STRIKING THREAD PART 2: Tips for avoiding permaneant brain damage?

In general you shouldn't be sparring much harder than this. Controlled and playful is the way to learn, not trying to knock each other out. Leave egos at the door because you don't spar to win.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuqW2MPx1hM[/ame]

 

Video is set to private.

 

Fixed.

 

What Aaradia said.

You can ask here about certain things all you want, but no one here knows how you are actually doing during class, because no sees you train.

So things like "When can I go sparring hard" is a thing that your instructor can answer properly, but no here.

Hannibal could say: "Right now!"
And the timing might be lousy, because you only cover your feet, why lying on the floor, crying.
(Yes, I took an extreme example, so you see, what I'm talking about )

You wouldn't come here asking: "Do I do this kick good?", because no one can say, with at least a video.

Just I will never understand people going to a forum, asking about symptoms if a sickness and don't even consider to ask their doctor - it's more or less the same principle.

 

Thanks!

Yeah, that's a good example of light sparring where you get a chance to think and improve.

I think that hard sparring is more about confidence than skill improvement. So I personally feel it is best to do it just as much as you need to feel confident in that zone. Once you've built up a fair degree of confidence at surviving hard sparring, then it is just a matter of occasionally topping it up.

 

Honestly that sounds a bit much to me, hard to recover from and too easy to pick up injuries, but you are the one with 4 wins an 1 loss so you know better!!

 

Sadly most people don't follow that advice.

Interesting how a lot of SE Asian MA put a bigger emphasis on playing and having fun compared to other Asian and Western martial arts. Generalizing obviously, but...

 

If you are going to compete, its not so much about developing skill, or even confidence as it is the ability to deal the real pressure of an opponent trying to actively knock you out. This raises the adrenaline response and turns good technical strikers into wild haymaking swinging people until they get used to it, just watch anyone's first couple of full contact fights, its also about stressing them so they get used to being calm under pressure and being able to think clearly in such a stressful situation.

Of course more experienced you get the less you have to go through such an environment, and if our not going to compete but train for a hobby you probably dont have to go through that at all.

Note like anything there is a scale and what hobbyiests like me see as hard sparring when we do it wont seem like hard sparring to Cheddarz

 

Yeah, that was all I was really saying.

There have been a few examples of competitive fighters in this thread (or maybe part 1?) who have basically stopped hard sparring.

It is important, if you want your training to function full-on, to progressively increase pressure to chip away at adrenaline and panic reflex. But I do think that hard sparring is a game of diminishing returns once you're reasonably comfortable (or reasonably uncomfortable?) in it, especially when you figure in the risk of injury.

 

Well my coaches are keeping a close eye on me

 

There are nutritional/supplemental regimens that assist with brain injury/healing that aren't pseudoscience (you can look up the studies). I mentioned it earlier involving proper hydration and the use of creatine. It's worth looking into, especially if you'll be fighting all the time

 

I will definitely look it up! Thanks man.

 

Also a great way to showcase weak points. Only truly ingrained stuff stays when you're tired. One of my instructors' favourite sayings was "I can only see your best when you're at your worst."

 

1) I know. I just really like this place. I personally know the instructor would have no problem answering the question for me. However, I am just not sure how they would react if I asked this question in front of others. I just don't know. They could respond in a positive or negative way. I really just have no clue and I don't want to scare people away without them knowing all the facts.

2) I think Latikos is right as well. When I go into class tomorrow, I will ask my instructor if she thinks I should continue light sparring or just take more standard drilling classes. Lol based on my huge bruise on my face, likely more drilling.

3) I get it that MAP is a decent supplement for instruction and I will start asking the instructor more questions like these

 

So then I am worrying for nothing then unless I decide to fight professionally? Also you folks keep bringing up freak accidents that could permaneantly injure you. What are examples of this?

 

I wonder if boxing really is way less dangerous than MMA. I saw an article on this the other day. It was basically saying that boxing and MMA were equally as dangerous. It just that there are way more cases of reported CTE in boxing than MMA because boxing has been around for a long time and MMA is relatively young. It also referenced the fact that there is a much larger sample size of MMA fighters than boxers. There are around 30,000 boxers in the world, while there are around only 5,000 MMA fighters in the world.

 

I'm not Chadderz but one example of one of my teachers when he was still "only" a student: He was kicking, his partner was several meters away, goofing around.
So my teacher decided to back kick in the air for training.
But his partner decided at the same moment to come running back - and bamm, right into the kick.

He had quite some injuries due to that kick, as it showed a few days later, when he decided to see a doctor after all.
I don't remember everything and I don't know the English words for every part that was harmed, but in essence he had nearly lost his eye, his sight and had two broken bones on the face.
I think there was something else, but I'd have to ask.

A JJJ example: I had my ulna broken on two places, when a lock, Sankyo, worked too well.
I don't have permanent damage in the real sense, but it still feels weird at times and I lack like two or three degree in rotation; I feel locks sooner than before (but before I was unusually flexible in the wrist).

Right now I might have had a tiny broken bone in the foot.
I asked my physiotherapist today, because something feels strange after several weeks after a little accident, and he told me to see my Doc what might bring another X-ray of one of my bones.

 

You get clocked just hard enough to make you dizzy and then you trip and fall out of the ring and your head hits the corner of a plyometric box and you split your head open, crack your skull, your brain swells and you die.

Sometimes people just get hit a certain way and lose vision in one eye, or get a brain bleed from a condition they didn't know about, etc.. Freak accidents aren't so much martial arts related as they are "life sucks sometimes" related.

 

Chadderz how often do you train? And what does a typical week look like for you since you are trying to go pro?

The reason I ask this is because I think Arcadia is right and I think I need to put my ego aside and just focus on getting better and need to stop trying to eventually become "the best" in the gym so to
say. After all, this seems like a completely unrealistic goal.

I am in my MMA gym a lot more than most. I go to Muay Thai training 4 times a week and bjj 3 times a week. You would think that would be overkill but as I am realizing, it barely scratches the surface. These guys that want to do this for a living it seems go every single day and then on top of that they go to this "fight team training" which is likely very similar to your fight camp training