Formidable Fighter

Outlasting your opponent in competition or learning to combat a bigger person under stress requires hard training. You must be physically fit, strong, and powerful. Supplemental strength training in addition to your martial arts training will help you develop the toughness you need to equalize or overcome the power of a bigger opponent. Strength also helps you win in competition and establishes your reputation as a formidable and competent student of the fighting arts. When you are physically unfit, your martial arts techniques become sloppy, slow, and powerless. You should therefore value physical strength and fitness as highly as you value good martial arts techniques. Your supplemental strength training should complement the martial art you are studying; you should never lose focus on the fact that you are training for a combat art and not just for getting into better shape.

Martial arts, combat, fighting, whatever you call it, goes hand-in-hand with courage, toughness, dedication, and focus. What sets the formidable fighter apart from other martial artists is that he or she approaches the training with the intent to develop an edge that allows him or her to dominate the opponent physically and psychologically. The goal of the formidable fighter is to retain the initiative by interfering with the opponent's ability to counter an attack or defensive technique. The greater physical shape you are in, the less likely you are to sustain an injury, because your body is better prepared to handle the stress of combat. Superior strength and conditioning give you an edge that can act as an equalizer against a bigger opponent. Powerful punches and grips are the product of proper training and conditioning. Good training also makes allowances for failures and prepares you to win. On the field of battle, you command the fight by force, not finesse. The formidable fighter knows how to approach a scenario with the appropriate mindset that allows him or her to act rather than react and beat the opponent to the punch. Know how to play the cards you are dealt. Martial arts techniques are not complicated; it is the surrounding situations and how we think about them that complicate how we use them.