Sea.Wolf.Forge wrote:A lot of these adages are pertaining to the kind of stresses and rigors that come with a specific encounter over a generalized concept of training for application.
If I trained for application but my target is better trained or has physical attributes that nullify that trainings efficacy then the ability to persevere until the situation changes becomes the skill required. A great example of this is a "fast" fighter that suddenly finds themselves facing someone "faster" - the strategies for coping with an unexpected handicap are often difficult to train given the difficulty finding training partners with suitable superiorities to challenge those limits. I'm a striker meeting a better striker? How is their clinch, wrestling, or ground? I'm a grappler facing a better grappler? how is my striking, counter-wrestling and gnp? Did my training include enough focus on those skills to overcome that gap, all of those skills need to be trained with application in mind to be effective, a persons ability to shift strategies under stress is always down to individual experience and psychology but if they haven't, as john said, gotten to a level of competence with one thing in the first place they are kind of hooped regardless..
Good points. The final outcome of real fighting scenarios is oftentimes influenced by unexpected and unpredictable 'x factors', such as you mentioned above, which can suddenly compromise strategies, techniques and physical assets very quickly.
Even with excellent conditioning and well trained techniques in any fighting method, there will always be someone who is stronger and more powerful, faster and more agile, or who has developed greater proficiency in specific combat specialties.
As such, to stand toe to toe against any opponent essentially places one in a direct comparison of individual proficiency regarding all of those factors. Since appearances are often deceiving, unexpected surprises are not uncommon, and can occur with too little time or space to effectively react to.
Thus, only a fool chooses to contest boxing skills against an expert boxer, contest kicking skills against a kick specialist, contest wrestling skills against an expert grappling and throwing specialist, etc. Unfortunately, if you are fighting an unknown opponent, you won't be aware of their superiority in any of those skills until they're too close and it's too late.
Only fighters who train to develop better than average capabilities in all of those fighting methods, along with the ability to effectively neutralize the efforts of those who possess equal or greater skills, will consistently survive every serious fight with minimal damage.