# Curious about the differences in judo\jjj and bjj.



## Ohnooze

So I'm looking to start training and to be honest I'm not overly fond of bjj and it's popularity.  That's not to say anything about it's effectiveness at all but I'm just not all that interested really.

I trained in judo as a child and jjj as a teen at the Houston Budokan and would like to continue now...even though I'm a lot older (48).

I have to be honest though, as uninterested as I am in bjj I don't want to miss out on good technique either.   As I remember it judo had a lot of ground work and it looks very similar to bjj in some ways.  So I guess my question would be...is there really that much difference between the two and will I be missing things that would give a bjj practitioner the upper hand?

Thanks for any feedback.


----------



## Razznik

Ohnooze said:


> So I'm looking to start training and to be honest I'm not overly fond of bjj and it's popularity.  That's not to say anything about it's effectiveness at all but I'm just not all that interested really.
> 
> I trained in judo as a child and jjj as a teen at the Houston Budokan and would like to continue now...even though I'm a lot older (48).
> 
> I have to be honest though, as uninterested as I am in bjj I don't want to miss out on good technique either.   As I remember it judo had a lot of ground work and it looks very similar to bjj in some ways.  So I guess my question would be...is there really that much difference between the two and will I be missing things that would give a bjj practitioner the upper hand?
> 
> Thanks for any feedback.


Honestly I'm not the biggest fan of BJJ either. I don't practice any art of JJ, but I can tell you that BJJ and JJJ are both like religions. JJJ is like the Christian religion, and BJJ is like the Muslims. The Muslims were formed off of the wrongs of the Christians and what they thought they could improve. Muslism might be better for you if you have different ideals then the Christians; it's partly the same with Martial Arts.


----------



## Razznik

Ohnooze said:


> I trained in judo as a child and jjj as a teen at the Houston Budokan and would like to continue now...even though I'm a lot older (48).
> Thanks for any feedback.


Do you think your body can handle the pressure of wrestling with a bunch of "youths"? I would go to a few lessons (which isn't possible due to corona) and see how it is. I wouldn't recommend practicing moves on your own because if you decided to quit those moves could become useless


----------



## Razznik

Dark Sovereign 193 said:


> I wouldn't recommend practicing moves on your own because if you decided to quit those moves could become useless


But again, if you were to decide to quit and do a similar art, like let's say MMA, then those grappling skills might just save your butt


----------



## Ohnooze

Dark Sovereign 193 said:


> Honestly I'm not the biggest fan of BJJ either. I don't practice any art of JJ, but I can tell you that BJJ and JJJ are both like religions. JJJ is like the Christian religion, and BJJ is like the Muslims. The Muslims were formed off of the wrongs of the Christians and what they thought they could improve. Muslism might be better for you if you have different ideals then the Christians; it's partly the same with Martial Arts.


lol...that is an interesting analogy.


----------



## Flying Crane

It is easy to get the “grass is greener” syndrome.  I suggest that when training is safe, you get involved with something that you find interesting and enjoyable, and don’t worry about what others are doing.  You can spend your life chasing after what others are doing, and miss the excellent training that you ought to have been doing all along.


----------



## Razznik

Yes, do what you want


----------



## Gerry Seymour

Ohnooze said:


> So I'm looking to start training and to be honest I'm not overly fond of bjj and it's popularity.  That's not to say anything about it's effectiveness at all but I'm just not all that interested really.
> 
> I trained in judo as a child and jjj as a teen at the Houston Budokan and would like to continue now...even though I'm a lot older (48).
> 
> I have to be honest though, as uninterested as I am in bjj I don't want to miss out on good technique either.   As I remember it judo had a lot of ground work and it looks very similar to bjj in some ways.  So I guess my question would be...is there really that much difference between the two and will I be missing things that would give a bjj practitioner the upper hand?
> 
> Thanks for any feedback.


The Judo I learned had a lot of groundwork. From what I hear, that’s pretty rare now, because of changes to competition rules. Most BJJ doesn’t spend a lot of time on standing work, so you could think of the midpoints of the arts as being mostly standing grappling (Judo) and mostly groundwork (BJJ). Of course, there can be a lot of variations between individual programs, so you ought to check out places near you. 

As for JJJ, that’s a pretty broad term. It could look a lot like Judo (any of the variants), could look a bit like BJJ (more like early BJJ, as the principles and basic techniques are usually there), or could look more like an abrupt version of Aikido. Or a number of other possible variations.


----------



## Buka

Ohnooze said:


> So I'm looking to start training and to be honest I'm not overly fond of bjj and it's popularity.  That's not to say anything about it's effectiveness at all but I'm just not all that interested really.
> 
> I trained in judo as a child and jjj as a teen at the Houston Budokan and would like to continue now...even though I'm a lot older (48).
> 
> I have to be honest though, as uninterested as I am in bjj I don't want to miss out on good technique either.   As I remember it judo had a lot of ground work and it looks very similar to bjj in some ways.  So I guess my question would be...is there really that much difference between the two and will I be missing things that would give a bjj practitioner the upper hand?
> 
> Thanks for any feedback.



Welcome to Martial Talk, Ohnooze. 

JJJ and BJJ are similar in that they are both Martial Arts. After that, not so much.

Best to visit dojos within a reasonable distance to you, join the one you like and go have fun.


----------



## Ohnooze

Thanks for the replies.


----------



## Kung Fu Wang

Ohnooze said:


> is there really that much difference between the two and will I be missing things that would give a bjj practitioner the upper hand?


If you

1. only care about the ground work, you don't need to train throwing skill.
2. don't care about remain standing, you don't need to train how to counter a throw.
3. don't care about your balance, you don't need to train strong rooting,.

Without doing 1, 2, 3, you can save a lot of training time. If you just concentrate your training on the ground game, of course, your ground game can be better than others.

The day that "pull guard" is allowed to be used in sport, the day that the throwing art is dying.

In the future, nobody will train this any more.


----------



## jobo

Ohnooze said:


> So I'm looking to start training and to be honest I'm not overly fond of bjj and it's popularity.  That's not to say anything about it's effectiveness at all but I'm just not all that interested really.
> 
> I trained in judo as a child and jjj as a teen at the Houston Budokan and would like to continue now...even though I'm a lot older (48).
> 
> I have to be honest though, as uninterested as I am in bjj I don't want to miss out on good technique either.   As I remember it judo had a lot of ground work and it looks very similar to bjj in some ways.  So I guess my question would be...is there really that much difference between the two and will I be missing things that would give a bjj practitioner the upper hand?
> 
> Thanks for any feedback.


what is it you want to achieve?

training for comps is generaly better than training for belts, if you want to be more than averagely proficient

but as soon as you do that you are limiting yourself to the rule set your training, youl get very good at what you train, and not at all at " good "techniques that are not applicable

you can send your self mad trying  to fill all the holes that appear as soon as you say " but what if"


----------



## drop bear

jobo said:


> what is it you want to achieve?
> 
> training for comps is generaly better than training for belts, if you want to be more than averagely proficient
> 
> but as soon as you do that you are limiting yourself to the rule set your training, youl get very good at what you train, and not at all at " good "techniques that are not applicable
> 
> you can send your self mad trying  to fill all the holes that appear as soon as you say " but what if"



Do multiple competitions with different rule sets.


----------



## jobo

drop bear said:


> Do multiple competitions with different rule sets.


well yea if you have an infinete amount of time free, most people strugle to do one justice


----------



## drop bear

jobo said:


> well yea if you have an infinete amount of time free, most people strugle to do one justice



One style, multiple competitions. If you are well rounded then you can play around with different rule sets.


----------



## wab25

Dark Sovereign 193 said:


> Honestly I'm not the biggest fan of BJJ either. I don't practice any art of JJ, but I can tell you that BJJ and JJJ are both like religions. JJJ is like the Christian religion, and BJJ is like the Muslims. The Muslims were formed off of the wrongs of the Christians and what they thought they could improve. Muslism might be better for you if you have different ideals then the Christians; it's partly the same with Martial Arts.


This has not been my experience at all. I come from the JJJ side... but BJJ folks have always welcomed me in and trained with me. The two arts have a lot in common... but focus in different areas. They are however, very complimentary to each other. If anything, I have found some JJJ guys to be a little resistant to BJJ techniques... But, once they get a little more experience... they realize that BJJ offers a lot that can help their JJJ be a bit better. Conversely, BJJ guys have always been very accepting of JJJ technique. 

I have had many times when I tried a JJJ technique while rolling with BJJ and had it fail miserably. Afterwards, they would ask me what I was trying to do. We would discuss, and they would usually attempt to help me figure out how to make it work. The biggest missing piece has never been the technique itself, but in my application of the technique. 

If you can check your ego at the door, JJJ and BJJ get along just fine...


----------



## Kung Fu Wang

jobo said:


> well yea if you have an infinete amount of time free, most people strugle to do one justice


Even with the same training partner, you can do:

- punch only.
- kick only.
- kick and punch only.
- wrestling only.
- ground game only.
- wrestling and ground game only.
- ...


----------



## Ohnooze

wab25 said:


> This has not been my experience at all. I come from the JJJ side... but BJJ folks have always welcomed me in and trained with me. The two arts have a lot in common... but focus in different areas. They are however, very complimentary to each other. If anything, I have found some JJJ guys to be a little resistant to BJJ techniques... But, once they get a little more experience... they realize that BJJ offers a lot that can help their JJJ be a bit better. Conversely, BJJ guys have always been very accepting of JJJ technique.
> 
> I have had many times when I tried a JJJ technique while rolling with BJJ and had it fail miserably. Afterwards, they would ask me what I was trying to do. We would discuss, and they would usually attempt to help me figure out how to make it work. The biggest missing piece has never been the technique itself, but in my application of the technique.
> 
> If you can check your ego at the door, JJJ and BJJ get along just fine...


I respect BJJ as a martial art.  I think it's very much proven that given the right circumstances it's very effective.  My only issue is that it's become so overly popular.  And I have seen a lot of disrespect from the MMA \ BJJ people towards other arts. It's this kind of cocky attitude that nothing else really works.  I don't think it's the majority of the people who practice it but I have seen a good bit of it in recent years. Don't get me wrong I see that a lot of schools don't train for real life so I understand where that view comes from.
In general I have more interest in the Japanese arts but I was curious how similar they were.


----------



## drop bear

wab25 said:


> This has not been my experience at all. I come from the JJJ side... but BJJ folks have always welcomed me in and trained with me. The two arts have a lot in common... but focus in different areas. They are however, very complimentary to each other. If anything, I have found some JJJ guys to be a little resistant to BJJ techniques... But, once they get a little more experience... they realize that BJJ offers a lot that can help their JJJ be a bit better. Conversely, BJJ guys have always been very accepting of JJJ technique.
> 
> I have had many times when I tried a JJJ technique while rolling with BJJ and had it fail miserably. Afterwards, they would ask me what I was trying to do. We would discuss, and they would usually attempt to help me figure out how to make it work. The biggest missing piece has never been the technique itself, but in my application of the technique.
> 
> If you can check your ego at the door, JJJ and BJJ get along just fine...



Well honestly so can Christians and Muslims.


----------



## drop bear

Ohnooze said:


> I respect BJJ as a martial art.  I think it's very much proven that given the right circumstances it's very effective.  My only issue is that it's become so overly popular.  And I have seen a lot of disrespect from the MMA \ BJJ people towards other arts. It's this kind of cocky attitude that nothing else really works.  I don't think it's the majority of the people who practice it but I have seen a good bit of it in recent years. Don't get me wrong I see that a lot of schools don't train for real life so I understand where that view comes from.
> In general I have more interest in the Japanese arts but I was curious how similar they were.



The other thing you will get is Japanese but not really Japanese jujitsu that is a sort of judo, jujitsu hybrid thing. 

That the real jjj guys will thumb their noses at. 

Which is ironic because the not really Japanese stuff can quite often turn out better quality martial artists.


----------



## Gerry Seymour

drop bear said:


> The other thing you will get is Japanese but not really Japanese jujitsu that is a sort of judo, jujitsu hybrid thing.
> 
> That the real jjj guys will thumb their noses at.
> 
> Which is ironic because the not really Japanese stuff can quite often turn out better quality martial artists.


I'm pretty sure that's the background of a visitor I had a couple of years ago. She was in town from Germany visiting a company for 6 weeks, and wanted to train, said she was training in Jujitsu (apparently, in Germany there's some standardization). She recognized most of our techniques (not by name), so it was clearly a JJJ foundation. But her groundwork looked very BJJ (by modern terms).


----------



## jobo

drop bear said:


> One style, multiple competitions. If you are well rounded then you can play around with different rule sets.


well its very easy to say, less so to achieve, beibg " well rounded also requires a significant investment in time

if you try and do these at the same time, allowing that actial free time to spend has a reasonable limitation, your reducing the speed at which you can become proficient at any one of them or if you stack them your adding years before you can claim proficincy at all of them

if your looking for self defence skill in the short term, then pick a likely scenario and train for it, as soon as you start adding less likely scenarios, then the whole thing becomes impossibly complicated and very drawn out

and then becomes an obsesion bordering on paranoia,  ma should be life affirming,  not take over your life just in case your attacked by .......


----------



## drop bear

jobo said:


> well its very easy to say, less so to achieve, beibg " well rounded also requires a significant investment in time
> 
> if you try and do these at the same time, allowing that actial free time to spend has a reasonable limitation, your reducing the speed at which you can become proficient at any one of them or if you stack them your adding years before you can claim proficincy at all of them
> 
> if your looking for self defence skill in the short term, then pick a likely scenario and train for it, as soon as you start adding less likely scenarios, then the whole thing becomes impossibly complicated and very drawn out
> 
> and then becomes an obsesion bordering on paranoia,  ma should be life affirming,  not take over your life just in case your attacked by .......



Not really. If you can strike and you can grapple. It opens up pretty much every rule set that contains striking and grappling.

Which is most rule sets.

Mabye strike grapple and use weapons. You have even more options.

So for example you could do a sort of kind of jjj like tritac self defence.

Tritac Martial Arts

And you could enter boxing, kickboxing wrestling, bjj,mma tournaments depending on what you wanted to develop.


----------



## Gerry Seymour

drop bear said:


> Not really. If you can strike and you can grapple. It opens up pretty much every rule set that contains striking and grappling.
> 
> Which is most rule sets.
> 
> Mabye strike grapple and use weapons. You have even more options.
> 
> So for example you could do a sort of kind of jjj like tritac self defence.
> 
> Tritac Martial Arts
> 
> And you could enter boxing, kickboxing wrestling, bjj,mma tournaments depending on what you wanted to develop.


I think Jobo's referring to actually being competitive. It's unlikely an average person has the spare time and inclination to excel in multiple formats. I agree they certainly could compete in multiple, and might even make a reasonable showing if their training is sound and the rules don't conflict too much (it seems it would take a lot of practice, for instance, to manage reactions and openings well in both kickboxing and NAGA competitions, even if you have the composite skills for both).


----------



## drop bear

gpseymour said:


> I think Jobo's referring to actually being competitive. It's unlikely an average person has the spare time and inclination to excel in multiple formats. I agree they certainly could compete in multiple, and might even make a reasonable showing if their training is sound and the rules don't conflict too much (it seems it would take a lot of practice, for instance, to manage reactions and openings well in both kickboxing and NAGA competitions, even if you have the composite skills for both).



If you don't have the spare time you won't be competitive in one discipline.

Robert Whitaker for example was going to represent Australia in wrestling. Made the team. Was easily good enough. But got pressure from the UFC and pulled out.

Australian Robert Whittaker pulls out of Commonwealth Games wrestling team for UFC 225


----------



## Gerry Seymour

drop bear said:


> If you don't have the spare time you won't be competitive in one discipline.
> 
> Robert Whitaker for example was going to represent Australia in wrestling. Made the team. Was easily good enough. But got pressure from the UFC and pulled out.
> 
> Australian Robert Whittaker pulls out of Commonwealth Games wrestling team for UFC 225


Are you arguing it takes no more time to be competitive in two formats than in one?


----------



## Dirty Dog

drop bear said:


> If you don't have the spare time you won't be competitive in one discipline.
> 
> Robert Whitaker for example was going to represent Australia in wrestling. Made the team. Was easily good enough. But got pressure from the UFC and pulled out.
> 
> Australian Robert Whittaker pulls out of Commonwealth Games wrestling team for UFC 225



I don't see anything in that story about available time being an issue. It seems to boil down to one was paying him and the other was not. And he'd rather get paid.


----------



## Anarax

Ohnooze said:


> So I'm looking to start training and to be honest I'm not overly fond of bjj and it's popularity.  That's not to say anything about it's effectiveness at all but I'm just not all that interested really.
> 
> I trained in judo as a child and jjj as a teen at the Houston Budokan and would like to continue now...even though I'm a lot older (48).
> 
> I have to be honest though, as uninterested as I am in bjj I don't want to miss out on good technique either.   As I remember it judo had a lot of ground work and it looks very similar to bjj in some ways.  So I guess my question would be...is there really that much difference between the two and will I be missing things that would give a bjj practitioner the upper hand?
> 
> Thanks for any feedback.



BJJ came from Judo and focuses more on ground techniques. Judo on the other hand focuses more on the standing techniques, but still has plenty of ground work. Judo will focus more on throws, sweeps and takedowns than a typical BJJ school will. JJJ is similar to Judo but has small joint locks and other techniques as well as throws, sweeps and takedowns.


----------



## drop bear

Dirty Dog said:


> I don't see anything in that story about available time being an issue. It seems to boil down to one was paying him and the other was not. And he'd rather get paid.



Correct.


----------



## drop bear

gpseymour said:


> Are you arguing it takes no more time to be competitive in two formats than in one?



Sort of but in a really complicated way. 

But no. 

I am arguing an average person doesn't have the time to excel in a single format. Which is why they are average.


----------



## Gerry Seymour

drop bear said:


> Sort of but in a really complicated way.
> 
> But no.
> 
> I am arguing an average person doesn't have the time to excel in a single format. Which is why they are average.


I wasn’t talkin go about excelling. I’m talking about being competitive. Since the average competitor is about average for the competition (by definition), they can be competitive in that group. Split their focus, and they will be less competitive in two groups.


----------



## jobo

drop bear said:


> Sort of but in a really complicated way.
> 
> But no.
> 
> I am arguing an average person doesn't have the time to excel in a single format. Which is why they are average.


average people cant excell by defintion , if they can its because they wernt average to begin with.


----------



## drop bear

gpseymour said:


> I wasn’t talkin go about excelling. I’m talking about being competitive. Since the average competitor is about average for the competition (by definition), they can be competitive in that group. Split their focus, and they will be less competitive in two groups.



Not really.


----------



## drop bear

jobo said:


> average people cant excell by defintion , if they can its because they wernt average to begin with.



Also not really.


----------



## Gerry Seymour

drop bear said:


> Not really.


Splitting focus won't reduce their ability in each???


----------



## drop bear

gpseymour said:


> Splitting focus won't reduce their ability in each???



Not really. Because you are generally still doing developmental exercises. So if I was a kick boxer and boxed or even did running races. It would help my kickboxing in the long run.


----------



## Gerry Seymour

drop bear said:


> Not really. Because you are generally still doing developmental exercises. So if I was a kick boxer and boxed or even did running races. It would help my kickboxing in the long run.


If you are adding,sure. But time is finite, so you’re training boxing in place of kick boxing at times. Less training for kickboxing is going to show. Unless you’re arguing that boxing drills are yay as good, so a person training boxing is actually preparing for kickboxing.


----------



## MetalBoar

drop bear said:


> Not really. Because you are generally still doing developmental exercises. So if I was a kick boxer and boxed or even did running races. It would help my kickboxing in the long run.


I think that really depends on your goals and the strengths and weaknesses of the various training programs. If you want to be a top competitor in kickboxing, training in boxing would only be more beneficial for your goals than simply spending that time on kickboxing if you assume at least one, probably both of two things; 1) the skills you'd learn from boxing are superior to or at least significantly expand on what you have been learning in kickboxing and can largely be applied within that rule set and 2) your training in boxing didn't cause you to develop bad habits in the context of the kickboxing rule set. Sprinting might be worthwhile if it was a superior exercise in comparison to whatever it is replacing but trying to prepare for ultra marathons will simply be bad for performance in pretty much any kind of combat sport and will take a lot of time to boot, so the type of race you're running matters.


----------



## Oni_Kadaki

jobo said:


> average people cant excell by defintion , if they can its because they wernt average to begin with.



I am curious about this... How do you define average? If you're referring to a random dude/dudette with an IQ of 100 and no particular natural talent, I would disagree... I think determination and dedication can be far more predictive of progress than initial talent.


----------



## Monkey Turned Wolf

Oni_Kadaki said:


> I am curious about this... How do you define average? If you're referring to a random dude/dudette with an IQ of 100 and no particular natural talent, I would disagree... I think determination and dedication can be far more predictive of progress than initial talent.


That would suggest that his determination and dedication are above average.


----------



## drop bear

gpseymour said:


> If you are adding,sure. But time is finite, so you’re training boxing in place of kick boxing at times. Less training for kickboxing is going to show. Unless you’re arguing that boxing drills are yay as good, so a person training boxing is actually preparing for kickboxing.



At this point it gets complicated. There are developmental processes that don't just include the task you are doing.

Strength and conditioning for example doesn't really look like boxing and doesn't have to. But it makes your boxing better because it focuses on certain things that boxing doesn't.


----------



## drop bear

Oni_Kadaki said:


> I am curious about this... How do you define average? If you're referring to a random dude/dudette with an IQ of 100 and no particular natural talent, I would disagree... I think determination and dedication can be far more predictive of progress than initial talent.



Yeah. So dedicating time to training would make an average person not average.


----------



## drop bear

Monkey Turned Wolf said:


> That would suggest that his determination and dedication are above average.



I am not convinced that these guys all just have amazing genetics or something. I have seen too many people just keep turning up until they got good.


----------



## Monkey Turned Wolf

drop bear said:


> I am not convinced that these guys all just have amazing genetics or something. I have seen too many people just keep turning up until they got good.


And those guys are above average. Because they keep turning up, when most people leave when it starts to get tough. Whether they've got a better mindset, or this just happens to be the area that they're passionate about, by continuing to turn up it makes them better _in martial arts_.


----------



## drop bear

Monkey Turned Wolf said:


> And those guys are above average. Because they keep turning up, when most people leave when it starts to get tough. Whether they've got a better mindset, or this just happens to be the area that they're passionate about, by continuing to turn up it makes them better _in martial arts_.



Yeah. But it isn't like someone walks in with a mindset and so trains harder and so is a better fighter. They make a choice. 

(And my issue is)

The next sentence is. This is why I am not a good fighter because I don't have the mind set to turn up, or whatever. 

I think that is failure talk. And I don't feel it is accurate.


----------



## jobo

Oni_Kadaki said:


> I am curious about this... How do you define average? If you're referring to a random dude/dudette with an IQ of 100 and no particular natural talent, I would disagree... I think determination and dedication can be far more predictive of progress than initial talent.


what mtw said, , people with well a above average levels of determination and dedication are just as rare as people with well above average physical or intelectual skillls, coz it a bell curve and that how bell curves work

even with a  good amount of dedication its a tall order to turn average into excelent, quite good is a more realistic exspectation


----------



## jobo

drop bear said:


> Yeah. But it isn't like someone walks in with a mindset and so trains harder and so is a better fighter. They make a choice.
> 
> (And my issue is)
> 
> The next sentence is. This is why I am not a good fighter because I don't have the mind set to turn up, or whatever.
> 
> I think that is failure talk. And I don't feel it is accurate.


better  doesnt equate to excellence does it ?


----------



## Monkey Turned Wolf

drop bear said:


> Yeah. But it isn't like someone walks in with a mindset and so trains harder and so is a better fighter. They make a choice.
> 
> (And my issue is)
> 
> The next sentence is. This is why I am not a good fighter because I don't have the mind set to turn up, or whatever.
> 
> I think that is failure talk. And I don't feel it is accurate.


At the point that they make that choice and follow through with it, at that point, they're no longer average. It's not really a meaningful difference, but it is a difference.


----------



## jobo

Monkey Turned Wolf said:


> At the point that they make that choice and follow through with it, at that point, they're no longer average. It's not really a meaningful difference, but it is a difference.


it generaly isnt a choice, sure lot of people make a "choice" to commit to things, they just generally dont manage it and either give up or are just going through the motions quite quickly

if you have reached adulthood with out  previously exhibiting obsessive behaviour required to reach excellence  on will power alone, its highly unlikely that they can start now, 

high achiever  tend to be serial high achievers, because they apply that dedication to multiple things


----------



## Gerry Seymour

Oni_Kadaki said:


> I am curious about this... How do you define average? If you're referring to a random dude/dudette with an IQ of 100 and no particular natural talent, I would disagree... I think determination and dedication can be far more predictive of progress than initial talent.


I think his point was that when they excel, they cease to be average compared to the population they are excelling in. So, average as in “the average boxer”.


----------



## Gerry Seymour

drop bear said:


> At this point it gets complicated. There are developmental processes that don't just include the task you are doing.
> 
> Strength and conditioning for example doesn't really look like boxing and doesn't have to. But it makes your boxing better because it focuses on certain things that boxing doesn't.


Yeah, and I’m pretty sure you know that’s not the point if those things are part of good kickboxing training, then they aren’t a replacement activity.


----------



## Gerry Seymour

drop bear said:


> Yeah. So dedicating time to training would make an average person not average.


Yes. And that’s kinda the point. Getting a person to add more time to training (even in a tangential activity) is usually good. Getting them to do something else INSTEAD of their core training isn’t likely to benefit their core activity.


----------



## Gerry Seymour

drop bear said:


> I am not convinced that these guys all just have amazing genetics or something. I have seen too many people just keep turning up until they got good.


That’s the determination and dedication he’s talking about. Often driven by things like personal priorities or just enjoyment.


----------



## Monkey Turned Wolf

drop bear said:


> Yeah. So dedicating time to training would make an average person not average.


Just realized you said almost the exact same thing as me, but when I said it, it's failure talk.


----------



## drop bear

jobo said:


> better  doesnt equate to excellence does it ?



It does eventually.


----------



## drop bear

gpseymour said:


> Yeah, and I’m pretty sure you know that’s not the point if those things are part of good kickboxing training, then they aren’t a replacement activity.



Determining what is and isn't part of good training is complicated.


----------



## drop bear

Monkey Turned Wolf said:


> Just realized you said almost the exact same thing as me, but when I said it, it's failure talk.



It depends on the context. A lot of this discussion is that the average person does not have the time or the ability or the mental stuff to be excellent. 

My view is they have the potential to develop those things. And so not be average.


----------



## jobo

drop bear said:


> It does eventually.


no it doesnt you can improve consistently and never achieve excellence


----------



## drop bear

jobo said:


> no it doesnt you can improve consistently and never achieve excellence



After a long enough time line you will get there eventually.


----------



## jobo

drop bear said:


> It depends on the context. A lot of this discussion is that the average person does not have the time or the ability or the mental stuff to be excellent.
> 
> 
> My view is they have the potential to develop those things. And so not be average.



there is quite a difference from being slightly above average and having achieved  excellence

excellence is just a little down from perfection, you spent some years at this ma thing, do you consider you have achieved excellence,


----------



## jobo

drop bear said:


> After a long enough time line you will get there eventually.


so when will you get there, by the time your 90 ?

your now at an age when things start to get worse rather than better


----------



## Gerry Seymour

drop bear said:


> Determining what is and isn't part of good training is complicated.


Yeah, but you’re pretty much pretending to don’t understand the concept so you can invent an argument to try to win.


----------



## Gerry Seymour

drop bear said:


> After a long enough time line you will get there eventually.


Given infinite time and monkeys...


----------



## drop bear

gpseymour said:


> Yeah, but you’re pretty much pretending to don’t understand the concept so you can invent an argument to try to win.



No. You actually don't understand the concept.

Here is the relationship between break dancing and how it improves BJJ.

Two Cultures Collide: How Break Dancing Helped Improve My Jiu Jitsu Skills | Chris Ramos' Story

Doing two sports hasn't divided his focus. It has increased his depth.


----------



## drop bear

jobo said:


> so when will you get there, by the time your 90 ?
> 
> your now at an age when things start to get worse rather than better



Then I would not be improving consistently.


----------



## Dirty Dog

drop bear said:


> No. You actually don't understand the concept.
> 
> Here is the relationship between break dancing and how it improves BJJ.
> 
> Two Cultures Collide: How Break Dancing Helped Improve My Jiu Jitsu Skills | Chris Ramos' Story
> 
> Doing two sports hasn't divided his focus. It has increased his depth.



Studies that rely wholly on anecdotal evidence are considered rubbish. Studies with a sample size of one are as well.
When it's a sample size of one _*and*_ purely anecdotal...


----------



## drop bear

Dirty Dog said:


> Studies that rely wholly on anecdotal evidence are considered rubbish. Studies with a sample size of one are as well.
> When it's a sample size of one _*and*_ purely anecdotal...



Not really the point.


----------



## Dirty Dog

drop bear said:


> Not really the point.



Since you used it as an effort to support the claim that break dancing improved BJJ performance, it actually is the point. Because it does nothing to support the claim. At all. Not even a little.


----------



## drop bear

Dirty Dog said:


> Since you used it as an effort to support the claim that break dancing improved BJJ performance, it actually is the point. Because it does nothing to support the claim. At all. Not even a little.



Its not a study though. It is an example.

And I can appeal to authority if that is in the guys field of expertise.


----------



## Tony Dismukes

Ohnooze said:


> So I'm looking to start training and to be honest I'm not overly fond of bjj and it's popularity.  That's not to say anything about it's effectiveness at all but I'm just not all that interested really.
> 
> I trained in judo as a child and jjj as a teen at the Houston Budokan and would like to continue now...even though I'm a lot older (48).
> 
> I have to be honest though, as uninterested as I am in bjj I don't want to miss out on good technique either.   As I remember it judo had a lot of ground work and it looks very similar to bjj in some ways.  So I guess my question would be...is there really that much difference between the two and will I be missing things that would give a bjj practitioner the upper hand?
> 
> Thanks for any feedback.


Speaking as a BJJ instructor and intermediate Judo student, they are both great arts and do have a lot of overlap. However they have evolved in in some separate directions over the years, so you will find differences as well. 

In BJJ, you will spend a lot more time on groundfighting (newaza), and the coverage of that aspect will be both broader and deeper than you will find in Judo.

In Judo, you will spend a lot more time on throws, and the coverage of that aspect will be both broader and deeper than you will find in BJJ.

That being said, you will find considerable variation among BJJ academies and also among Judo dojos.

In BJJ, the instructional quality and time spent on throws and takedowns can vary from pretty good to adequate to barely there. Traditionally you would also spend a reasonable amount of time on handling self-defense situations and dealing with strikes, but as more and more of the BJJ community becomes devoted to tournament competition the percentage of schools which devote a lot of time to those aspects has dropped off.

In Judo the instructional quality and time spent on groundwork (newaza) can range from very good to barely adequate.  Even at the dojos where the newaza is excellent, you will generally cover a much narrower range of that aspect.

Either art would be a great choice to pursue. If I were you, I would look at the schools available in your area and see which one feels like a better fit for you.


----------



## Tony Dismukes

drop bear said:


> No. You actually don't understand the concept.
> 
> Here is the relationship between break dancing and how it improves BJJ.
> 
> Two Cultures Collide: How Break Dancing Helped Improve My Jiu Jitsu Skills | Chris Ramos' Story
> 
> Doing two sports hasn't divided his focus. It has increased his depth.


I can totally believe that his breakdancing background made Mr. Ramos a better jiu-jiteiro, especially compared to someone who had spent that 8 years sitting on the couch playing video games instead. A relevant question might be: did that 8 years of breakdancing help his BJJ as much as if he had spent that same 8 years doing BJJ instead? I'm pretty certain it didn't.

There are general attributes (balance, coordination, kinesthetic awareness, strength, flexibility, discipline, knowing how to learn a physical skill, etc), which you can develop in any athletic endeavor (breakdancing, parkour, gymnastics, wrestling, karate, ballet, BJJ, rock climbing, etc) and those will carry over and help you in other athletic endeavors. 

There are also sport-specific skills which do not carry over. The time needed for these specific skills is what makes it harder to excel in multiple arenas. I'm not saying that it can't be done, but it does take extra work and time.

I will allow that someone who devotes their available training time primarily to developing those general attributes is more likely to excel in multiple disciplines than someone who devotes their available training time primarily to the specific skills of one discipline and neglects their attributes.


----------



## drop bear

Tony Dismukes said:


> I can totally believe that his breakdancing background made Mr. Ramos a better jiu-jiteiro, especially compared to someone who had spent that 8 years sitting on the couch playing video games instead. A relevant question might be: did that 8 years of breakdancing help his BJJ as much as if he had spent that same 8 years doing BJJ instead? I'm pretty certain it didn't.
> 
> There are general attributes (balance, coordination, kinesthetic awareness, strength, flexibility, discipline, knowing how to learn a physical skill, etc), which you can develop in any athletic endeavor (breakdancing, parkour, gymnastics, wrestling, karate, ballet, BJJ, rock climbing, etc) and those will carry over and help you in other athletic endeavors.
> 
> There are also sport-specific skills which do not carry over. The time needed for these specific skills is what makes it harder to excel in multiple arenas. I'm not saying that it can't be done, but it does take extra work and time.
> 
> I will allow that someone who devotes their available training time primarily to developing those general attributes is more likely to excel in multiple disciplines than someone who devotes their available training time primarily to the specific skills of one discipline and neglects their attributes.



Yeah. That is where it gets complicated.


----------



## drop bear

Tony Dismukes said:


> Speaking as a BJJ instructor and intermediate Judo student, they are both great arts and do have a lot of overlap. However they have evolved in in some separate directions over the years, so you will find differences as well.
> 
> In BJJ, you will spend a lot more time on groundfighting (newaza), and the coverage of that aspect will be both broader and deeper than you will find in Judo.
> 
> In Judo, you will spend a lot more time on throws, and the coverage of that aspect will be both broader and deeper than you will find in BJJ.
> 
> That being said, you will find considerable variation among BJJ academies and also among Judo dojos.
> 
> In BJJ, the instructional quality and time spent on throws and takedowns can vary from pretty good to adequate to barely there. Traditionally you would also spend a reasonable amount of time on handling self-defense situations and dealing with strikes, but as more and more of the BJJ community becomes devoted to tournament competition the percentage of schools which devote a lot of time to those aspects has dropped off.
> 
> In Judo the instructional quality and time spent on groundwork (newaza) can range from very good to barely adequate.  Even at the dojos where the newaza is excellent, you will generally cover a much narrower range of that aspect.
> 
> Either art would be a great choice to pursue. If I were you, I would look at the schools available in your area and see which one feels like a better fit for you.



Also technically we were talking about competing in multiple disciplines. But I used break dancing to push the boundaries of that concept.

So as to alleviate this issue.


"training for comps is generaly better than training for belts, if you want to be more than averagely proficient

but as soon as you do that you are limiting yourself to the rule set your training, youl get very good at what you train, and not at all at " good "techniques that are not applicable

you can send your self mad trying to fill all the holes that appear as soon as you say " but what if""


----------



## Gerry Seymour

drop bear said:


> But I used break dancing to push the boundaries of that concept.


You didn't so much push the boundaries as run off the rails. I know of nothing that can support your claim that preparing for multiple competition formats (with the same time limitation, overall) would yield better performance in those than if someone focused on only one of them.


----------



## MetalBoar

gpseymour said:


> You didn't so much push the boundaries as run off the rails. I know of nothing that can support your claim that preparing for multiple competition formats (with the same time limitation, overall) would yield better performance in those than if someone focused on only one of them.


I agree! Last time I was really looking at this (admittedly about 10 years ago - so can't quote studies) there was pretty decent research that demonstrated that when it comes to high level skill development (not just getting the very basics of something) that for at least a small majority of people there was no measurable skill transfer between similar but different activities. So, counter-intuitive as it might seem, for most people, but probably not for most "natural athletes", there is effectively no skill transfer between an activity like skateboarding and surfing once you get beyond a very superficial baseline kind of level.

The research gets really complicated but the main take away is that if you want to be truly great at a given activity you need to train in that activity for purposes of skill development and not muddy the waters for your brain with similar but not identical activities. This still remains true even for the "natural athletes" who do experience skill transfer between similar activities, though they aren't punished by cross training so much as it is simply less efficient for them than focusing. Now if you want to be super effective at something really broad and unpredictable like "self defense" it's a lot harder to apply this research than if you want to be a world class boxer within the WBA rule set or something similar, but it's still worth keeping in mind even then.

This applies directly to skill development. There are similar principles when it comes to conditioning as your body's metabolic adaptations to activity are relatively specific. Training for a marathon isn't going to help you develop endurance for 3 minute rounds of combat sport unless you are extremely deconditioned and even then it's a very inefficient way to prepare. Strength training is great because being stronger _is_ a general attribute that makes just about every form of physical activity easier. The only exceptions are very fringe examples like running marathons and the like where you need very little strength to accomplish the task and you need to expend as little energy as possible while performing it. Artificial and arbitrary rules like weight divisions might also make strength training less effective in some specific instances.


----------



## Steve

gpseymour said:


> You didn't so much push the boundaries as run off the rails. I know of nothing that can support your claim that preparing for multiple competition formats (with the same time limitation, overall) would yield better performance in those than if someone focused on only one of them.


Doesn't it depend on the competition formats?  I mean, how are we defining success here?  Is it relative to the individual, as in Person A's progress independent of anyone else's?  

I'm a little late to this discussion, and I apologize if I'm rehashing anything previously covered.  I think, though, that the idea of complimentary training is pretty mainstream and not all that controversial.  Does yoga make you better at Jiu Jitsu?  Well, it might not help you learn the timing of a technique, but some would argue that it's made all the difference in their performance, and that the better they get at Yoga (or breakdancing), the better they get at BJJ.  I don't think it's too controversial to suggest that flexibility and strength gained from Yoga will help people become better at BJJ than if they just did BJJ alone.

there is a point of diminishing return on time.  If the hangup here is that you have a finite amount of time, a few things come into play.  First is the very idea of a learning curve.  There's a reason it's referred to as a curve and not a learning slope.  Generally speaking, the higher your skill level, the less steep the learning curve becomes.  I don't think this is controversial, either.  Right?

Getting to Tony's question, if someone does just BJJ for 8 years, is his BJJ going to be better than if he did 8 years splitting time between BJJ and Breakdancing?  The answer is, I really don't know.  It's impossible to say, but based on my experience, I would guess that, all other things being equal, if person A trained 15 hrs per week in Breakdancing and 15 hrs per week in BJJ, and person B trained 30 hrs in BJJ alone, after 8 years the difference in BJJ skill would be negligible, while Person A's breakdancing skill would be demonstrably better than Person B's.  To be clear, this might not be true if you change Person A's ration to say, 4 hours of BJJ per week and 26 hours of breakdancing.  

There is a point of diminishing return. That's what I'm getting at.  It may not actually be 15 hours.. maybe 20/10 BJJ to breakdancing would be optimal.  The key is that there would be a point where training more is not going to produce tangible results, and that engaging in a complimentary activity will actually improve performance in both activities.


----------



## Monkey Turned Wolf

Steve said:


> ting time between BJJ and Breakdancing?  The answer is, I really don't know.  It's impossible to say, but based on my experience, I would guess that, all other things being equal, if person A trained 15 hrs per week in Breakdancing and 15 hrs per week in BJJ, and person B trained 30 hrs in BJJ alone, after 8 years the difference in BJJ skill would be negligible, while Person A's breakdancing skill would be demonstrably better than Person B's.  To be clear, this might not be true if you change Person A's ration to say, 4 hours of BJJ per week and 26 hours of breakdancing.
> 
> There is a point of diminishing return. That's what I'm getting at.  It may not actually be 15 hours.. maybe 20/10 BJJ to breakdancing would be optimal.  The key is that there would be a point where training more is not going to produce tangible results, and that engaging in a complimentary activity will actually improve performance in both activities.


If this were true, then NBA coaches would be encouraging their athletes to practice parkour during practice. But they don't even though I'm sure they practice enough to reach that point of diminishing return. And I would also be very surprised if they don't have people either researching, or looking into the research on that. They can definitely afford to have people research it, and they're looking for any edge they can get over their competition. Same is true for the other major sports.


----------



## drop bear

gpseymour said:


> You didn't so much push the boundaries as run off the rails. I know of nothing that can support your claim that preparing for multiple competition formats (with the same time limitation, overall) would yield better performance in those than if someone focused on only one of them.



Exept that a lot of very successful combat sports people do it? 

I mean almost no MMA combat sportsmen do MMA exclusively. They all jits, box, wrestle, whatever.


----------



## Monkey Turned Wolf

drop bear said:


> Exept that a lot of very successful combat sports people do it?
> 
> I mean almost no MMA combat sportsmen do MMA exclusively. They all jits, box, wrestle, whatever.


Typically though, they're not the best at those specific formats.

And MMA is a specific case, as each of those aren't a different skill, they're a subset of MMA (mostly). So boxing will make your MMA better since really you're just focusing on one aspect of MMA, which will improve your MMA game. MMA won't make you a better boxer than you would have been by devoting that time to just boxing, since you're spending time that you could be learning to box, learning to wrestle, throw, kick, elbow, etc. instead.


----------



## drop bear

Monkey Turned Wolf said:


> Typically though, they're not the best at those specific formats.
> 
> And MMA is a specific case, as each of those aren't a different skill, they're a subset of MMA (mostly). So boxing will make your MMA better since really you're just focusing on one aspect of MMA, which will improve your MMA game. MMA won't make you a better boxer than you would have been by devoting that time to just boxing, since you're spending time that you could be learning to box, learning to wrestle, throw, kick, elbow, etc. instead.



So you could compete in multiple formats to improve your core skill if it was well rounded enough to accommodate that. 

Thus reducing the issue of training for too specific a purpose. If that is something you want to overcome.


----------



## MetalBoar

Hey there Steve, I know you addressed this to Gerry but I thought I'd jump in and give my thoughts if that's OK.


Steve said:


> Doesn't it depend on the competition formats?  *I mean, how are we defining success here?*  Is it relative to the individual, as in Person A's progress independent of anyone else's?


My reading of the thread that related to cross training gave me the impression that the goal in question was getting really good at a particular art. So, if BJJ was the main thing you were interested in, then the claim has been made that your BJJ will benefit from taking other, non grappling arts, like say boxing, and that even completely unrelated activities like break dancing will make you a better grappler. 



Steve said:


> I'm a little late to this discussion, and I apologize if I'm rehashing anything previously covered.  I think, though, that the idea of complimentary training is pretty mainstream and not all that controversial.  Does yoga make you better at Jiu Jitsu?  Well, it might not help you learn the timing of a technique, but some would argue that it's made all the difference in their performance, and that the better they get at Yoga (or breakdancing), the better they get at BJJ.  I don't think it's too controversial to suggest that flexibility and strength gained from Yoga will help people become better at BJJ than if they just did BJJ alone.


So, doing yoga may improve your BJJ if it provides superior flexibility or strength training that your BJJ program is lacking, but the last time I looked at the scientific literature there was no evidence that learning the asanas themselves will do anything for your BJJ unless you are a relatively rare type of learner. If you need flexibility or strength training beyond what your BJJ class provides, yoga might be great, but a really scientific stretching program and a really scientific strength training program are likely to be more efficient. 


Steve said:


> there is a point of diminishing return on time.  If the hangup here is that you have a finite amount of time, a few things come into play.  First is the very idea of a learning curve.  There's a reason it's referred to as a curve and not a learning slope.  Generally speaking, the higher your skill level, the less steep the learning curve becomes.  I don't think this is controversial, either.  Right?
> 
> Getting to Tony's question, if someone does just BJJ for 8 years, is his BJJ going to be better than if he did 8 years splitting time between BJJ and Breakdancing?  The answer is, I really don't know.  It's impossible to say, but based on my experience, I would guess that, all other things being equal, if person A trained 15 hrs per week in Breakdancing and 15 hrs per week in BJJ, and person B trained 30 hrs in BJJ alone, after 8 years the difference in BJJ skill would be negligible, while Person A's breakdancing skill would be demonstrably better than Person B's.  To be clear, this might not be true if you change Person A's ration to say, 4 hours of BJJ per week and 26 hours of breakdancing.
> 
> There is a point of diminishing return. That's what I'm getting at.  It may not actually be 15 hours.. maybe 20/10 BJJ to breakdancing would be optimal.  The key is that there would be a point where training more is not going to produce tangible results, and that engaging in a complimentary activity will actually improve performance in both activities.


I think you and I agree that for the most part break dancing isn't going to improve the average person's BJJ performance, or at least not significantly, unless their BJJ program is lacking in conditioning or something else that the break dancing might supplement. I would also argue that boxing will not improve your (tournament) BJJ performance, unless it's for similar (conditioning or the like) reasons, again unless you are a relatively rare type of learner, and even then I doubt it will do much for your ground work. 

Now the next part is where it gets tricky. It was also claimed that taking boxing would improve your kickboxing. That's likely to be true for the large minority of people who are "natural athletes" and it might even be true for the average kickboxer if boxing has better hand work than the kickboxing they are studying. The tricky part is that there is good research to show that if someone is trying to be really good at a specialized thing (kickboxing) and they learn motor skills the way most people (not "natural athletes") learn them, and then they train in a similar physical activity (boxing) their performance in the original skill will degrade. This probably isn't the case if everything they are taught in boxing is allowed under kickboxing rules, they are taught by someone who knows how to apply boxing skills to kickboxing, and they don't actually spend any time boxing under boxing rules.

As to the different question of how many hours per week represent a diminishing return, I have no idea, but I agree that it probably happens. If being a world champion boxer was the most important thing in my life, I wouldn't spend any time on break dancing or even on BJJ because I'm pretty sure that I'd run out of recovery before I ran out of things to learn by boxing, boxing drills, strength training or doing conditioning that was targeted at boxing. I'm interested in a lot of things and am passed the point where I'm likely to ever be a world champion at anything so I'd much rather spread my time about and do more things, but it will come at a greater or lessor cost depending on what the minimum threshold for good progress is and whether I have to short that or not.

Cheers!


----------



## MetalBoar

drop bear said:


> Exept that a lot of very successful combat sports people do it?
> 
> I mean almost no MMA combat sportsmen do MMA exclusively. They all jits, box, wrestle, whatever.


I suspect that most _successful_ combat sports people fall in the category that I was labeling "natural athletes" above, they are people who are able to transfer skills that they learn in one activity to other, related activities. Most people don't do this well and can't learn to do it well. Even for the natural athlete the research shows that they'd probably be better at MMA if they just trained MMA - but I agree that's complicated. I also suspect that most successful combat sports people that you're talking about really enjoy competing in more than one format or receive some other reward for doing so and that if it degrades their skill in MMA somewhat they're compensated in other ways. If most _everyone_ in MMA is competing in other arts then they're all operating under the same handicap so it doesn't tell us much.


----------



## drop bear

MetalBoar said:


> I suspect that most _successful_ combat sports people fall in the category that I was labeling "natural athletes" above, they are people who are able to transfer skills that they learn in one activity to other, related activities. Most people don't do this well and can't learn to do it well. Even for the natural athlete the research shows that they'd probably be better at MMA if they just trained MMA - but I agree that's complicated. I also suspect that most successful combat sports people that you're talking about really enjoy competing in more than one format or receive some other reward for doing so and that if it degrades their skill in MMA somewhat they're compensated in other ways. If most _everyone_ in MMA is competing in other arts then they're all operating under the same handicap so it doesn't tell us much.



So we are back to the idea that some people are just magical.


----------



## Monkey Turned Wolf

drop bear said:


> So you could compete in multiple formats to improve your core skill if it was well rounded enough to accommodate that.
> 
> Thus reducing the issue of training for too specific a purpose. If that is something you want to overcome.


Yup. Specifically if the goal is to be more well-rounded. If the goal is to become the best BJJer or best boxer, then no. Your best bet is to train for that comp. It depends on what you want to achieve.


----------



## MetalBoar

drop bear said:


> So we are back to the idea that some people are just magical.


No, scientific research shows that some people are good at applying skills that they learn in one activity to other activities and that most people are not. When people who are able to transfer skills across disciplines easily try to teach or advise people who don't it goes poorly. When people who don't transfer skills easily train for their learning style they can perform at the same kind of high levels as the "natural athletes". Unfortunately, "natural athletes" do have an advantage from the outset, and tend to excel at and enjoy athletics and frequently end up as coaches and then do a poor job of teaching those who don't learn in the same way.

Edit: Looking back at your post I think I see where you are coming from. You do not have to be a "natural athlete" to get good at multiple arts, but it's going to be a long road if you try to train the same way they do. Reading the claim in your post that pretty much all successful MMA people also compete in other formats does make me think that a lot of them probably are good at skill transfer but it's not necessary.


----------



## Gerry Seymour

Steve said:


> Doesn't it depend on the competition formats?  I mean, how are we defining success here?  Is it relative to the individual, as in Person A's progress independent of anyone else's?
> 
> I'm a little late to this discussion, and I apologize if I'm rehashing anything previously covered.  I think, though, that the idea of complimentary training is pretty mainstream and not all that controversial.  Does yoga make you better at Jiu Jitsu?  Well, it might not help you learn the timing of a technique, but some would argue that it's made all the difference in their performance, and that the better they get at Yoga (or breakdancing), the better they get at BJJ.  I don't think it's too controversial to suggest that flexibility and strength gained from Yoga will help people become better at BJJ than if they just did BJJ alone.
> 
> there is a point of diminishing return on time.  If the hangup here is that you have a finite amount of time, a few things come into play.  First is the very idea of a learning curve.  There's a reason it's referred to as a curve and not a learning slope.  Generally speaking, the higher your skill level, the less steep the learning curve becomes.  I don't think this is controversial, either.  Right?
> 
> Getting to Tony's question, if someone does just BJJ for 8 years, is his BJJ going to be better than if he did 8 years splitting time between BJJ and Breakdancing?  The answer is, I really don't know.  It's impossible to say, but based on my experience, I would guess that, all other things being equal, if person A trained 15 hrs per week in Breakdancing and 15 hrs per week in BJJ, and person B trained 30 hrs in BJJ alone, after 8 years the difference in BJJ skill would be negligible, while Person A's breakdancing skill would be demonstrably better than Person B's.  To be clear, this might not be true if you change Person A's ration to say, 4 hours of BJJ per week and 26 hours of breakdancing.
> 
> There is a point of diminishing return. That's what I'm getting at.  It may not actually be 15 hours.. maybe 20/10 BJJ to breakdancing would be optimal.  The key is that there would be a point where training more is not going to produce tangible results, and that engaging in a complimentary activity will actually improve performance in both activities.


The concept was being discussed in terms of the “average” competitor. Those folks certainly aren’t spending 30 hours a week. So, yes, the point was about taking training time from one activity to spend it on another - specifically whether an average competitor would be more competitive in one competition or two (assuming the same moderate total training time in both cases).

I’m an advocate of training outside your primary discipline. Thought you were aware of that by this point.


----------



## Gerry Seymour

drop bear said:


> Exept that a lot of very successful combat sports people do it?
> 
> I mean almost no MMA combat sportsmen do MMA exclusively. They all jits, box, wrestle, whatever.


Those are components of MMA. Do most of them compete in multiple? And are those the more successful folks?


----------



## Gerry Seymour

drop bear said:


> So you could compete in multiple formats to improve your core skill if it was well rounded enough to accommodate that.
> 
> Thus reducing the issue of training for too specific a purpose. If that is something you want to overcome.


That was never the argument. This all started from Jobo saying that would lead to being less competitive. You just decided to argue with me about it, instead of him.


----------



## drop bear

gpseymour said:


> That was never the argument. This all started from Jobo saying that would lead to being less competitive. You just decided to argue with me about it, instead of him.


JOBO.
"what is it you want to achieve?

training for comps is generaly better than training for belts, if you want to be more than averagely proficient

but as soon as you do that you are limiting yourself to the rule set your training, youl get very good at what you train, and not at all at " good "techniques that are not applicable

you can send your self mad trying to fill all the holes that appear as soon as you say " but what if"

ME.
"Do multiple competitions with different rule sets."


----------



## Steve

Monkey Turned Wolf said:


> If this were true, then NBA coaches would be encouraging their athletes to practice parkour during practice. But they don't even though I'm sure they practice enough to reach that point of diminishing return. And I would also be very surprised if they don't have people either researching, or looking into the research on that. They can definitely afford to have people research it, and they're looking for any edge they can get over their competition. Same is true for the other major sports.


is parkour a complimentary activity to basketball?  I really don't know.  

Talking about BJJ and Yoga, I am pretty sure some elite level competitors believe the two are very compatible.  

But so I'm clear, are we just talking about elite athletes?  I didn't have that impression.


----------



## Steve

Monkey Turned Wolf said:


> Yup. Specifically if the goal is to be more well-rounded. If the goal is to become the best BJJer or best boxer, then no. Your best bet is to train for that comp. It depends on what you want to achieve.


What does "training for that comp" look like to you? It really seems like you have an overly rigid definition.


----------



## Steve

gpseymour said:


> Those are components of MMA. Do most of them compete in multiple? And are those the more successful folks?


I think a lot of folks compete in a lot of different things. I can think of several BJJ world champions who were very successful in professional MMA.  Same with elite boxers, wrestlers and other sports. 

But that said, I asked others and I'll ask you too. Does success mean elite level success?  I mean, if you don't compete in the UFC are you unsuccessful in MMA?  Because I think that that skews the discussion.


----------



## Monkey Turned Wolf

Steve said:


> What does "training for that comp" look like to you? It really seems like you have an overly rigid definition.


Training the style. Practicing techs that can be used in it, doing conditioning focused around it, and sparring other people within that ruleset, mainly.


----------



## Monkey Turned Wolf

Steve said:


> is parkour a complimentary activity to basketball?  I really don't know.
> 
> Talking about BJJ and Yoga, I am pretty sure some elite level competitors believe the two are very compatible.
> 
> But so I'm clear, are we just talking about elite athletes?  I didn't have that impression.


At that point, I wouldn't say it's that yoga is a secondary complimentary activity, so much as yoga in itself is a tool to develop flexibility, so that would be part of the conditioning. The same way jump rope is a tool to develop cardio for boxers.

As for parkour+basketball, it was an example I used since they both require similar base focus for athleticism, but the specific tools used for each are different.


----------



## Monkey Turned Wolf

Steve said:


> is parkour a complimentary activity to basketball?  I really don't know.
> 
> Talking about BJJ and Yoga, I am pretty sure some elite level competitors believe the two are very compatible.
> 
> But so I'm clear, are we just talking about elite athletes?  I didn't have that impression.


As for the second half, I was under the impression this was specifically about elite athletes. Outside of those, not enough difference is really made for this discussion to have any tangible meaning.


----------



## drop bear

gpseymour said:


> Those are components of MMA. Do most of them compete in multiple? And are those the more successful folks?



A lot of them do. And a lot of them do at their development stage.


----------



## Steve

Monkey Turned Wolf said:


> Training the style. Practicing techs that can be used in it, doing conditioning focused around it, and sparring other people within that ruleset, mainly.


Okay, let's back up.  Is the question about elite athletes?  Are we talking two UFC athletes or their equivalent in another sport, looking for an edge?  While they do still look for any advantage and often that involves unconventional training, that's not what I have in mind.  I'm worried that we're talking about different things.  

I have in mind two guys starting from scratch with approximately 30 hours in a week in which to train.  Would a guy who only does BJJ for 30 hours each week progress substantially faster than a guy who splits the time in some way between BJJ and, say, breakdancing, or yoga, or long distance running... or how about capoeria?  Over their lifetime of training, who will have a performance edge? The guy who only does BJJ or the guy who supplements with other activities?  I think the difference would be closer than you seem to think, but depending on the ratio, I actually think that the guy who splits his time will perform better.

Do you think that there is a point where adding more hours to a single activity in a day is unproductive?  And how do you distinguish between "conditioning focused around it" and "conditioning not focused around it"?  If you compete in 10k's or half marathons, or perhaps triathlons, is that stunting your progress in BJJ or MMA? What about yoga?  I mentioned that earlier.  Would you consider that to not be focused enough?

How many techniques can you learn in a day?  And how much time focusing on a single technique is optimal?  Can we agree that the number is somewhere less than "all of it"?  If we can agree on that, then it makes a lot of sense that there is room for some other activities.  

I think/hope we can agree that some activities that support training and can actually lead to gains in ability level.  What I don't understand is where you draw the line and why.  It seems entirely arbitrary to me.  Jogging - yes.  Floor drills for BJJ - sure!  Of course.


----------



## Steve

MetalBoar said:


> Hey there Steve, I know you addressed this to Gerry but I thought I'd jump in and give my thoughts if that's OK.
> 
> My reading of the thread that related to cross training gave me the impression that the goal in question was getting really good at a particular art. So, if BJJ was the main thing you were interested in, then the claim has been made that your BJJ will benefit from taking other, non grappling arts, like say boxing, and that even completely unrelated activities like break dancing will make you a better grappler.
> 
> 
> So, doing yoga may improve your BJJ if it provides superior flexibility or strength training that your BJJ program is lacking, but the last time I looked at the scientific literature there was no evidence that learning the asanas themselves will do anything for your BJJ unless you are a relatively rare type of learner. If you need flexibility or strength training beyond what your BJJ class provides, yoga might be great, but a really scientific stretching program and a really scientific strength training program are likely to be more efficient.


I'm with you up to a point here.  The salient question here is not whether every element of one activity translates to gain in another.  It's whether pursuing excellence in one activity can actually benefit the pursuit of excellence in another activity, whether it hinders that effort, or whether it is a net wash.  The answer is, of course, that it depends on the person and the activities.  If we can agree that the strength and flexibility of Yoga are beneficial, and you also get some kind of spiritual benefit from the activity, centering your chakras or whatever (I don't know much about yoga ), I could see where your BJJ training could help you become really good at yoga very quickly, and vice versa.       


> I think you and I agree that for the most part break dancing isn't going to improve the average person's BJJ performance, or at least not significantly, unless their BJJ program is lacking in conditioning or something else that the break dancing might supplement.


I don't agree with this at all.  I think someone who is good at breakdancing would have a significant advantage even as a beginner in BJJ.  It would seem to me that the strength, coordination, body awareness, and rhythm a break dancer develops would be very complimentary to BJJ.  And conversely, training in BJJ could help a person become a better breakdancer. 

And you use the term "rare type of learner."  To be clear, I disagree that the person who would benefit from both is rare.  I think what is rare is someone who actually DOES both, which is more a function of breakdancing and BJJ are both niche activities that most people don't do.  So, in the venn diagram of human population, where these two niche activities intersect is small.  


> I would also argue that boxing will not improve your (tournament) BJJ performance, unless it's for similar (conditioning or the like) reasons, again unless you are a relatively rare type of learner, and even then I doubt it will do much for your ground work.


There is a point where the skills have to be compatible, but your boxing and your BJJ would definitely help your MMA skill level.  





> Now the next part is where it gets tricky. It was also claimed that taking boxing would improve your kickboxing. That's likely to be true for the large minority of people who are "natural athletes" and it might even be true for the average kickboxer if boxing has better hand work than the kickboxing they are studying. The tricky part is that there is good research to show that if someone is trying to be really good at a specialized thing (kickboxing) and they learn motor skills the way most people (not "natural athletes") learn them, and then they train in a similar physical activity (boxing) their performance in the original skill will degrade. This probably isn't the case if everything they are taught in boxing is allowed under kickboxing rules, they are taught by someone who knows how to apply boxing skills to kickboxing, and they don't actually spend any time boxing under boxing rules.


Truly, every activity is different, but some are compatible and some are not.  What you're describing here is training in two activities that aren't synergistic; rather, they are antagonistic.  They are just different enough to create confusion.  If your point is that some activities are incompatible, I do agree.   If your point is that this is always the case, I disagree, because there are clearly some activities that are very compatible.  I've mentioned several.  





> As to the different question of how many hours per week represent a diminishing return, I have no idea, but I agree that it probably happens. If being a world champion boxer was the most important thing in my life, I wouldn't spend any time on break dancing or even on BJJ because I'm pretty sure that I'd run out of recovery before I ran out of things to learn by boxing, boxing drills, strength training or doing conditioning that was targeted at boxing.


@monkey turned wolf said this, and it confused me there, as well.  If you are engaging in any activity because you think it helps your boxing, is that activity not then, by definition, targeted at boxing?  

Let me try to be clear about something, though.  If we're talking about someone pursuing a profession, it stands to reason this person will specialize and focus on pursuing excellence in a single sport.  So, this person will not also be focused on pursuing excellence in another sport, even though he or she may participate in another sport to supplement their training.  But this doesn't mean that excellence in that second sport is a) unachievable or b) unhelpful.  

I'm also a little confused at the back and forth between discussion about elite athletes but with the caveat that we're not talking about "natural athletes."  I guess I don't know what a "natural athlete" is, then.  I generally believe that just about anyone can learn to be really good at just about anything.  But not everyone has the raw physical talent that may, if combined with training, focus, and discipline, to be an elite athlete.  





> I'm interested in a lot of things and am passed the point where I'm likely to ever be a world champion at anything so I'd much rather spread my time about and do more things,


Real quick, to the point above... do you really think you were ever in the running to be an actual world champion at anything, or is this just a throwaway comment about how getting old sucks (which I agree does suck. )





> but it will come at a greater or lessor cost depending on what the minimum threshold for good progress is and whether I have to short that or not.


For me, the real impediment is a 40+ hour job every week.  Like you, I have too many interests, but that's a genuine matter of time and we're talking about far more than 2 activities.  Though even here, my fabric art and batik helps my baking, and my baking helps my soap making, and my cooking helps my baking, and all of those things help me be a good dad (because I can do them all with kids, even the one's who have moved out.  Point being that even with very limited time and a less than ideal rationing of the hours available, pursuit of excellence in one can benefit another.   


Monkey Turned Wolf said:


> At that point, I wouldn't say it's that yoga is a secondary complimentary activity, so much as yoga in itself is a tool to develop flexibility, so that would be part of the conditioning. The same way jump rope is a tool to develop cardio for boxers.


So, you're saying being so good at jumping rope you can do tricks is unworthwhile?  You're spending so much time jumping rope, anyway, and there are competitions....  https://www.usajumprope.org/events


> As for parkour+basketball, it was an example I used since they both require similar base focus for athleticism, but the specific tools used for each are different.


Well, I don't know enough about either sport to say one way or the other.  So, maybe?


Monkey Turned Wolf said:


> As for the second half, I was under the impression this was specifically about elite athletes. Outside of those, not enough difference is really made for this discussion to have any tangible meaning.


I think you give amateurs short shrift.  In my mind, the difference in performance level between two elite level athletes is relatively small.  In some sports, it's 10's or even 100's of a second.  If we want to see whether this idea of complimentary activities works, it would start at the bottom of the learning curve, with rank beginners, and then go from there.


----------



## Monkey Turned Wolf

Steve said:


> Okay, let's back up.  Is the question about elite athletes?  Are we talking two UFC athletes or their equivalent in another sport, looking for an edge?  While they do still look for any advantage and often that involves unconventional training, that's not what I have in mind.  I'm worried that we're talking about different things.
> 
> I have in mind two guys starting from scratch with approximately 30 hours in a week in which to train.  Would a guy who only does BJJ for 30 hours each week progress substantially faster than a guy who splits the time in some way between BJJ and, say, breakdancing, or yoga, or long distance running... or how about capoeria?  Over their lifetime of training, who will have a performance edge? The guy who only does BJJ or the guy who supplements with other activities?  I think the difference would be closer than you seem to think, but depending on the ratio, I actually think that the guy who splits his time will perform better.
> 
> Do you think that there is a point where adding more hours to a single activity in a day is unproductive?  And how do you distinguish between "conditioning focused around it" and "conditioning not focused around it"?  If you compete in 10k's or half marathons, or perhaps triathlons, is that stunting your progress in BJJ or MMA? What about yoga?  I mentioned that earlier.  Would you consider that to not be focused enough?
> 
> How many techniques can you learn in a day?  And how much time focusing on a single technique is optimal?  Can we agree that the number is somewhere less than "all of it"?  If we can agree on that, then it makes a lot of sense that there is room for some other activities.
> 
> I think/hope we can agree that some activities that support training and can actually lead to gains in ability level.  What I don't understand is where you draw the line and why.  It seems entirely arbitrary to me.  Jogging - yes.  Floor drills for BJJ - sure!  Of course.


So I think our views are pretty similar, but not quite the same. If we're focusing on the average guy, not Demetrius Johnson or similar;

I agree that there wouldn't be too much of a difference if you had someone who trained BJJ 20 hours a week, and 10 hours of breakdancing or yoga, vs. a guy that trained BJJ 30 hours a week. The first guy would start off stronger, but eventually they'd even out and other factors (talent, effort at the gym, etc.), will have a bigger impact. Largely because of the diminishing returns idea. 

As for if marathons, etc. would stunt progress-no. It wouldn't stunt the progress, since it's still something that's helping growth. The only way it would stunt is if time spent improving your BJJ is lost in favor of training for that marathon. 

And the spot where I draw the line, and largely conditioning focused around it/conditioning not focused around it, is how much time you spend conditioning vs. learning. I'm going to put that in a separate post to break it up since it's longer than I initially thought.  And that will also hopefully help explain my view on whether or not training a complimentary style/sport/activity/whatever is more or less helpful than training the activity.


----------



## Monkey Turned Wolf

Monkey Turned Wolf said:


> So I think our views are pretty similar, but not quite the same. If we're focusing on the average guy, not Demetrius Johnson or similar;
> 
> I agree that there wouldn't be too much of a difference if you had someone who trained BJJ 20 hours a week, and 10 hours of breakdancing or yoga, vs. a guy that trained BJJ 30 hours a week. The first guy would start off stronger, but eventually they'd even out and other factors (talent, effort at the gym, etc.), will have a bigger impact. Largely because of the diminishing returns idea.
> 
> As for if marathons, etc. would stunt progress-no. It wouldn't stunt the progress, since it's still something that's helping growth. The only way it would stunt is if time spent improving your BJJ is lost in favor of training for that marathon.
> 
> And the spot where I draw the line, and largely conditioning focused around it/conditioning not focused around it, is how much time you spend conditioning vs. learning. I'm going to put that in a separate post to break it up since it's longer than I initially thought.  And that will also hopefully help explain my view on whether or not training a complimentary style/sport/activity/whatever is more or less helpful than training the activity.


So for instance, let's assume (completely made up %'s; replace them with what you feel is accurate, IMO it depends on the person and their base athleticism/talent, along with where they are in the training), that the ideal way to become better at BJJ is to spend 50% conditioning, 50% learning technique/drilling/sparring. For the sake of even numbers, you train BJJ like a full time job-40 hours per week. Now let's assume you supplement that time with yoga. If you're using it as a conditioning tool, it becomes part of the conditioning aspect. Now a small portion of time for any conditioning is learning how to do that conditioning. Let's say that, after a few months of doing yoga, 90% of yoga is improving flexibility, core stabilization, whatever else, and the other 10% is learning new positions/improving how you do position. And over time that will decrease. So you spend half your conditioning time doing yoga-that's 10 hours a week, but 9/10 hours are directly improving your athleticism in a way that helps your BJJ. That would be using yoga as conditioning. 

Let's take the same activities, BJJ and yoga. Now you're treating yoga and BJJ as two separate activities you enjoy. So you spend an equal time doing both of them. Or even, let's assume you like BJJ more so you spend 25 hours BJJ and 15 hours yoga. Now, instead of taking specifically from the conditioning time, which for BJJ should involve core and flexibility as well, you are taking away 7.5 hours from that, and 7.5 hours from technique/drilling/sparring. So your ratio is slightly off (from 20-20 to 27.5-12.5), making you less efficient-you'll be more athletic than you otherwise would be, but you'll learn/develop BJJ skills less quickly.

Now let's take a different activity-basketball. I'm using that simply because I know very little about breakdancing so can't really use it as an example. For basketball you need to have good hand-eye coordination, cardio, quick movements, and be able to use short bursts of energy while also recovering your energy/stamina at different points while still remaining active. Pretty similar, sans flexibility (which is also important but much less so), to the conditioning that you need for BJJ. There's also a mental part where you have to be focusing and thinking on a larger picture while you're engaged physically, also similar to BJJ. But to me it would only fit as a complementary activity.

For basketball you have specific skills that you need to learn - how to shoot, how to pass, pick and roles, observing your teammates and finding holes in the floor, and feints. No matter how good your conditioning is, you won't be good if you can't shoot, or spend the entire time ignoring your teammates and staying guarded. So let's say you decide to replace 10 hours of your conditioning with basketball, instead of with yoga. Now you've got to spend a decent amount of that time doing partner drills, or even if you're just training for one-on-one b-ball, you have to spend a lot of that time working on your shot. Which still does condition your cardio and footwork a bit, but less so. So instead of wasting 1 hour a week, you're now wasting 5. 

Not the biggest thing, but let's say that you do the same split from earlier where you're training them both as complementary rather than one as a tool for the other, with the same 25/15 split. So the split is now listed as: 12.5 hours BJJ conditioning, 12.5 hours BJJ tech, 7.5 hours basketball conditioning, and 7.5 hours basketball tech. Some of the conditioning for basketball might not be fully relevant, but I'll give the benefit of the doubt and say it's so complementary that all of it fits. That's now 20 hours BJJ conditioning, and 12.5 hours BJJ tech. So now you're still learning less in the skills/tech department, with no change to your conditioning. 

And again, those numbers and ratio are subject to change, the ones I used was mostly for ease of illustrating the concept.


----------



## Monkey Turned Wolf

Monkey Turned Wolf said:


> So for instance, let's assume (completely made up %'s; replace them with what you feel is accurate, IMO it depends on the person and their base athleticism/talent, along with where they are in the training), that the ideal way to become better at BJJ is to spend 50% conditioning, 50% learning technique/drilling/sparring. For the sake of even numbers, you train BJJ like a full time job-40 hours per week. Now let's assume you supplement that time with yoga. If you're using it as a conditioning tool, it becomes part of the conditioning aspect. Now a small portion of time for any conditioning is learning how to do that conditioning. Let's say that, after a few months of doing yoga, 90% of yoga is improving flexibility, core stabilization, whatever else, and the other 10% is learning new positions/improving how you do position. And over time that will decrease. So you spend half your conditioning time doing yoga-that's 10 hours a week, but 9/10 hours are directly improving your athleticism in a way that helps your BJJ. That would be using yoga as conditioning.
> 
> Let's take the same activities, BJJ and yoga. Now you're treating yoga and BJJ as two separate activities you enjoy. So you spend an equal time doing both of them. Or even, let's assume you like BJJ more so you spend 25 hours BJJ and 15 hours yoga. Now, instead of taking specifically from the conditioning time, which for BJJ should involve core and flexibility as well, you are taking away 7.5 hours from that, and 7.5 hours from technique/drilling/sparring. So your ratio is slightly off (from 20-20 to 27.5-12.5), making you less efficient-you'll be more athletic than you otherwise would be, but you'll learn/develop BJJ skills less quickly.
> 
> Now let's take a different activity-basketball. I'm using that simply because I know very little about breakdancing so can't really use it as an example. For basketball you need to have good hand-eye coordination, cardio, quick movements, and be able to use short bursts of energy while also recovering your energy/stamina at different points while still remaining active. Pretty similar, sans flexibility (which is also important but much less so), to the conditioning that you need for BJJ. There's also a mental part where you have to be focusing and thinking on a larger picture while you're engaged physically, also similar to BJJ. But to me it would only fit as a complementary activity.
> 
> For basketball you have specific skills that you need to learn - how to shoot, how to pass, pick and roles, observing your teammates and finding holes in the floor, and feints. No matter how good your conditioning is, you won't be good if you can't shoot, or spend the entire time ignoring your teammates and staying guarded. So let's say you decide to replace 10 hours of your conditioning with basketball, instead of with yoga. Now you've got to spend a decent amount of that time doing partner drills, or even if you're just training for one-on-one b-ball, you have to spend a lot of that time working on your shot. Which still does condition your cardio and footwork a bit, but less so. So instead of wasting 1 hour a week, you're now wasting 5.
> 
> Not the biggest thing, but let's say that you do the same split from earlier where you're training them both as complementary rather than one as a tool for the other, with the same 25/15 split. So the split is now listed as: 12.5 hours BJJ conditioning, 12.5 hours BJJ tech, 7.5 hours basketball conditioning, and 7.5 hours basketball tech. Some of the conditioning for basketball might not be fully relevant, but I'll give the benefit of the doubt and say it's so complementary that all of it fits. That's now 20 hours BJJ conditioning, and 12.5 hours BJJ tech. So now you're still learning less in the skills/tech department, with no change to your conditioning.
> 
> And again, those numbers and ratio are subject to change, the ones I used was mostly for ease of illustrating the concept.


Incidentally, this argument is very similar to the one that you could use against kata. That you're taking away time from learning useful technique and/or conditioning, since even if you view kata as conditioning, time is taken away from that by learning the kata itself when you could be drilling something more directly useful.


----------



## Monkey Turned Wolf

Steve said:


> @monkey turned wolf said this, and it confused me there, as well.  If you are engaging in any activity because you think it helps your boxing, is that activity not then, by definition, targeted at boxing?


 So to clarify my point with this, that depends on intent. If you're engaging in breakdancing specifically to help your BJJ, then yes that would be targeted at BJJ. It would also probably impact what you focus on with breakdancing. If you're engaging in breakdancing because you enjoy it, and you also happen to think that it's likely helping your BJJ, that is no longer targeted at BJJ.



> So, you're saying being so good at jumping rope you can do tricks is unworthwhile?  You're spending so much time jumping rope, anyway, and there are competitions....  https://www.usajumprope.org/events


 That depends. The time you spend learning the tricks is time you take away from actually jumping rope. Since it's still physical, but from experience it's less cardio since you end up stopping a bunch, each time you mess up. If those tricks increase the difficulty of jumping rope, then in the long run it's beneficial since it will increase the efficacy of your cardio conditioning.




> I think you give amateurs short shrift.  In my mind, the difference in performance level between two elite level athletes is relatively small.  In some sports, it's 10's or even 100's of a second.  If we want to see whether this idea of complimentary activities works, it would start at the bottom of the learning curve, with rank beginners, and then go from there.


 I don't think I'm shorting amateurs, I just think that for the most part the difference I'm talking about is negligible, due to diminishing returns. Particularly when other factors can overshadow it.


----------



## Steve

Monkey Turned Wolf said:


> So I think our views are pretty similar, but not quite the same. If we're focusing on the average guy, not Demetrius Johnson or similar;


Funny that you mention Mighty Mouse, as he is also a high level "e-athlete" and puts a lot of hours into improving his gaming ability. Look it up.  I don't know whether his focus is complimentary or not to his MMA training, but either way, it seems relevant to this discussion.  





> I agree that there wouldn't be too much of a difference if you had someone who trained BJJ 20 hours a week, and 10 hours of breakdancing or yoga, vs. a guy that trained BJJ 30 hours a week. The first guy would start off stronger, but eventually they'd even out and other factors (talent, effort at the gym, etc.), will have a bigger impact. Largely because of the diminishing returns idea.


True... AND... while the guy who trains 30 hours a week will not experience significant improvement in BJJ over the guy who only trains 20 hours of BJJ and also does breakdancing, the guy who does 20 hours of BJJ and 10 hours of breakdancing will become MUCH better at breakdancing than the guy who doesn't do it.  I know that seems obvious, but it's definitely relevant to remember that we're not just talking about one activity.  We're talking about performance in one vs performance in more than one.





> As for if marathons, etc. would stunt progress-no. It wouldn't stunt the progress, since it's still something that's helping growth. The only way it would stunt is if time spent improving your BJJ is lost in favor of training for that marathon.
> 
> And the spot where I draw the line, and largely conditioning focused around it/conditioning not focused around it, is how much time you spend conditioning vs. learning. I'm going to put that in a separate post to break it up since it's longer than I initially thought.  And that will also hopefully help explain my view on whether or not training a complimentary style/sport/activity/whatever is more or less helpful than training the activity.


Sounds good.  Suffice to say, I'm curious how you distinguish between "focused on" and "not focused on" because it seems very squishy to me.


----------



## Gerry Seymour

Steve said:


> I think a lot of folks compete in a lot of different things. I can think of several BJJ world champions who were very successful in professional MMA.  Same with elite boxers, wrestlers and other sports.
> 
> But that said, I asked others and I'll ask you too. Does success mean elite level success?  I mean, if you don't compete in the UFC are you unsuccessful in MMA?  Because I think that that skews the discussion.


I've been pretty clear about what I'm talking about. I even made a point to state it clearly in one of my responses to you.


----------



## Steve

Monkey Turned Wolf said:


> Incidentally, this argument is very similar to the one that you could use against kata. That you're taking away time from learning useful technique and/or conditioning, since even if you view kata as conditioning, time is taken away from that by learning the kata itself when you could be drilling something more directly useful.


Agree completely.  My opinion on kata is exactly this.  It's not fighting.  It's its own thing...  directly analogous to yoga for BJJ, IMO.  And if you think it helps your fighting, great.  The only issue I ever have with kata is when folks supplant application with kata.  Yoga can help your BJJ performance, but it's not going to replace actually fighting with BJJ.  In the same way, performing kata may help your performance in karate, but it won't actually replace fighting with karate.


----------



## Gerry Seymour

Steve said:


> I think someone who is good at breakdancing would have a significant advantage even as a beginner in BJJ. It would seem to me that the strength, coordination, body awareness, and rhythm a break dancer develops would be very complimentary to BJJ. And conversely, training in BJJ could help a person become a better breakdancer.


Here you're talking about an already-developed skill, it seems, rather than someone who's training BJJ adding on breakdancing to build BJJ.


----------



## Steve

gpseymour said:


> I've been pretty clear about what I'm talking about. I even made a point to state it clearly in one of my responses to you.


I missed it in the word salad of the thread, and I can't tell in print whether you're being curt or not.  Is there a reason you aren't just answering the direct question?


----------



## Steve

gpseymour said:


> Here you're talking about an already-developed skill, it seems, rather than someone who's training BJJ adding on breakdancing to build BJJ.


either/or.  It could be someone who does BJJ adding breakdancing, someone who breakdances adding BJJ, or someone who's starting both at the same time.


----------



## Monkey Turned Wolf

Steve said:


> Funny that you mention Mighty Mouse, as he is also a high level "e-athlete" and puts a lot of hours into improving his gaming ability. Look it up.  I don't know whether his focus is complimentary or not to his MMA training, but either way, it seems relevant to this discussion.  True... AND... while the guy who trains 30 hours a week will not experience significant improvement in BJJ over the guy who only trains 20 hours of BJJ and also does breakdancing, the guy who does 20 hours of BJJ and 10 hours of breakdancing will become MUCH better at breakdancing than the guy who doesn't do it.  I know that seems obvious, but it's definitely relevant to remember that we're not just talking about one activity.  We're talking about performance in one vs performance in more than one.Sounds good.  Suffice to say, I'm curious how you distinguish between "focused on" and "not focused on" because it seems very squishy to me.


Didn't know that about the mouse-I'll have to look into that. Sounds interesting. 
Regarding the breakdancing-yup. In terms of being well-rounded, that's the better choice. It's also why I was saying this is an issue more for professionals than amateurs-for the professional you probably want to maximize your efficiency towards one thing. For the amateur, being good at more than one thing is always a plus vs. being marginally better at the one thing. 

As for focused on vs. not focused on, that comes down to intent. So with basketball as conditioning for BJJ-if I'm focusing on it as conditioning, my goal is to get better at BJJ. So I'll be doing more suicides, more quick turn passes to improve my flexibility, things like that. Not as much of specific footwork drills that are conditioning, but don't have much relevance to BJJ.


----------



## Gerry Seymour

Steve said:


> I missed it in the word salad of the thread, and I can't tell in print whether you're being curt or not.  Is there a reason you aren't just answering the direct question?


Because I literally answered it directly to you the first time you asked it.


----------



## Gerry Seymour

Steve said:


> either/or.  It could be someone who does BJJ adding breakdancing, someone who breakdances adding BJJ, or someone who's starting both at the same time.


If we are working with the limited time commitment of the more average MAist, it matters a lot. Take their available hobby time and commit it to BJJ, vs. commit it to BJJ + learning breakdancing. That'll get you a wildly different result in a year vs. having that breakdancing (and all the resultant athletic development) already in place.


----------



## Steve

Monkey Turned Wolf said:


> So to clarify my point with this, that depends on intent. If you're engaging in breakdancing specifically to help your BJJ, then yes that would be targeted at BJJ. It would also probably impact what you focus on with breakdancing. If you're engaging in breakdancing because you enjoy it, and you also happen to think that it's likely helping your BJJ, that is no longer targeted at BJJ.


Got it, I think.  So, you're saying if you breakdance because you enjoy it, it's not longer focused on BJJ, and so it will not help your BJJ?  But if you breakdance because you want to focus on ways to improve your BJJ, it would benefit your BJJ training?  If I have that right, can you explain how that works?  I would think that earnest training in breakdancing because you enjoy it would be intrinsically beneficial to your BJJ training, whether that's your specific intent or not.  You're not going to get stronger, more flexible, more agile and dynamic doing breakdancing with BJJ in mind than otherwise.  





> That depends. The time you spend learning the tricks is time you take away from actually jumping rope. Since it's still physical, but from experience it's less cardio since you end up stopping a bunch, each time you mess up. If those tricks increase the difficulty of jumping rope, then in the long run it's beneficial since it will increase the efficacy of your cardio conditioning.


It's all cardio, and we already agreed that there is a point of diminishing return on the amount of time you devote to any single activity.  Once again, the question here is how does jumping rope with a boxing focus differ in a material way than a boxer who jumps rope with a rope jumping competition focus?  I think the latter person will be a better rope jumper, but will the former be a worse boxer?





> I don't think I'm shorting amateurs, I just think that for the most part the difference I'm talking about is negligible, due to diminishing returns. Particularly when other factors can overshadow it.


I disagree, and think that the difference for amateurs is simply a more pronounced difference than we would see for professionals.  The learning curve is steeper, and so the benefits are more obvious.  

Is it possible that a professional athlete's focus on a single sport vs multiple sports is more mental than physical?  I mean, when we talk about jumping rope for competition vs jumping rope as a conditioning activity, is it reasonable to suggest that a professional boxer doesn't train for rope jumping competitions simply because few  to none have any interest in professional rope jumping?  And conversely, I believe we can all think of examples of professional athletes who become interested in other sports or competitions, and who quickly and easily either do both or switch between the two.  I can think of several very high level professional MMA fighters who are also very high level, active BJJ competitors, for example.


----------



## Steve

gpseymour said:


> If we are working with the limited time commitment of the more average MAist, it matters a lot. Take their available hobby time and commit it to BJJ, vs. commit it to BJJ + learning breakdancing. That'll get you a wildly different result in a year vs. having that breakdancing (and all the resultant athletic development) already in place.


I think it depends on the amount of hobby time we're talking about.  For example, a guy with 10 hours a week may benefit from a singular focus.  But 20 hours a week?  Would 20 hours in BJJ yield better BJJ results than 10 hours of BJJ and 10 hours of breakdancing?  I don't believe so, but the second guy would definitely be a better breakdancer.


----------



## Steve

gpseymour said:


> Because I literally answered it directly to you the first time you asked it.


Curt, then.  I apologize for missing it.


----------



## Monkey Turned Wolf

Steve said:


> Got it, I think.  So, you're saying if you breakdance because you enjoy it, it's not longer focused on BJJ, and so it will not help your BJJ?  But if you breakdance because you want to focus on ways to improve your BJJ, it would benefit your BJJ training?  If I have that right, can you explain how that works?


Not quite. If you breakdance because you enjoy it, rather than focusing on it for BJJ. It'll probably still help you towards BJJ. Just not as much as it would if BJJ were your main focus. And not as much as training for BJJ.


----------



## Monkey Turned Wolf

Steve said:


> Once again, the question here is how does jumping rope with a boxing focus differ in a material way than a boxer who jumps rope with a rope jumping competition focus?  I think the latter person will be a better rope jumper, but will the former be a worse boxer?


That really depends. I'm not sure how those competitions work, if 100% of it is transferable to cardio, then there won't be a difference. If it's not all transferable, then it is.


----------



## Monkey Turned Wolf

Steve said:


> Is it possible that a professional athlete's focus on a single sport vs multiple sports is more mental than physical?  I mean, when we talk about jumping rope for competition vs jumping rope as a conditioning activity, is it reasonable to suggest that a professional boxer doesn't train for rope jumping competitions simply because few  to none have any interest in professional rope jumping?  And conversely, I believe we can all think of examples of professional athletes who become interested in other sports or competitions, and who quickly and easily either do both or switch between the two.  I can think of several very high level professional MMA fighters who are also very high level, active BJJ competitors, for example.


So I think that first part depends, and not sure if we can get a direct answer for that, beyond specific individuals. Overall, I think professional boxers are probably more competitive than most people, so they may be more likely to train for competitions, but at the same time I can see them view it as simply a tool, and not care about competing with it. So different boxers different answers.

As for the athlete thing-I don't really know what point you're making with that. The fact that some people can/do switch between them, doesn't mean it's the most effective route to do it. And with MMA and BJJ I think that might be an exception to the idea, considering just how similar they are-nearly 100% of BJJ can be transferred directly into MMA, so for one-direction there is nothing being lost. And then there are other people who aren't high-level BJJers (meaning they don't enter high-level BJJ comps) that are high level MMA fighters that are also successful, so it doesn't suggest one method is more effective than the other.


----------



## Steve

Monkey Turned Wolf said:


> Not quite. If you breakdance because you enjoy it, rather than focusing on it for BJJ. It'll probably still help you towards BJJ. Just not as much as it would if BJJ were your main focus. And not as much as training for BJJ.


How would we quantify that?   I think we might just disagree on this.


----------



## Monkey Turned Wolf

Steve said:


> How would we quantify that?   I think we might just disagree on this.


Probably. Unfortunately with BJJ I don't think there is a way to quantify that. The best way would be to look at a different sport that can be quantified, like 100m dash and come up with a similar comparison than analyze that. But even that will be difficult since most things that can be quantified like that have a much smaller skillset (not saying they're easier, just the amount of different skills needed is less).


----------



## Steve

Monkey Turned Wolf said:


> That really depends. I'm not sure how those competitions work, if 100% of it is transferable to cardio, then there won't be a difference. If it's not all transferable, then it is.


Once again, I really don't think skill development and such is so easily compartmentalized as you seem to suggest.  Simply put, I don't accept as a given that there is a clear transfer of benefits from one activity to another.  100% transfer to cardio, for example, may not mean maximum benefit to skill, and conversely 50% transfer to cardio could result in maximum benefit to skill.


----------



## Steve

Monkey Turned Wolf said:


> So I think that first part depends, and not sure if we can get a direct answer for that, beyond specific individuals. Overall, I think professional boxers are probably more competitive than most people, so they may be more likely to train for competitions, but at the same time I can see them view it as simply a tool, and not care about competing with it. So different boxers different answers.
> 
> As for the athlete thing-I don't really know what point you're making with that. The fact that some people can/do switch between them, doesn't mean it's the most effective route to do it. And with MMA and BJJ I think that might be an exception to the idea, considering just how similar they are-nearly 100% of BJJ can be transferred directly into MMA, so for one-direction there is nothing being lost. And then there are other people who aren't high-level BJJers (meaning they don't enter high-level BJJ comps) that are high level MMA fighters that are also successful, so it doesn't suggest one method is more effective than the other.


Unless a specific study is done, it's hard to say whether it's more or less efficient.  I mean, if someone wants to be an elite level MMA fighter, is it more efficient for him or her to train in an MMA gym out of the gate, splitting time between grappling and striking, or to start with wrestling, then add BJJ, then add striking, and then synthesize the discrete skillsets?  Is one clearly better than the other?  Both methods produce elite level competitors.


----------



## Monkey Turned Wolf

Steve said:


> Unless a specific study is done, it's hard to say whether it's more or less efficient.  I mean, if someone wants to be an elite level MMA fighter, is it more efficient for him or her to train in an MMA gym out of the gate, splitting time between grappling and striking, or to start with wrestling, then add BJJ, then add striking, and then synthesize the discrete skillsets?  Is one clearly better than the other?  Both methods produce elite level competitors.


Yup. That's why I was saying the difference is negligible. And doesn't really have much of an effect on us amateurs.


----------



## Gerry Seymour

Steve said:


> I think it depends on the amount of hobby time we're talking about.  For example, a guy with 10 hours a week may benefit from a singular focus.  But 20 hours a week?  Would 20 hours in BJJ yield better BJJ results than 10 hours of BJJ and 10 hours of breakdancing?  I don't believe so, but the second guy would definitely be a better breakdancer.


I think that’s a fair claim. I’m not sure where the diminishing return is (and it probably varies by person, but I’d bet most of the benefit past 10 hours is just physical/athletic development, so breakdancing would provide about as much as more BJJ.


----------



## Gerry Seymour

Monkey Turned Wolf said:


> That really depends. I'm not sure how those competitions work, if 100% of it is transferable to cardio, then there won't be a difference. If it's not all transferable, then it is.


I think this is a good example @Steve. In focusing for competition, there’s going to be more stopping to work on tricks and technique, developing routines, rather than keeping the pace up for the fitness benefit.


----------



## Gerry Seymour

Steve said:


> How would we quantify that?   I think we might just disagree on this.


I don’t see a path to quantifying, either, but I think I can help clarify MTW’s point. If you took up breakdancing specifically to improve your BJJ, you’d likely choose to focus on movements and routines that you feel fit that purpose. If you do it for fun, you’d likely learn it more broadly (including moves you don’t see as beneficial to BJJ) and also spend more of the time on developing fun and/or impressive routines.


----------



## Steve

Monkey Turned Wolf said:


> Yup. That's why I was saying the difference is negligible. And doesn't really have much of an effect on us amateurs.


Hold on.  I'm confused again.  This is why I keep asking the same question over.  What's your actual opinion here?  Is it that doing things contiguously impedes skill development, or not?  I mean, if you want to be good at MMA, is it better to focus your attention (as was suggested by several folks earlier in the thread) on one thing (e.g., boxing), get really at it then move onto the second thing (e.g., BJJ), get really good at that, then move onto the third thing (e.g., wrestling), get really good at that, and then put it all together?  Or is it better to do all three things at the same time?  I would say the latter.

Then the question becomes, if you do all three things at the same time, can you get really good at any one of those three things at the same time you're also getting really good at MMA?   I think, 100% yes.  We see it all the time.

Then the question become, can you get really good at all three things while training them all contiguously, and also get really good at MMA?  And I think...  I don't know.  Maybe?  It depends?


----------



## Steve

gpseymour said:


> I don’t see a path to quantifying, either, but I think I can help clarify MTW’s point. If you took up breakdancing specifically to improve your BJJ, you’d likely choose to focus on movements and routines that you feel fit that purpose. If you do it for fun, you’d likely learn it more broadly (including moves you don’t see as beneficial to BJJ) and also spend more of the time on developing fun and/or impressive routines.


Why would you limit yourself like that, though?  I don't understand why you guys think that doing one activity with the intended outcome being to realize a benefit in another activity means you have to half *** that second activity. 

Two questions:  why can't you do breakdancing for fun and also appreciate the benefits of breakdancing in BJJ?  And, how does limiting your breakdancing activity to only moves that are beneficial to BJJ help your BJJ more than if you did those moves AND others?

Simply put, you're presuming a kind of relationship between doing half of breakdancing being more beneficial to BJJ than doing all of breakdancing that I question exists.


----------



## Steve

gpseymour said:


> I think this is a good example @Steve. In focusing for competition, there’s going to be more stopping to work on tricks and technique, developing routines, rather than keeping the pace up for the fitness benefit.


What if, and I know this might be crazy, that doesn't actually matter?  You presume that working on tricks and technique in jumping rope is negatively impacting your boxing training, but why is that necessarily so?  I think it MAY, but that it's not a given.  I also think it MAY have a tangential, net positive impact.  How would this be materially different than doing interval training?  

Point is, you're approaching this from a very narrow, focused position, with one very narrow, focused idea of how some activities can help and some cannot.  I think that skill development is much more squishy than that.


----------



## drop bear

Steve said:


> Why would you limit yourself like that, though?  I don't understand why you guys think that doing one activity with the intended outcome being to realize a benefit in another activity means you have to half *** that second activity.
> 
> Two questions:  why can't you do breakdancing for fun and also appreciate the benefits of breakdancing in BJJ?  And, how does limiting your breakdancing activity to only moves that are beneficial to BJJ help your BJJ more than if you did those moves AND others?
> 
> Simply put, you're presuming a kind of relationship between doing half of breakdancing being more beneficial to BJJ than doing all of breakdancing that I question exists.



Yeah which is that weird aspect of MMA where fighters will train BJJ in a gi.


----------



## Gerry Seymour

Steve said:


> Two questions: why can't you do breakdancing for fun and also appreciate the benefits of breakdancing in BJJ?


You could. That’d be the second group: doing it for fun. 



> And, how does limiting your breakdancing activity to only moves that are beneficial to BJJ help your BJJ more than if you did those moves AND others?


This is back to the original concept of limited time. If you add more moves to work on in the same time, you spend less time on the group most beneficial. And as in my previous post, you likely spend time working on developing routines that look good, that being time taken from the more athletic pursuits most likely to benefit BJJ.


----------



## Gerry Seymour

Steve said:


> What if, and I know this might be crazy, that doesn't actually matter?  You presume that working on tricks and technique in jumping rope is negatively impacting your boxing training, but why is that necessarily so?  I think it MAY, but that it's not a given.  I also think it MAY have a tangential, net positive impact.  How would this be materially different than doing interval training?
> 
> Point is, you're approaching this from a very narrow, focused position, with one very narrow, focused idea of how some activities can help and some cannot.  I think that skill development is much more squishy than that.


What I’m saying is that 10 minutes spent planning out (not practicing) a series of jumprope tricks is less beneficial to boxing than exercising with the jumprope for 10 minutes.

Not really all that narrow. And I don’t see why you see it as controversial.


----------



## Steve

gpseymour said:


> You could. That’d be the second group: doing it for fun.


No. Both groups... at the same time.  Doing it for fun AND doing it because it benefits another activity.





> This is back to the original concept of limited time. If you add more moves to work on in the same time, you spend less time on the group most beneficial. And as in my previous post, you likely spend time working on developing routines that look good, that being time taken from the more athletic pursuits most likely to benefit BJJ.


 Given reasonable amounts of time, I think this just doesn't bear out.  in fact, I think half-assing the second activity is more likely (if anything) to inhibit any benefits you might see than otherwise.


----------



## drop bear

gpseymour said:


> What I’m saying is that 10 minutes spent planning out (not practicing) a series of jumprope tricks is less beneficial to boxing than exercising with the jumprope for 10 minutes.
> 
> Not really all that narrow. And I don’t see why you see it as controversial.



Yeah. But eventually you do those tricks while jump rope guy is still jumping rope. 

The question becomes does that extra depth help you boxing?

I mean I have always been a fan of acro in kata simply because you have to develop more physicality to perform it. 

So the more removed it becomes from the task, fighting. The better it performs for that task. Sort of.


----------



## Steve

gpseymour said:


> What I’m saying is that 10 minutes spent planning out (not practicing) a series of jumprope tricks is less beneficial to boxing than exercising with the jumprope for 10 minutes.
> 
> Not really all that narrow. And I don’t see why you see it as controversial.


What if those 10 minutes spent planning out your tricks leads you to a more intense (and AWESOME) routine?  What if those 10 minutes were when you were sitting in the hot tub, relaxing and recovering from your rope jumping and BJJ classes that day?  Or having a cup of coffee with your rope jumping friends?


----------



## Steve

drop bear said:


> Yeah. But eventually you do those tricks while jump rope guy is still jumping rope.
> 
> The question becomes does that extra depth help you boxing?
> 
> I mean I have always been a fan of acro in kata simply because you have to develop more physicality to perform it.
> 
> So the more removed it becomes from the task, fighting. The better it performs for that task. Sort of.


Gets to that comment about parkour and basketball.  I don't know whether it would help with basketball, but a lot of TKD guys do parkour and you see a lot of parkour tricks in TKD and XMA, as well.  Seems to be pretty synergistic, even if jumping off a roof doesn't translate directly to a 1080 cyclone whirl kick (or whatever they're doing now).


----------



## drop bear

So looking at boxing and wrestling. And this is mostly anecdotal. 

Boxing you can't spar 100% safely all the time. Wrestling you can. So if you wanted to develop that moungrel in someone without giving them brain damage. You could make them wrestle untill they collapse. 

Wrestling needs a strong neck. You get torn apart without one. A strong neck will stop you getting knocked out in boxing. But you can disguise the issue in boxing more easily. 

Head movement in boxing can be a bit sloppy. Head movement in wrestling you can't. 

By changing the focus of your training you change the priorities of what works. And automatically start developing things you otherwise wouldn't.


----------



## Gerry Seymour

drop bear said:


> Yeah. But eventually you do those tricks while jump rope guy is still jumping rope.
> 
> The question becomes does that extra depth help you boxing?
> 
> I mean I have always been a fan of acro in kata simply because you have to develop more physicality to perform it.
> 
> So the more removed it becomes from the task, fighting. The better it performs for that task. Sort of.


agreed. My point is just the time taken away from beneficial training. The hard part is figuring how much that matters at any given point. If it’s 5 hours a week less spent in beneficial training out of 10, that pretty clearly matters. If it’s 30 minutes out of those 10 hours...maybe?


----------



## drop bear

Steve said:


> Gets to that comment about parkour and basketball.  I don't know whether it would help with basketball, but a lot of TKD guys do parkour and you see a lot of parkour tricks in TKD and XMA, as well.  Seems to be pretty synergistic, even if jumping off a roof doesn't translate directly to a 1080 cyclone whirl kick (or whatever they're doing now).



Or the old thing of using ballet for man sports.


Learning to fall properly in basketball is overlooked and you see a bit of collar bone snappage because of it. Because you don't need it untill you need it.


----------



## Gerry Seymour

Steve said:


> What if those 10 minutes spent planning out your tricks leads you to a more intense (and AWESOME) routine?  What if those 10 minutes were when you were sitting in the hot tub, relaxing and recovering from your rope jumping and BJJ classes that day?  Or having a cup of coffee with your rope jumping friends?


You’re changing the argument. It started as a comment about training time taken from a primary activity. If you take the time from elsewhere, you change the variables (like total training time). You seem determined to make this an argument of details rather than a discussion of concepts.


----------



## drop bear

gpseymour said:


> agreed. My point is just the time taken away from beneficial training. The hard part is figuring how much that matters at any given point. If it’s 5 hours a week less spent in beneficial training out of 10, that pretty clearly matters. If it’s 30 minutes out of those 10 hours...maybe?



If you are trying to work out your training that way rather than putting in extra time on development. Then you probably have bigger issues anyway.

That is the old. What do I teach in a two week self defence course? Conundrum.


----------



## Monkey Turned Wolf

Steve said:


> Hold on.  I'm confused again.  This is why I keep asking the same question over.  What's your actual opinion here?  Is it that doing things contiguously impedes skill development, or not?


I'll respond to the rest separately. But not sure if the miscommunication here is on my end on yours, so figured a separate post detailing my opinion here is worth it. As bare bones as I can make it without all the exceptions/iffy definitions of what's a tool vs. a separate activity.


Learning A makes you better at A.
Learning B, if related to A, can also improve your skill at A. Most likely (there are some odd exceptions but not worth mentioning), it at the very least won't impede your skill development in A.
Taking time to learn B, which you would have otherwise spent on A, can impede your skill development for A. I think. And I'm open to the idea that that's wrong. 
However, if B is similar to A in base skill/athletic focus, the amount that it impedes is likely marginal, as long as it's taking away from the conditioning aspect, not skill/tactics training. Similarly, if my 3rd point is wrong, the amount that it improves it over just more training in A is also most likely marginal.
For someone who is a professional at a specific skill, this is important to figure out, since any edge is important. For someone who isn't it's probably better after a certain point to learn a similar, well-rounded skill due to the learning plateau's, but ultimately that's personal choice.


----------



## Monkey Turned Wolf

Steve said:


> Hold on.  I'm confused again.  This is why I keep asking the same question over.  What's your actual opinion here?  Is it that doing things contiguously impedes skill development, or not?  I mean, if you want to be good at MMA, is it better to focus your attention (as was suggested by several folks earlier in the thread) on one thing (e.g., boxing), get really at it then move onto the second thing (e.g., BJJ), get really good at that, then move onto the third thing (e.g., wrestling), get really good at that, and then put it all together?  Or is it better to do all three things at the same time?  I would say the latter.
> 
> Then the question becomes, if you do all three things at the same time, can you get really good at any one of those three things at the same time you're also getting really good at MMA?   I think, 100% yes.  We see it all the time.
> 
> Then the question become, can you get really good at all three things while training them all contiguously, and also get really good at MMA?  And I think...  I don't know.  Maybe?  It depends?


So to address the rest of this, is the end goal MMA/fighting? In that case, my guess is learning them all at the same time is the best option. And will also still improve your baseline ability at wrestling, boxing and BJJ at the same time. But if your goal is boxing, you'd be better off just boxing, rather than splitting some of your time going to MMA class.

That said, again, people have done both ways to compete in MMA so I don't think it really makes that much of a difference.


----------



## Gerry Seymour

drop bear said:


> If you are trying to work out your training that way rather than putting in extra time on development. Then you probably have bigger issues anyway.
> 
> That is the old. What do I teach in a two week self defence course? Conundrum.


Yet most people do have a limited amount of te they’re willing to commit, so it’s a reality for them.


----------



## Steve

gpseymour said:


> You’re changing the argument. It started as a comment about training time taken from a primary activity. If you take the time from elsewhere, you change the variables (like total training time). You seem determined to make this an argument of details rather than a discussion of concepts.


I'm having a discussion, not determined to do anything.  I don't have an agenda here.  I have an opinion.  Very different things.


----------



## drop bear

Steve said:


> Gets to that comment about parkour and basketball.  I don't know whether it would help with basketball, but a lot of TKD guys do parkour and you see a lot of parkour tricks in TKD and XMA, as well.  Seems to be pretty synergistic, even if jumping off a roof doesn't translate directly to a 1080 cyclone whirl kick (or whatever they're doing now).



Interestingly acro translates to MMA a fair bit. Because the fighting dynamics change. Jumping knees work well against takedowns And other bibs and bobs. 

So while XMA may or may not be the greatest base for TKD success. It might be better than TKD for MMA.


----------



## Steve

Monkey Turned Wolf said:


> So to address the rest of this, is the end goal MMA/fighting? In that case, my guess is learning them all at the same time is the best option. And will also still improve your baseline ability at wrestling, boxing and BJJ at the same time. But if your goal is boxing, you'd be better off just boxing, rather than splitting some of your time going to MMA class.
> 
> That said, again, people have done both ways to compete in MMA so I don't think it really makes that much of a difference.


What if the goal is to be good at BJJ AND MMA?  What if the goal is to be GREAT at both?  Or what if your goal is to be great at just BJJ?  Is training in wrestling going to make you less good at BJJ?  What about Judo?  Or Yoga, or Parkour?


----------



## Gerry Seymour

Steve said:


> I'm having a discussion, not determined to do anything.  I don't have an agenda here.  I have an opinion.  Very different things.


Yet you keep trying to push specific usage and argue against claims I haven’t seen people made. And you seem to be taking a confrontational approach to it, asking rhetorical and leading questions, rather than seeking to understand the view you’re arguing with.


----------



## drop bear

gpseymour said:


> Yet most people do have a limited amount of te they’re willing to commit, so it’s a reality for them.



That is a concept called rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic. And is a very common solution. 

It mostly doesn't work. But it is very common.


----------



## Steve

gpseymour said:


> Yet you keep trying to push specific usage and argue against claims I haven’t seen people made. And you seem to be taking a confrontational approach to it, asking rhetorical and leading questions, rather than seeking to understand the view you’re arguing with.


Why are you taking a fun discussion and making it personal?   This is fun for me... mental exercise.  If it's not fun for you, I don't know what to say.  But I don't appreciate your insinuations.


----------



## Monkey Turned Wolf

Steve said:


> What if the goal is to be good at BJJ AND MMA?


 Then do both. 





> What if the goal is to be GREAT at both?  Or what if your goal is to be great at just BJJ?  Is training in wrestling going to make you less good at BJJ?  What about Judo?  Or Yoga, or Parkour?


Nope. It's not going to make you less good at any of those. It just might not help you as much as training the actual thing. Or after a point-Dropbear brought up a good point, that you might learn things in wrestling for instance that translate to boxing, but you wouldn't learn from a boxing coach. With that in mind, I'm changing my opinion slightly. I think that learning to an intermediate level the other thing might be worth taking away time from your main goal, _if_ it has one of those effects (not everything does). I think once you understand the concepts it has to teach you, that you wouldn't otherwise learn, we go back to my initial stance.


----------



## drop bear

Monkey Turned Wolf said:


> So to address the rest of this, is the end goal MMA/fighting? In that case, my guess is learning them all at the same time is the best option. And will also still improve your baseline ability at wrestling, boxing and BJJ at the same time. But if your goal is boxing, you'd be better off just boxing, rather than splitting some of your time going to MMA class.
> 
> That said, again, people have done both ways to compete in MMA so I don't think it really makes that much of a difference.



The end goal as per the original argument is to develop mental elasticity. That enables you to operate outside a rule set. 

So that your martial arts has depth.


----------



## Steve

drop bear said:


> That is a concept called rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic. And is a very common solution.
> 
> It mostly doesn't work. But it is very common.


Not directly related, but this reminds me of a business management practice that comes from a study done in the 50s.  The idea is that change of any kind promotes a spike in productivity that, over time, will normalize and result in a decline back to the baseline.  The interesting thing is, it's really any change that isn't directly counterproductive.  So, raising the temperature in the office by a few degrees...  spike in productivity.  After a time, productivity declines to the baseline.  Lower the temperature in the office by a few degrees... spike in productivity.  I'm grossly oversimplifying this, but the point is that things don't always have to directly impact performance to improve performance.  

If you guys have ever seen a show called Better Off Ted (short lived, but hilarious) they did an episode on this, where management introduced a red lab coat.  "Better Off Ted" It's Nothing Business, It's Just Personal (TV Episode 2009) - IMDb


----------



## drop bear

Steve said:


> Why are you taking a fun discussion and making it personal?   This is fun for me... mental exercise.  If it's not fun for you, I don't know what to say.  But I don't appreciate your insinuations.



The personal attack angle is a form of argument.

I am going to call it the I find that offensive red herring. 

So part of exactly the same mental exercise.


----------



## drop bear

Steve said:


> Not directly related, but this reminds me of a business management practice that comes from a study done in the 50s.  The idea is that change of any kind promotes a spike in productivity that, over time, will normalize and result in a decline back to the baseline.  The interesting thing is, it's really any change that isn't directly counterproductive.  So, raising the temperature in the office by a few degrees...  spike in productivity.  After a time, productivity declines to the baseline.  Lower the temperature in the office by a few degrees... spike in productivity.  I'm grossly oversimplifying this, but the point is that things don't always have to directly impact performance to improve performance.
> 
> If you guys have ever seen a show called Better Off Ted (short lived, but hilarious) they did an episode on this, where management introduced a red lab coat.  "Better Off Ted" It's Nothing Business, It's Just Personal (TV Episode 2009) - IMDb



We anthropomorphise these issues so that they can be reasoned with. And forget that results just don't care. 

So I can come up with the most heart rendingly poignant tale as to why I only have 5 hours to train. 

But I will still only get 5 hours of development out of it. And that is that. 

Diet is a really common place for this to happen. I had a really bad day so I ate chocolate. 

Those bad day chocolate calories don't go down because you had a hella cool excuse.


----------



## Steve

drop bear said:


> We anthropomorphise these issues so that they can be reasoned with. And forget that results just don't care.
> 
> So I can come up with the most heart rendingly poignant tale as to why I only have 5 hours to train.
> 
> But I will still only get 5 hours of development out of it. And that is that.
> 
> Diet is a really common place for this to happen. I had a really bad day so I ate chocolate.
> 
> Those bad day chocolate calories don't go down because you had a hella cool excuse.


I had typed an elaborate analogy to coffee, the idea being that there's a lot of science and a lot of voodoo in coffee and espresso, but the bottom line is can you taste it in the cup?


----------



## drop bear

Steve said:


> I had typed an elaborate analogy to coffee, the idea being that there's a lot of science and a lot of voodoo in coffee and espresso, but the bottom line is can you taste it in the cup?



As a side note.

The guys who are successful at our gym are the guys who are constantly adding to their development. They are the ones putting in the extra time.

Like my boxer mate Chris who was smashing out hill sprints every Sunday morning.

And this is easier to do than it looks. Because you don't have to do it all at once. You can chip away at this. Any extra development helps and it leads to people finding more time to develop.

You come in five minutes early and instead (or as well) as chatting. You practice that submission. 

In six months that submission will be bullet proof.


----------



## Steve

Monkey Turned Wolf said:


> I'll respond to the rest separately. But not sure if the miscommunication here is on my end on yours, so figured a separate post detailing my opinion here is worth it. As bare bones as I can make it without all the exceptions/iffy definitions of what's a tool vs. a separate activity.
> 
> 
> Learning A makes you better at A.


Not to pick nits, but this depends a little on how you're applying A.  Doesn't it?  Not to beat a dead horse, but the horse carcass is relevant.  Say you're goal is to learn to fight.  Can we agree that some training does NOT help you become a better fighter, even though you are being told that it does?





> [*]Learning B, if related to A, can also improve your skill at A. Most likely (there are some odd exceptions but not worth mentioning), it at the very least won't impede your skill development in A.


Sure. 





> [*]Taking time to learn B, which you would have otherwise spent on A, can impede your skill development for A. I think. And I'm open to the idea that that's wrong.


Can being the operative word here.  Can impede.  Can also stimulate skill development.  Devil is in the details here, but it is entirely possible that carving time out of activity A may end up being a net gain in A. 





> [*]However, if B is similar to A in base skill/athletic focus, the amount that it impedes is likely marginal, as long as it's taking away from the conditioning aspect, not skill/tactics training. Similarly, if my 3rd point is wrong, the amount that it improves it over just more training in A is also most likely marginal.


I think this gets super speculative and only really works if we discount the operative word from the previous bullet: "can".  In other words, this only works if we accept as a given that there is _some _impediment.  I think the only definitive statement we can make here is that, if B is entirely incompatible with A, there will be confusion.





> [*]For someone who is a professional at a specific skill, this is important to figure out, since any edge is important. For someone who isn't it's probably better after a certain point to learn a similar, well-rounded skill due to the learning plateau's, but ultimately that's personal choice.


The first part is true, though I think it's a lot less concrete than you seem to, and that "an edge" at that level may come from some seemingly unrelated activities.  And this applies equally, and perhaps in a more pronounced and visible way, to amateurs.


----------



## MetalBoar

Steve said:


> I don't agree with this at all.  I think someone who is good at breakdancing would have a significant advantage even as a beginner in BJJ.  It would seem to me that the strength, coordination, body awareness, and rhythm a break dancer develops would be very complimentary to BJJ.  And conversely, training in BJJ could help a person become a better breakdancer.


Some things are general and universal or nearly so: muscular strength is applicable to almost all physical activity, this is also true of flexibility with the exception that more strength is almost always beneficial where more flexibility than the max needed is not always beneficial. Conditioning and metabolic adaptations are more specific, there is good research to show that there is very little shared benefit to doing conditioning work for two wildly different activities. The easy and extreme example is that doing ultra marathons will have essentially no benefit to your endurance for 3 minute rounds of a combat sport, but this is still true, to a lesser extent, if you use hiking in the mountains and sport fencing as your example activities. The hiking _might_ improve your leg strength, which would benefit the fencing, but is unlikely to improve your metabolic, or "cardio" fitness for fencing.

Then there is skill transfer and this is complicated. I used the term "natural athlete" to describe those people who are able to easily learn one physical skill and then apply the lessons learned to other physical skills. Using that term was apparently a poor choice as it has caused a lot of confusion. These people may have terrible coordination, asthma, poor genetics for developing strength, etc., etc., that make them terrible at athletics, they're just able to apply lessons learned in one physical activity to another easily. The research shows that these people represent a sizable minority of the general populace. I don't remember the details, I'm guessing something like 1/3-ish of the population is able to do this and frequently those people we think of as natural athletes, who can pick up all sports well without seeming to need much training, do have this ability along with other physical gifts, but there are many pro athletes who do not learn this way. 

Most (small majority) people don't transfer skills well between different activities beyond fairly basic levels and if the activities are very similar without being the same they will tend to confuse each other at a high level of performance or competition. Even those for whom skill transfer between different activities comes easily may suffer some skill confusion when performing similar but not identical activities at a high level. 

If someone learns to play the trumpet they will be able to pick up and play the french horn at a basic level because the basics are just about the same, regardless of which type of learner they are. If they are a very skilled trumpet player _and_ someone who is able to transfer skills between activities easily they will probably be able to pick up the french horn and play it at a pretty high level almost immediately. If they were auditioning for first chair trumpet with the London Symphony and they spend their time playing the french horn in preparation their performance is unlikely to be as good as it could have been if they'd spent the time playing the trumpet and possibly worse than if they hadn't played anything at all. If they did not transfer skills well between different activities then they are guaranteed to do worse by practicing the french horn than if they had spent the time practicing the trumpet and likely worse than if they'd done no practice at all.

So, to talk about break dancing and BJJ, if someone who regularly practiced break dancing took up BJJ, I would agree that they'd be much better off than the couch potato doing the same thing. To the extent that their break dancing had developed muscular strength that would be entirely or almost entirely transferable to BJJ. I've never done break dancing, but to the degree that the intensity, duration, etc., of break dancing is similar to BJJ some measure of metabolic adaptions/conditioning would also likely transfer. If there is overlap in the kinds of flexibility needed for both activities those would also apply. If there are skills that overlap, like say learning to fall, then those would transfer to some extent but the differences (being taken down rather than throwing yourself down for example) would likely cause some initial confusion for the student that does not transfer skills well and might continue to do so if they switch back and forth between the activities. If this person was the type that transfers skills easily between different activities then they might gain some other insights that they could apply as well. Since these are pretty different activities they are unlikely to be overly detrimental to each other. The student is unlikely to inadvertently try a break dancing move in the middle of a BJJ tournament by mistake, but their falls might not be as safe or theatrical as they would have been if they specialized.

MMA is also tricky because it's got a lot of components that need to be mastered or at least addressed. Is someone's MMA hurt by doing a lot of BJJ tournaments? To some extent, maybe? How much do they get used to relying on techniques that are safe within the BJJ rule set and will get you knocked out or injured in MMA? Do they have enough training time to get maximum benefit for their non-grappling MMA skills? Will learning boxing hurt their MMA? Again, probably only to the degree that the difference in rules could lead to some unconscious mistakes and to the extent that it limits their time for training kicks and grappling. Will learning boxing and BJJ improve their MMA? Almost certainly because those skills, or similar skills, are integral to MMA.

Now, would boxing help your tournament BJJ? Well, the conditioning and strength requirements have a fair amount of overlap, so that would transfer for everyone. To whatever extent the boxing clinch work was applicable it might transfer to a greater or lesser degree depending on your learning style. I have no idea how things like resistance to fear or pain might or might not transfer, but that might be a benefit regardless of what kind of learner you are. But if you are in the majority of people who do not transfer skills well between different activities you are unlikely to get much of any kind of insight into how to apply groundwork skills better because you box.

An example of the confusion I'm talking about: I had a friend in college who had done a lot of Muay Thai and after his MT school closed he decided to take up TKD. He had a really hard time in competitions because he would unconsciously sweep his opponent's legs and punch them in the face, neither of which was allowed within the rule set of the TKD competitions he was doing. He gave up on TKD because he felt that for the way he learned things he would have to develop things he considered to be bad habits to be able to compete. 

None of this is to say that you shouldn't train in whatever you want or that interests you. And this goes triple if your goal isn't to be a professional athlete or something like that. I think that if you've got 2 hours/week you can spend on martial arts training and you want to be competent at BJJ you should probably spend 2 hours/week on BJJ and not 1 hour on BJJ and 1 on boxing unless they're both equally important to you and you don't care how long it takes to become competent. Outside of time restrictions, I don't see any reason for the non-professional to limit their activities. I think it's much more important to enjoy what you do than to over optimize all the fun out of it. I just think it's a waste of time to take up water polo because you think it'll make you a better cellist.


----------



## Steve

MetalBoar said:


> Some things are general and universal or nearly so: muscular strength is applicable to almost all physical activity, this is also true of flexibility with the exception that more strength is almost always beneficial where more flexibility than the max needed is not always beneficial. Conditioning and metabolic adaptations are more specific, there is good research to show that there is very little shared benefit to doing conditioning work for two wildly different activities. The easy and extreme example is that doing ultra marathons will have essentially no benefit to your endurance for 3 minute rounds of a combat sport, but this is still true, to a lesser extent, if you use hiking in the mountains and sport fencing as your example activities. The hiking _might_ improve your leg strength, which would benefit the fencing, but is unlikely to improve your metabolic, or "cardio" fitness for fencing.
> 
> Then there is skill transfer and this is complicated. I used the term "natural athlete" to describe those people who are able to easily learn one physical skill and then apply the lessons learned to other physical skills. Using that term was apparently a poor choice as it has caused a lot of confusion. These people may have terrible coordination, asthma, poor genetics for developing strength, etc., etc., that make them terrible at athletics, they're just able to apply lessons learned in one physical activity to another easily. The research shows that these people represent a sizable minority of the general populace. I don't remember the details, I'm guessing something like 1/3-ish of the population is able to do this and frequently those people we think of as natural athletes, who can pick up all sports well without seeming to need much training, do have this ability along with other physical gifts, but there are many pro athletes who do not learn this way.
> 
> Most (small majority) people don't transfer skills well between different activities beyond fairly basic levels and if the activities are very similar without being the same they will tend to confuse each other at a high level of performance or competition. Even those for whom skill transfer between different activities comes easily may suffer some skill confusion when performing similar but not identical activities at a high level.
> 
> If someone learns to play the trumpet they will be able to pick up and play the french horn at a basic level because the basics are just about the same, regardless of which type of learner they are. If they are a very skilled trumpet player _and_ someone who is able to transfer skills between activities easily they will probably be able to pick up the french horn and play it at a pretty high level almost immediately. If they were auditioning for first chair trumpet with the London Symphony and they spend their time playing the french horn in preparation their performance is unlikely to be as good as it could have been if they'd spent the time playing the trumpet and possibly worse than if they hadn't played anything at all. If they did not transfer skills well between different activities then they are guaranteed to do worse by practicing the french horn than if they had spent the time practicing the trumpet and likely worse than if they'd done no practice at all.
> 
> So, to talk about break dancing and BJJ, if someone who regularly practiced break dancing took up BJJ, I would agree that they'd be much better off than the couch potato doing the same thing. To the extent that their break dancing had developed muscular strength that would be entirely or almost entirely transferable to BJJ. I've never done break dancing, but to the degree that the intensity, duration, etc., of break dancing is similar to BJJ some measure of metabolic adaptions/conditioning would also likely transfer. If there is overlap in the kinds of flexibility needed for both activities those would also apply. If there are skills that overlap, like say learning to fall, then those would transfer to some extent but the differences (being taken down rather than throwing yourself down for example) would likely cause some initial confusion for the student that does not transfer skills well and might continue to do so if they switch back and forth between the activities. If this person was the type that transfers skills easily between different activities then they might gain some other insights that they could apply as well. Since these are pretty different activities they are unlikely to be overly detrimental to each other. The student is unlikely to inadvertently try a break dancing move in the middle of a BJJ tournament by mistake, but their falls might not be as safe or theatrical as they would have been if they specialized.
> 
> MMA is also tricky because it's got a lot of components that need to be mastered or at least addressed. Is someone's MMA hurt by doing a lot of BJJ tournaments? To some extent, maybe? How much do they get used to relying on techniques that are safe within the BJJ rule set and will get you knocked out or injured in MMA? Do they have enough training time to get maximum benefit for their non-grappling MMA skills? Will learning boxing hurt their MMA? Again, probably only to the degree that the difference in rules could lead to some unconscious mistakes and to the extent that it limits their time for training kicks and grappling. Will learning boxing and BJJ improve their MMA? Almost certainly because those skills, or similar skills, are integral to MMA.
> 
> Now, would boxing help your tournament BJJ? Well, the conditioning and strength requirements have a fair amount of overlap, so that would transfer for everyone. To whatever extent the boxing clinch work was applicable it might transfer to a greater or lesser degree depending on your learning style. I have no idea how things like resistance to fear or pain might or might not transfer, but that might be a benefit regardless of what kind of learner you are. But if you are in the majority of people who do not transfer skills well between different activities you are unlikely to get much of any kind of insight into how to apply groundwork skills better because you box.
> 
> An example of the confusion I'm talking about: I had a friend in college who had done a lot of Muay Thai and after his MT school closed he decided to take up TKD. He had a really hard time in competitions because he would unconsciously sweep his opponent's legs and punch them in the face, neither of which was allowed within the rule set of the TKD competitions he was doing. He gave up on TKD because he felt that for the way he learned things he would have to develop things he considered to be bad habits to be able to compete.
> 
> None of this is to say that you shouldn't train in whatever you want or that interests you. And this goes triple if your goal isn't to be a professional athlete or something like that. I think that if you've got 2 hours/week you can spend on martial arts training and you want to be competent at BJJ you should probably spend 2 hours/week on BJJ and not 1 hour on BJJ and 1 on boxing unless they're both equally important to you and you don't care how long it takes to become competent. Outside of time restrictions, I don't see any reason for the non-professional to limit their activities. I think it's much more important to enjoy what you do than to over optimize all the fun out of it. I just think it's a waste of time to take up water polo because you think it'll make you a better cellist.


I've been thinking about this, and I guess I'll just distill this to one simple question.  How can guys like @gpseymour say he sees a lot of application training with guys like @Tony Dismukes, or guys like @Tony Dismukes  say he sees a lot of benefit from his training in things like ninjutsu or wing chun, or wing chun guys like @yak sao say he sees a lot of benefit from other styles.... and at the same time, be so rigid and inflexible about what can or cannot benefit training?  Seems pretty inconsistent to me.   To be clear, I'm not suggesting @yak sao or @Tony Dismukes have taken a rigid stance.  More, I'm suggesting that you guys are already open to the idea of cross benefits, but seem to balk at the idea of less obvious carryover. 

For what it's worth, I think when you talk about playing the trumpet and playing the french horn, I think breakdancing and BJJ are about that close.  Very similar.  Not quite as close as breakdancing and capoira, but close.


----------



## letsplaygames

Totally depends on the instructor.

I see BJJ... having a Sensei who loved shimewaza and kanasetsu waza  which he called "Higher Judo"  ... I see very little


----------



## MetalBoar

Steve said:


> I've been thinking about this, and I guess I'll just distill this to one simple question.  How can guys like @gpseymour say he sees a lot of application training with guys like @Tony Dismukes, or guys like @Tony Dismukes  say he sees a lot of benefit from his training in things like ninjutsu or wing chun, or wing chun guys like @yak sao say he sees a lot of benefit from other styles.... and at the same time, be so rigid and inflexible about what can or cannot benefit training?  Seems pretty inconsistent to me.   To be clear, I'm not suggesting @yak sao or @Tony Dismukes have taken a rigid stance.  More, I'm suggesting that you guys are already open to the idea of cross benefits, but seem to balk at the idea of less obvious carryover.


I think this is an interesting question and I'd love to hear other peoples' takes on it.

Just talking about skill acquisition below:

I'm not at all against cross training and I do believe it can have benefits _for your complete martial arts package. _If you want to be a well rounded martial artist then you're likely going to train in multiple arts. For the most part, outside of potential time and recovery limitations, I don't think there's much downside to cross training  (at least in very different arts, say BJJ and boxing) and a lot of upsides for that goal. That's especially true for me because I want to have fun with my martial arts, get some exercise in, and get better at self defense and at this point in my life I prioritize it in about that order too. I just think that it doesn't work the way some people are claiming it does, at least for the way most people learn.

For example, I think that doing boxing and BJJ at the same time are a great way to get better at fighting in an overall sense. I do not think that doing BJJ is going to make your boxing in the ring better unless you are able to pick up skills the way only a minority of people are able to and even then I think it will be only minimally beneficial to your boxing, and vice versa. They are different enough that I doubt they'll be detrimental to each other under competition rules either.

Now if you already box and you take up Wing Chun you may also become a more well rounded fighter since you're going to get some training that boxing is completely missing in kicking at the very least. Some people, either because they are the rare-ish individual who easily learn things this way or because they work to take a piece and integrate it into what they already do (essentially make it a part of boxing), are going to find ways to use the Wing Chun to improve aspects of boxing as well. If neither of these things are true they are likely to confuse their skills and slow their progress by mixing up methods of power generation and footwork, etc.. Even if they are good at transferring motor skills between different activities they run the risk of unconsciously breaking the rules in their boxing matches if they do a lot of sparring in Wing Chun. I know that when I was studying Aikido and fencing all the time I almost threw a guy in a fencing tournament by reflex! In general I think the more you have/want to conform to a specific set of rules the less benefit you get from cross training (or at least the amount of work necessary to benefit goes up).

My own observations have taught me that cross training has a lot more challenges for most people than you'd think. I haven't taught martial arts very much but before the pandemic I owned a gym offering strictly one on one strength training instruction. We used a slow, HIT protocol that required a lot of grit but very little skill to perform well. It is _*much *_easier to learn and perform properly than pretty much anything you will learn in martial arts. I had clients that would take up some other style of weight lifting on the side, maybe because it was closer to home or they just wanted to add something else. In almost every single case it would really degrade their ability to perform our protocol properly. Sure, they could still move the weights but their speed of motion would be too fast or they'd break form and cheat to unload the weights when it got hard. The point is, they would go from having very solid form to mediocre to poor form just by adding a new type of weight lifting and that's a lot simpler than trying to integrate Tai Chi with Muay Thai. Even when people took up yoga, which is supposed to give you a better mind body connection, it screwed up their form. They usually wouldn't have too much trouble with proper form moving the weights but they'd unconsciously sync their breathing with their lifting. We used a SLOW protocol, if you sync your breathing with the movement you'll run out of breath in a hurry but even with me telling them to breath faster they wouldn't do it until it was too late.

Again, I'm not against cross training but I think that it does most people a disservice to ignore the challenges it can represent.



Steve said:


> For what it's worth, I think when you talk about playing the trumpet and playing the french horn, I think breakdancing and BJJ are about that close.  Very similar.  Not quite as close as breakdancing and capoira, but close.


If you see break dancing and BJJ as being that similar I can say without a doubt you are one of the rare people who do easily apply skills that you've learned in one physical activity to another. If your brain works this way then its seems very natural that this is how things work. It doesn't work that way for most people. To them (even to me and I'm more on the "natural athlete" side of this than many) comparing break dancing to BJJ is like comparing apples to artichokes.


----------



## drop bear

MetalBoar said:


> If you see break dancing and BJJ as being that similar I can say without a doubt you are one of the rare people who do easily apply skills that you've learned in one physical activity to another. If your brain works this way then its seems very natural that this is how things work. It doesn't work that way for most people. To them (even to me and I'm more on the "natural athlete" side of this than many) comparing break dancing to BJJ is like comparing apples to artichokes.



It is probably more a product of training systems that use multiple concepts all time. Which allows people to problem solve a bit easier.


----------



## Steve

drop bear said:


> It is probably more a product of training systems that use multiple concepts all time. Which allows people to problem solve a bit easier.


Agreed.  @MetalBoar , I think what you believe is innate is actually the product of a lot of training and practice. 

When I get new employees on my team, I often have to teach them to be creative problem solvers.  When I'm assessing applicant pools, I try to focus on traits and not skills.  Coachability is a trait.  Self awareness is a trait.  Integrity, discipline, optimism, are also traits.  Is someone comfortable with ambiguity and change?  Traits.

If someone has these traits, they can learn pretty much any skill including how to be a creative problem solver.  

Not to say you can't help someone with a trait, at least with some traits.   Rather, traits are more baked in. As my grandma used to say, in time you might teach a pig to climb a tree, but it'll never climb like a squirrel.


----------



## MetalBoar

Steve said:


> Agreed.  @MetalBoar , I think what you believe is innate is actually the product of a lot of training and practice.
> 
> When I get new employees on my team, I often have to teach them to be creative problem solvers.  When I'm assessing applicant pools, I try to focus on traits and not skills.  Coachability is a trait.  Self awareness is a trait.  Integrity, discipline, optimism, are also traits.  Is someone comfortable with ambiguity and change?  Traits.
> 
> If someone has these traits, they can learn pretty much any skill including how to be a creative problem solver.
> 
> Not to say you can't help someone with a trait, at least with some traits.   *Rather, traits are more baked in. *As my grandma used to say, in time you might teach a pig to climb a tree, but it'll never climb like a squirrel.


Yes, and the research indicates that being able to easily transfer things you've learned practicing one physical skill to another is baked in and for the most part is hard to change. I don't know that it is impossible, but I suspect it's difficult. Just like your tree climbing pig.


----------



## Steve

MetalBoar said:


> Yes, and the research indicates that being able to easily transfer things you've learned practicing one physical skill to another is baked in and for the most part is hard to change. I don't know that it is impossible, but I suspect it's difficult. Just like your tree climbing pig.


Maybe I've been lucky, but I've been teaching people to do it for over 15 years now, on my y am, and also teaching managers how to do it on their teams.   My belief based on my actual success in this area is that, like you above, folks often mistake the skill for a trait. 



I've written about various elements of this at length over the years.  Takes a while, don't get me wrong, but if folks have the right traits, they can be taught this skill.


----------



## drop bear

MetalBoar said:


> Yes, and the research indicates that being able to easily transfer things you've learned practicing one physical skill to another is baked in and for the most part is hard to change. I don't know that it is impossible, but I suspect it's difficult. Just like your tree climbing pig.



What research would that be?


----------



## Gerry Seymour

drop bear said:


> That is a concept called rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic. And is a very common solution.
> 
> It mostly doesn't work. But it is very common.


Just because someone has a limited time to commit, that doesn't make their training a disaster.


----------



## Gerry Seymour

...


----------



## Gerry Seymour

Steve said:


> I've been thinking about this, and I guess I'll just distill this to one simple question.  How can guys like @gpseymour say he sees a lot of application training with guys like @Tony Dismukes, or guys like @Tony Dismukes  say he sees a lot of benefit from his training in things like ninjutsu or wing chun, or wing chun guys like @yak sao say he sees a lot of benefit from other styles.... and at the same time, be so rigid and inflexible about what can or cannot benefit training?  Seems pretty inconsistent to me.   To be clear, I'm not suggesting @yak sao or @Tony Dismukes have taken a rigid stance.  More, I'm suggesting that you guys are already open to the idea of cross benefits, but seem to balk at the idea of less obvious carryover.



You seem to have completely missed my point, Steve. If you've paid any attention to my posting over the years, you know I'm a proponent of cross-training in MA (including training multiple MA at once, for those with enough interest).

The bit you jumped into was originally about whether dividing a limited amount of training time between multiple competition formats would detract specifically from competition success in whatever the "primary" format (the one they'd train for if only training one - the other is an add-on). You made a comment about narrow view earlier - well, it started from a rather narrow topic.



> For what it's worth, I think when you talk about playing the trumpet and playing the french horn, I think breakdancing and BJJ are about that close.  Very similar.  Not quite as close as breakdancing and capoira, but close.


Bollux. Trumpet and french horn use the same scales and much (nearly all) of the same terminology. Mouth technique is probably the same, too. They often are used in similar music. None of that is analogous to BJJ and breakdancing. They share some athletic moves and that's about it. It's more like comparing snare drum and french horn, IMO. There's certainly some carry-over.


----------



## Gerry Seymour

Steve said:


> Not to pick nits, but this depends a little on how you're applying A. Doesn't it? Not to beat a dead horse, but the horse carcass is relevant. Say you're goal is to learn to fight. Can we agree that some training does NOT help you become a better fighter, even though you are being told that it does?


In this sentence, you're actually arguing against your other arguments. You often say that training without fight application (which you narrowly define as sanctioned competition or actual fight-for-survival scenarios) has no benefit to fight skills. Yet somehow breakdancing is almost as good as BJJ training for fight skill development??


----------



## drop bear

gpseymour said:


> Just because someone has a limited time to commit, that doesn't make their training a disaster.



It depends what you consider a disaster. The difference tends to be pretty massive.

And we are talking in terms of 6 months outperforming 10 years.


----------



## drop bear

gpseymour said:


> Bollux. Trumpet and french horn use the same scales and much (nearly all) of the same terminology. Mouth technique is probably the same, too. They often are used in similar music. None of that is analogous to BJJ and breakdancing. They share some athletic moves and that's about it. It's more like comparing snare drum and french horn, IMO. There's certainly some carry-over.



Bjj and breakdancing are basically just a series of athletic moves though.


----------



## drop bear

gpseymour said:


> In this sentence, you're actually arguing against your other arguments. You often say that training without fight application (which you narrowly define as sanctioned competition or actual fight-for-survival scenarios) has no benefit to fight skills. Yet somehow breakdancing is almost as good as BJJ training for fight skill development??



No you are the only one who says that.


----------



## Gerry Seymour

drop bear said:


> It depends what you consider a disaster. The difference tends to be pretty massive.
> 
> And we are talking in terms of 6 months outperforming 10 years.


If they are satisfied with the compromise, it's not a disaster for them. People set their own priorities, and usually they're perfectly fine with letting some things be just "okay" because it's better than not doing them at all.


----------



## Gerry Seymour

drop bear said:


> Bjj and breakdancing are basically just a series of athletic moves though.


So is table tennis. And hopscotch. Are those also basically the same thing as BJJ?


----------



## Gerry Seymour

drop bear said:


> No you are the only one who says that.


Which part of Steve's comments are you trying to attribute to me? That breakdancing is as good as BJJ for fight skill development, or that only competition or IRL use counts as application. Because I've literally never made anything that even looks like either of those claims, so either way your post is a complete falsehood.


----------



## drop bear

gpseymour said:


> Which part of Steve's comments are you trying to attribute to me? That breakdancing is as good as BJJ for fight skill development, or that only competition or IRL use counts as application. Because I've literally never made anything that even looks like either of those claims, so either way your post is a complete falsehood.



Show me where you think Steve's comments match yours.

I feel you are creating a strawman here. And once you create a strawman they become your comments.


----------



## drop bear

gpseymour said:


> So is table tennis. And hopscotch. Are those also basically the same thing as BJJ?



No but for completely different reasons.


----------



## drop bear

gpseymour said:


> If they are satisfied with the compromise, it's not a disaster for them. People set their own priorities, and usually they're perfectly fine with letting some things be just "okay" because it's better than not doing them at all.



But then training multiple disciplines has no effect on someone who is satisfied with the compromise either.


----------



## Steve

gpseymour said:


> You seem to have completely missed my point, Steve. If you've paid any attention to my posting over the years, you know I'm a proponent of cross-training in MA (including training multiple MA at once, for those with enough interest).
> 
> The bit you jumped into was originally about whether dividing a limited amount of training time between multiple competition formats would detract specifically from competition success in whatever the "primary" format (the one they'd train for if only training one - the other is an add-on). You made a comment about narrow view earlier - well, it started from a rather narrow topic.
> 
> 
> Bollux. Trumpet and french horn use the same scales and much (nearly all) of the same terminology. Mouth technique is probably the same, too. They often are used in similar music. None of that is analogous to BJJ and breakdancing. They share some athletic moves and that's about it. It's more like comparing snare drum and french horn, IMO. There's certainly some carry-over.


I just disagree with you.  It's okay.  Don't take it personally or get defensive. 

For what it's worth, I do know you are a proponent of cross training. Apparently, only a very specific kind, though.


----------



## Gerry Seymour

Steve said:


> I just disagree with you.  It's okay.  Don't take it personally or get defensive.
> 
> For what it's worth, I do know you are a proponent of cross training. Apparently, only a very specific kind, though.


You just keep getting worse. You seem to care less about what people actually say, and more about disagreeing with those you prefer to disagree with.


----------



## Steve

gpseymour said:


> In this sentence, you're actually arguing against your other arguments. You often say that training without fight application (which you narrowly define as sanctioned competition or actual fight-for-survival scenarios) has no benefit to fight skills. Yet somehow breakdancing is almost as good as BJJ training for fight skill development??


Not quite. I actually have a very broad definition of application, and what I'm talking about has nothing to do with it. You still need to do something to become an expert in that thing.  Lifting weights might make you stronger, and being stronger might help your BJJ, bit you still have to use the BJJ to become an expert in it.

I'm not sure if you're yanking my chain...  Who said breakdancing is fighting?  Is weightlifting also fighting?  No?  But cannot help you fight?


----------



## Steve

gpseymour said:


> You just keep getting worse. You seem to care less about what people actually say, and more about disagreeing with those you prefer to disagree with.


okay. Is that a personal attack?  If not, could you explain how it related to the thread?


----------



## Gerry Seymour

Steve said:


> Not quite. I actually have a very broad definition of application, and what I'm talking about has nothing to do with it. You still need to do something to become an expert in that thing.  Lifting weights might make you stronger, and being stronger might help your BJJ, bit you still have to use the BJJ to become an expert in it.
> 
> I'm not sure if you're yanking my chain...  Who said breakdancing is fighting?  Is weightlifting also fighting?  No?  But cannot help you fight?


You literally spent pages arguing with me that sparring isn’t application, but competition is, even if the same people are involved under the same agreed rules. Disavowing that view?


----------



## Steve

gpseymour said:


> So is table tennis. And hopscotch. Are those also basically the same thing as BJJ?


I'm genuinely confused at who suggested breakdancing is "basically the same thing as BJJ.". Where is this coming from?  Though if that's what you think, it makes more sense why you're posting as you are.


----------



## Steve

gpseymour said:


> You literally spent pages arguing with me that sparring isn’t application, but competition is, even if the same people are involved under the same agreed rules. Disavowing that view?


Serious question.  Have you been drinking?


----------



## Steve

gpseymour said:


> You literally spent pages arguing with me that sparring isn’t application, but competition is, even if the same people are involved under the same agreed rules. Disavowing that view?


Sorry. To answer the question, sparring isn't application.  It's training. That's still true and always will be, unless being an expert sparring partner is the training goal.


----------



## jks9199

Thread locked


----------

