daymnnn no wonder they say that its "assault with a deadly weapon" if you've got martial art skill.
we routinely brought ourselves to the brink of concussion on a daily basis during practice.
this here is insane! is that still a thing nowadays with the issues of concussion and CTE?
It was more than 20 years ago and it seemed to be completely unregulated. I signed a bunch of papers when I signed up for the courses but I am sure that document is a lot longer these days. That thing with Kung Fu or at least Wing Chun is that the entire point of it is training yourself to absorb damage. I suppose I was exaggerating a little bit when I said we would bring ourselves to the brink of concussion, but basically we just kicked the crap out of both our own bodies and other people's.... but it was all elective. No one got beaten up without consent and we all got tougher because of it.
Being able to take a punch is almost as important as knowing how to block one.
I think I still would have gotten KO'd in the bar situation if the guy knew how to throw a punch properly because concussion avoidance has a lot to do with you being prepared for the blow.... or so it would seem.
knowing how to take a punch is so true. I remember copping a punch when I was 12 years old and I just stood there stunned more than anything but didn't react. I'll never forget the reaction on the other guy, he just didn't know what to do and he just stood there. From that moment on I've always had the thought that I'll react the same if I copped a punch and that would probably cause more fear than fighting back. Maybe nowadays someone will take another swing and its a different story. Thanks for bringing back a memory!
Some people are naturally just blessed with an ability to take a punch and others aren't. I have no idea what causes this but it does seem to be the case. We can see some professional fighters that actually lose this ability over time such as Roy "Big Country" Nelson, who seemed almost impossible to KO until Mark Hunt finally did it to him. Since then, his ability to be KO'd has been dramatically increased. I suppose that all of us only have a certain amount of mild brain damage that we can absorb before the ol noggin doesn't want to put up a defense anymore.
I know this isn't directly related to what we are talking about, but it will be interesting to see what ends up happening to a lot of these MMA fighters when they get up there in years. I think we are going to see a lot of them have very big problems in their 50's and 60's even if they haven't been in a fight in decades.
yep so true as these athletes hit their 50s and 60s. Same's going to happen in the NFL and rugby league as well. The hits just keep on getting harder as athletes get better
The difference being that a lot of the MMA fighters are dead broke before they even retire. I know a lot of NFL players are stupid with their money but most of them at least have a jump start of millions of dollars to gradually throw away. Most MMA fighters don't ever even get to 1 million.