The distaste for strength in martial arts

Gerry Seymour said:
You learn to not use the strength, then learn to add it in. If you depend on the strength from the start, you cover up areas where better technique helps. So, you put the strength aside, so to speak, until you have reasonable technique, then you get strength + technique.
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It is impossible to move the human body without using strength.
 
I occasionally get roasted for spending too much effort on strength training and being too slow. However...

...they're usually the ones getting tired after 5 pushups while I'm breezing through 30. They're usually the ones reeling over from a body shot while I just carry on from it. They're usually the ones hurting their wrists on the heavy bag while I'm making clean shots on it.

I'm not claiming to be a tough guy, nor the strongest guy ever (I look like a starving rat), but anyone who tells you that strength isn't important in martial arts is speaking from their rectal cavity.
 
Unkogami said:
Semantics. Strength is not an on/off switch.
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It can be. We all have low strength days. Some days I can lift the whole world, some days I just want to sit and use as little strength as possible. A few of those days, I don't seem to have a choice. Today is one of those.

When it comes to using your strength in combat, it'll be highly dependent on the time, day, year, and your relative muscle fatigue.

Imagine getting jumped the night you lifted for hours. That's my worst martial arts nightmare, dude.
 
Unkogami said:
Semantics. Strength is not an on/off switch.
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You do not need to lift a cup of coffee with the same amount of strength you lift a 50 pound weight.

And it is not semantics....

Strength - the quality or state of being physically strong. he capacity of an object or substance to withstand great force or pressure.

Muscle - a band or bundle of fibrous tissue in a human or animal body that has the ability to contract, producing movement in or maintaining the position of parts of the body.

With that said, one can use muscle and mean strength, but is is an informal definition, "They muscled the engine into place"
however the reverse is not possible. One should not use strength and expect it to be understood as muscle.
 
Xue Sheng said:
You do not need to lift a cup of coffee with the same amount of strength you lift a 50 pound weight.

And it is not semantics....

Strength - the quality or state of being physically strong. he capacity of an object or substance to withstand great force or pressure.

Muscle - a band or bundle of fibrous tissue in a human or animal body that has the ability to contract, producing movement in or maintaining the position of parts of the body.

With that said, one can use muscle and mean strength, but is is an informal definition, "They muscled the engine into place"
however the reverse is not possible. One should not use strength and expect it to be understood as muscle.
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I thought the BJJ people figured this out well, they call it "gassing out" for a good reason. What does that even mean? Well, it had to do with how much oxygen you need to fuel all that beautiful muscle, during combat.
 
I could write a lot about it but simply put. Fifty eight years of practice tells me it's not strength I am using to win against young Sixth Dan's It's not about how strong you are or how fast. It's all about timing. Watching a younger guy buzz around like a mosquito before you swat him.
 
We
Ivan said:
Hi. I am writing an article on the attitudes towards physical strength in martial arts, and would like to get your perspective on this issue (if it is an issue, I personally feel that it is) in martial arts, since you're all much more experienced than me. Every since I started training, I saw that there were many students and professors alike that seemed to have a sort of chip on their shoulders when it came to physical strength. I specifically noticed this in traditional martial arts; while my professors in Jiujitsu seemed to have an issue with strong people, my professors in more modern arts and combat sports seemed to lean towards it. This issue was most prevalent during my fleeting time in Shorinji Kempo, and it was one of the main reasons I quit.

People there seemed to have this sense of superiority towards me because I spend a lot of time working out at the gym and lifting weights, and many jokes and mockery and criticism by both students and senseis aside at people who spend their time training at the gym. Much of it came from the idea that using strength to fight was brutish and perhaps even a little uneducated or simply stupid. Although modern combat sports and martial arts tend to supplement (and in some cases even rely on) strength training for their techniques, this is not to say that they are bereft of such attitudes. I have come across one or two individuals that have this mentality of superiority in my BJJ gym too, and there is even the running joke amongst the online BJJ community where calling someone strong is an insult in a way, as they have no technique worthy of a compliment.

Personally however, I dislike this mentality a lot. I would even go as far as to argue that strength is a technique too - I wasn't born with my strength, and I worked a very long time to get to the level I am in terms of weightlifting today. If it just so happens that it helps me against my opponent, of course I'll use it. I think it is very important to incorporate strength training, whether traditional iron-body type stuff, or modern muscular hypertrophy and development. What are your thoughts on this?
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Weights and strength are great keep doing it but understand carrying excess muscle is a drawback.I teach jkd so it's important but focus on developing technique first do weights towards the end of the week as a seprate session.
 
Ivan said:
Hi. I am writing an article on the attitudes towards physical strength in martial arts, and would like to get your perspective on this issue (if it is an issue, I personally feel that it is) in martial arts, since you're all much more experienced than me. Every since I started training, I saw that there were many students and professors alike that seemed to have a sort of chip on their shoulders when it came to physical strength. I specifically noticed this in traditional martial arts; while my professors in Jiujitsu seemed to have an issue with strong people, my professors in more modern arts and combat sports seemed to lean towards it. This issue was most prevalent during my fleeting time in Shorinji Kempo, and it was one of the main reasons I quit.

People there seemed to have this sense of superiority towards me because I spend a lot of time working out at the gym and lifting weights, and many jokes and mockery and criticism by both students and senseis aside at people who spend their time training at the gym. Much of it came from the idea that using strength to fight was brutish and perhaps even a little uneducated or simply stupid. Although modern combat sports and martial arts tend to supplement (and in some cases even rely on) strength training for their techniques, this is not to say that they are bereft of such attitudes. I have come across one or two individuals that have this mentality of superiority in my BJJ gym too, and there is even the running joke amongst the online BJJ community where calling someone strong is an insult in a way, as they have no technique worthy of a compliment.

Personally however, I dislike this mentality a lot. I would even go as far as to argue that strength is a technique too - I wasn't born with my strength, and I worked a very long time to get to the level I am in terms of weightlifting today. If it just so happens that it helps me against my opponent, of course I'll use it. I think it is very important to incorporate strength training, whether traditional iron-body type stuff, or modern muscular hypertrophy and development. What are your thoughts on this?
Click to expand...
Functional strength matters a lot in fighting, actually. It might not even be a stretch to say that sufficiency of strength is the most important single determinant of success. This is not to say that strength beats everything else, but rather that unless you have enough strength for your current opponent given your current combat circumstances, you aren't likely to triumph.

Of course, there are different sorts of strength. In my Ma Weiqi Bagua school, we focus on strength from tendon/fascia transformation and body integration. This is a fundamental requirement of our practice, incidentally. After all, techniques don't work if the body isn't conditioned enough to power them correctly.

All that said, strength alone is not enough. A typical industrial robot is far stronger than just about any human could ever hope to be but it would have almost no chance of beating any of us in a fight unless we get really stupid.

But yea, strength is important. Many of the people who sneer at you for working out are possibly fantasy martial artists.
 
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