Fighting Sports

There is a significant difference between training for combative sporting competitions and preparing for real-life fights for survival.

Conflict and competition are inherent to our world. Competing against others involves not only survival challenges but also self-improvement, physical fitness, and enjoyment. Sporting events have evolved as a means of reducing the fatal outcome of warfare and interpersonal violence, especially tribal warfare. It is better to have two individuals, or two teams, engage in competition than for the village and city-state to fight it out. In civilized battles, rules, referees, and regulators (including timers and endpoints) were established to protect the participants and determine the winner. The competitors represent their group, tribe, city, or nation, seeking respect, honor, and celebratory accolades.

Many sports have evolved from fighting skills. The martial arts were historically developed by oppressed groups for various purposes, who created methods to defend themselves under specific situational conditions. These skills continued to be practiced in multiple ways throughout the world, and rather than harming the participants, it made sense to find ways to reduce the fatal and permanent damage from full-skill deployment while still maintaining the thrill of testing one’s skills in competition.

Some martial arts are practiced for sport rather than self-defense. Martial arts competitions may include boxing, wrestling, and mixed martial arts bouts. Many call the competition phase of training “sparring”, because it is not real fighting but fluid contests with agreed rules. Combative sports practiced for sparing and tournaments do not provide real-world answers to criminal attacks.

Even firearms shooting competitions use standing targets and do not address the many additional dynamics involved in a real gun battle when the enemy is shooting back. Consequently, the popularity of paintball competitions, Airsoft guns, and Simunitions, which use weapon conversion kits to fire non-lethal but stinging projectiles for shot and maneuver training, has increased. However, these training innovations also have limitations, including reduced accuracy and range.

As with all sports, rules are established for safety considerations and longevity of participation. Conditions are matched to create a level of fairness, weight class, age, and gender categories are established to remove dimorphic disparities between competitors, creating a fairer “playing” field. Even contemporary mixed martial arts competitions, or cage fighting, have become more restricted by removing the fighting realities of street violence to better protect the participants from permanent physical damage.

During combative sporting events, safety expectations are mutually agreed upon in advance. Conversely, during street attacks, perpetrators often seek to exploit advantages and disparities before the attack. They also have no remorse about the consequences of their actions, are drunk, are on drugs, or have a mental illness. Real fights do not have weight classifications, gender separation, or referees to balance the fight or protect the fighters. Many attack their victims by surprise or when they are isolated from assistance.

A small percentage of women become competitive athletes in boxing, Judo, Karate, wrestling, or mixed martial arts. Some of these female athletes may excel at defending themselves against an assailant, depending on the type of attacker. Sporting experiences provide many benefits of simulated battle but have limitations when applied to protection from real crimes, especially crimes against women.

There are many types of combative training available. Each has advantages and disadvantages depending on your assessment of the purpose behind your training objectives.

Model Mugging allows students to engage in physical combat rather than just sparring. Since the early 1970s, Model Mugging has applied reality-based self-defense scenarios to practice skills similar to those students might face in an actual attack. Full-force fighting skills can be practiced safely for both the student and the instructor-trainer. No one gets hurt.

Through the application of martial science, combative training can become real fighting.

 

Return to Choices in Self Defense for more suggestions.