The Way of Least Resistance

The title to this essay might seem like an odd question.  On one level the answer is really quite simple: the beginner is the person who just walked in through the door. But on another level, you'll sometimes hear experienced martial arts practitioners say: “I’m still a beginner.”  This isn't just false modesty either. There is some truth to the notion that even an experienced martial artist can be a beginner. How?   Because in the end, it’s all relative.  In February I will have celebrated 36 years of continuous training in the martial arts.  Am I a beginner?  Manifestly not, in the ordinary sense of the word “beginner”.  But how does my 36 years compare with Kyoshi James Sumarac’s 50+ years of training?  Or, for that matter, Master Chen Yun Ching’s 72+ years of training?  In relation to them, I am a beginner. It also depends on what type of martial arts you’re talking about, hence my gif above of Ronda Rousey - a judo...

One of the techniques I noticed frequently in the Rousey vs. Holm fight was the overhand inverted punch.  In karate I suppose it would be an otoshi ura zuki (an inverted dropping punch). 1 Holm used it time and time again to devastating effect - both moving to the outside of Rousey's lead (something I'll examine in a moment), and sometimes just square down the middle on the inside, as shown in the three pictures to the right.  However it lands, the technique is devastating.  It's a very useful punch precisely because it is so  unexpected . I suppose this raises the question why that would be the case.  I'll get to that soon.  But first, let us not forget what an oddity this technique really is - in both combat sports and traditional martial arts. In an industry often obsessed with rejecting any level of " corkscrew " in punches, it seems out of place to expect one that corkscrews to its maximum possible extent - ie. so much that the thumb ends up...

Okay, so the dust is settling on Ronda Rousey's historic loss to Holly Holm. And there are no shortage of pundits analysing the details of what went wrong with Rousey's game and what went right with Holm's. Heck, some people managed to get the commentary right before the fight even started.  Consider this adept video that my friend Gene Burnett put me onto: Doubtless, writers like the amazing Jack Slack will use this kind of analysis to examine the fight down to the finest technical degree. [Edit: Jack has posted an article  - and I'm glad to see his conclusion is consistent with mine!] But I'm going to be brutally frank here.  I don't think we really need to go to that level of detail to understand what went wrong for Rousey and right for Holm.  I think that in the end it's as simple as this: All of Rousey's previous opponent have been second rate strikers (compared with Holm). Rousey  simply wasn't prepared for a good stand-up game . ...