Oliver

Rogan's stuff is funny when he interviews other comedians. But otherwise, I prefer Cruz as a commentator.

Haha! Ok maybe not that ridiculous, like go out there and crocodile kick him in the first 5 seconds. But, not super far off that. Actually wait, Fabricio Werdum once opened up with a flying karate thing to someone's face in round 1.

Weird, because starting out back home, loads of those guys came through the 1st gym I was at. Karate guys, TKD guys, dudes who wanted to be ninjas etc. They tended to have the most awkwardness adapting to the new thing and didn't like it, so didn't stick to it. Guys coming from other sports like football, triathlons and stuff did way better. Actually, even the guys who came from video games did better.

Love watching it, but hate doing it. Feels like you're giving up too much for the attempt. But ahh, dunno really. Popularity of it in the West might come a bit from MMA and the level of informed fight culture it produces. Even from the commentators, or the journalists if we're gonna call them that. A guy can throw spinning shit all day that never lands, switch stance 5 times every 10 seconds from a mile a way when there's no purpose in doing it, or even just make up random shit. Then it's immediately called "Elusive...high level striking...unorthodox...creative etc etc..." in hush tones, and actually encouraged to guys just starting out. Now what I don't get......how come the people who encourage that kind of thing don't apply the same thinking when it comes to BJJ or Greco? Imagine a Jiu Jitsu teacher with 30 years under his belt training one of his white belts or blue belts for competition. He says, OK dude, so this is what you do...as soon as the ref says go, you run at the guy and throw a jumping flying omoplata, or look for a berimbolo whenever you can. Hell no. No way he would. Like... in no other sport would that thinking be acceptable. If that teacher wants to create the white belt world champion, he'll drill him with 2 simple sweeps, 2 simple guard passes, 2 simple submissions, tonnes of hip work, and tell him to go out there and play the percentages. O

Yeah. It's only after I stopped doing that and left that gym that I improved, and injury rate dropped way down. Hard sparring's all good, but not that ruthless bloodthirsty shit where ppl are terrified of losing, (in something where there's nothing to lose), tense up, and then unload on their training partner as if it's the uncle that molested him. Nah, hell with that.

Exact. My first 3 years, about 7 of us fighting from the gym. We go saturday morning for sparring day, only 1 time per week. Not bloody kidding....one time, half way through training I look around and realise 6 out the 7 of us are sitting on the bench holding ice packs, and one dude got knocked the f**k out and couldn't remember how he got to the gym that day. That's kinda when I knew.

Body kick. Or simple punch. Body kick is like, a IV or V chord in song you like. The subdominant in music harmony. The I chord feels like any punch you want, jab, or cross. Because the move of the I going to any of the other 6 chords available is harmonically strong, so any shot after a punch is cool, but especially to the ii, IV, V or vi. Those 4 chords, or strikes, are the most musically pleasing to the ear. Body kicks feel like the subdominant, the IV, because the strongest shift of a IV is usually back to the I, (a punch) or to the V, which feels like a teep. Strongest shift of the V is resolving back to the I. That for me comes out like a lead jab then lead teep, changey changey type thing. So after a body kick, another punch tends to feel nice for me, or a teep, and then back to a punch. A I IV I or I IV V I progression. And now I'm back to the I chord, can go anywhere again. The ii and vi are the knee and elbow, but I haven't figured out which is which yet. It's definitely these two chords though, because they're unique for being the minor chords available. Darker. So the most vicious ways to fight. Maybe clinch is like, the iii chord or something. The only minor chord left.

The asshole factor and the escalating thing. Most common thing I've seen around this is where, like, lets say like 2 people agree to do light sparring. Pick a number, say it's 40, 50% or whatever. One of them reckons, oh wait... my training partner is 5 kilos heavier than me... or oh wait, he's an inch and a half taller than me, or oh... he's got like... 2 years more experience than me. Therefore, that logically, scientifically means that I'm allowed (translation: 'Deserve') to hit him harder than he hits me. So he hits me at 50%, but I get to hit him at 80%, and that's the way to make it fair. So then what happens? Basically the 5 kilo heavier partner cracks him back at 80 to equalise, then the first guy loses his shit, throws his toys out the pram and emotionally hits back at 100. Then claims he had to because the bigger training partner escalated on him, without realising it was his own fucking fault to begin with. Not for nothing, but if you get kicked in the balls it's usually someone like this who does it.

In the times where you do harder sparring, there has to be an unspoken brotherly agreement. Basically if you land 3 or 4 good clean shots and back him up and his defences are opened even more, you kinda back up and give him a chance to come back.