Andrea Contents
Competition and competitions in combat sports!
Challenge yourself in combat sports.
You have to challenge yourself, get involved, don’t stand by and watch!
Stepping out of your comfort zone is the only way to evolve art.
Why do you have to challenge yourself?.
There may be endless answers to this question, but the one that matters is only one.
To get out of your comfort zone and go beyond what you believe are your abilities in your art or sport.
We practice martial arts and the answer is in comparison, whether it is:
- do sparring in the gym with your training partners,
- sparring with invited friends from another gym,
- of a tournament,
- or a match,
- or a workout with your friend
- etc.
The answer is in the confrontation and for this it is important to challenge yourself in combat sports!
Because I use the word “challenging yourself in combat sports“, the reason is that the first opponent to face is yourself with your fears,your insecurities, hard training, research.
Not everyone likes challenge and competition
I know that some purists of the martial art especially traditional may resent this statement but the truth is that if you do not test what you think you know how to do you will always have the doubt in you and you can never evolve or accept the fact that you have traveled a wrong path and that you have to change.
Now I do not want you to exasperate my speech as if everything must be just combat, indeed martial arts are one of the most beautiful inventions for the education of body and mind that man has invented, it will be because it goes to the very origins of man, but it is clear that it is something special and that is why it has always fascinated every person from the practitioner, to the curious, men and women, etc.
Now, I don’t know what martial art or combat sport you practice but you have to challenge yourself and to do this you have to get out of your art and understand where you really are.
Often you see videos of martial arts against other martial arts, a challenge that posed in this way is stupid, does not make sense, does not prove anything, is valid only for those who are doing the challenge not for those who are watching that you enjoy the beauty of a match but nothing more.
What matters is where you are not what someone else can do.
The challenges between different sports and martial arts
See Buakaw with yi long(Shaolin monk),see what Karate does with that of Thai, what M.M.A. does with what Capoeira does, what Jiu Jitsu does with a boxer, etc. which serves apart from seeing a good show, Buakaw also wins over the same Muay Thai fighters, and so on, it is a beautiful show to see for the diversity, for the particular comparison that is created, but what makes the difference is man is not art.
Surely this is not the way to show that one art is superior to another because it is always the man who makes the difference.
Ps. The regulation, you have to keep in mind that you are using a sports regulation that goes to affect the fight. When the match will take place Floyd Mayweather Jr. with Conor McGregor they will do it in boxing or do you think Mayweather could do an MMA match? And what will this prove? What is true for any athlete who practices that art?. Or imagine a Thai Boxer telling him he can’t use the clinch, elbows and knees, what can he do if not kick boxing, but you have taken away some fundamental aspects.
Where are you?. That’s what matters. Because it is you who make the difference not the art you practice. Art must be functional to yourself and not vice versa.
And it’s a set of things, how you train, with whom, how, how long, how you do it, your approach, your psychology,your focus, your physical and mental preparation, even art of course, because it affects your approach to combat, but it affects with a minimum percentage although surely there are some arts that for their approach and method of training are more suitable for real combat but for the “method” of training they use and for the approach to combat that they use daily.
I don’t know what you train in, why you chose that art or that sport, why you train, what drives you to do it, how you find the desire, the energy to go to the gym or to the dojo to train.
What I do know, however, if you are on this blog is that you want to IMPROVE yourself,to climb higher in the sports or life “podium”, to go further, as far as you can go.
The comparison
The martial art is a journey that somehow never ends and that gives great satisfaction.
COMPARISON is the seed of growth, the comparison with others and with oneself. The comparison is to understand who you are.
The confrontation without obsession, must not become the only reason for the practice of a martial art because however even if important it cannot be the only way to acquire your awareness of your abilities.
When I started this blog project I knew I was questioning myself a lot but I never thought about this or the fear of confronting myself with masters, enthusiasts, fighters, because what drives me is the passion for martial arts, tell my experience, my vision on this world and on the arts I practice because I would like to discover that many guys thanks to a single piece of advice, some suggestions, improve, win a match, or find the way that suits them, the rest does not matter to me,after all if you do not like what I write as long as you do not read, it is not presumption but I believe that even if you are a “phenomenon” something you will find that surprises you.
Having references to aim for, having examples of others who try their hand at the same art, sport or passion, listening to experiences, sports and martial paths is the best way to grow.
The challenges you have to participate in must allow you to make a path to show you your level but beyond that it will allow you to recalibrate your training program and your way of training, discover your weakest links to strengthen them or work on, which is what will allow you to level up and accept bigger challenges.
Ok, but until when?
As long as you want to “push” yourself and changing and evolving according to your age, your abilities, your own nature, but it all depends on you even if I am here to help you otherwise I would not have made this blog but.. everything has a price but I’m not the one asking you for the bill!
You must be ready to sacrifice, to commit and to follow step by step or suggestions that your teacher and also I will try to give you.
In this world (the martial one) there are no discounts! and those who think they have them or receive them pay dearly for them are illusions, deceptions.
Whether it’s reading the blog or writing tips, opinions, training cards that have made you improve, here you have the opportunity to give and receive technical advice and not to learn from who is better than you and teach those who are still behind.
In this martial world each of us will always be in some way teacher and pupil at the same time.
Everyone must do their part
If everyone gives his contribution, makes a team, then everyone can go further, because he will be motivated by others, he will not give in to the fatigue of training because he will have to give an example to other students and training companions especially beginners and younger ones, you will not train at random but you will look for a path in continuous evolution to allow others to follow him and see the improvement as you have followed in his time the footsteps of someone other.
The more you share tricks (with your team) the more you will be forced to look for new ones and evolve.
I make a blog in which I share a lot of information and I hope you appreciate this work that costs me a lot of effort and also money that I do not ask you.
Remember that the stronger your team is, the stronger you will be because training with the scarce ones may satisfy your ego but it does not change the reality that if you find a strong opponent it makes your ass.
I train to beat the strongest not to make myself beautiful in a gym of “poor”.
If you want to be pro active, to be part of something bigger, to give as well as to receive write me here on the blog.
Get involved!! Challenging yourself in combat sports is the real way to evolve your art and skills in every area not only that of martial arts and combat sports.
Martial arts are “hard” not only because it is about combat but because it is only you and your opponent is not a team sport, all the responsibility is on yourself, of course you have a team of training companions and a coach who supports you but it is you who are in control.
In this blog no one is judged, no one is a teacher, no one is a student, but what must unite is the passion for this world.
Challenge yourself in combat sports, you have to challenge yourself, get involved, don’t stand by and watch!.
Street Fight Mentality & Fight Sport
Andrea
Ps. It is clear that each of us has his own martial curriculum with belts, levels, races won, etc. but this is not the spirit of this blog but the diffusion and evolution of oneself and his martial art bringing each in his own way his contribution.
