts are concerning the principles that govern combat. Op could you break it down for us?

 

In medical classification of disease, there is no differentiation made between parkinson syndrome and disease
http://apps.who.int/classifications/icd10/browse/2014/en#/G20

However parkinsons in dementia are 2 separate but co-morbidly linked issues:
http://apps.who.int/classifications/icd10/browse/2014/en#/F02.3

 

You mean to tell me the late Sir Henry Cooper isn't an authority on Parkinson's?

 

Wow what a strange thread. Worried about taking headshots but doesn't like being told to cover up and/or evade? Dont think I'm going to get my head around that one.

What the op needs is to find a better MMA gym, listen to the advice more experienced people give them and to top that off with some reading on self defence or maybe a few classes.

Reinventing the wheel is not the answer.

 

Its really surprised me how many people on here seem to think that all you need to do is have better defences. If your sparring with guys that are better than you (which is what you do to get better) than you get hit. If you train with guys that compete they tend not to hold back as much because they are preparing themselves for the brutality of an MMA or thia boxing match. As I've already stated I trained at a number of gyms, all of which contained fighters that were regional if not national champions.

 

If you're getting hit hard then you're not doing well enough yourself. You're also going by different standards than the rest of us. You are talking specifically snout athletes who know the risks involved. It's not going to happen to the average martial arts practitioner.

 

They're still crap if they let experienced fighters treat a beginner like a punching bag.

 

Your argument doesnt work. You will get hit that's inevitible yes but you want to improve then that involves improving your defensive skills aswell. The more you focus on your defensive skills the less worried you need to be about their offence and the more free you are to attack. Good defensive skills will make you a frustrating opponent for anyone and will help protect yourself from future damage. Ask the more experienced fighters and the coaches for advice on defence specificaly and try to focus on it if your worried about long term health problems.

Defensive skills don't trump offensive skills but they are equally important, neglect them at your peril.

If these gyms are regularly putting you in the ring with high level fighters and are letting you eat hard shots often they are not keeping you safe and are therefore not doing a good job of training you. It might be great for the fighters but it doesn't sound like a good club(s) for you at your current level. Some clubs/trainers are great for beginners and bad for more experienced fighters. Other clubs are great for the more experienced folks and not so good for beginners, sounds to me like that's what your experiencing.

 

It doesn't matter how surprised you are, it is the true, to cope with being overwhelmed by offense, one falls to using their defense.


Also, i'm going to tell you straight, outside of a few gyms that pride themselves on a macho reputation, few places will ever have full force sparring, and even out of the few gyms that would, you'd need to search long and hard to find people with national and regional titles who'd light a novice up for the sake of it, if you are a good fighter, you can control your body, so unless they have it in for you, they wouldn't be cracking you all the live long day.

 

Also worth pointing out that hepatitis C (the non vaccinate-able one) only affects 0.5% of the UK adult population, is cured in up to 80% of cases and is fatal in about 10% of cases, although that figure is likely to drop as only 3-4 years ago people weren't being effectively treated and deaths usually occur 20 years down the line.

 

Mate, my defences are sound and I gave just as good as I got. Its not the clubs I trained at that is the problem. The very nature of the sport itself requires violent shockes to the head. The fact is: I haven't taken nearly as many shots to the head as someone who regurly competes in this sport. What I'm trying to say is that ANY hard shots to the head is going to take a toll and that this should be avoided if your only training for self defence.

 

Yeah, that was what I was trying to communicate in this thread. I think some of the responses in this thread indicate a certian level of denial about the consequences of combat sports. Its easier to just say "your defences aren't up to scratch" than to admit that you are inflicting brain damage on yourself and those you train with.

 

There is a lot in the first post about that, so could you please ask a specific question. Also, I would like to point out here that I don't consider myself qualified to teach self defence. This thread was mostly just me musing outloud about what I would consider a good system of self defence.

 

I'm curious. How many confirmed cases are there of brain trauma in the MMA community? I don't follow it really closely, but I don't remember hearing a lot about it. Not the way you hear about it in pro (American) football and rugby nowadays.

Is there an actual confirmed track record of brain damage? Or is this intuition?

 

Most of the work on concussionhas been done in the last decade or so. A lot of what on before was speculative. The incidence of brain injuries to jockey's (common once every 20 rides I think) , australian rules football, gridiron (american football) etc are being studied more intensely because there are far more participants.

The problem is it is not a simple linear relationship. Some people are just wired so that things go wrong quickly (some freshman US football players have shown tao protein formation in their brains) and other people go for year without a hitch. Yes there is an increased incidence with increased exposeure but there is also some other factors that mitigate who gets what when.

I am not sure that MMA will definitively be responsible for a large increase in concussions. Compared to all the other contact sports the numbers training( and even fewer actually fighting) are quite low.

Just my 2cents

LFD