Specialized styles or all encompassing system?

[Raycetpfl]

Specialists (mediocre at other skills)=*Damian Maia ,Travis Lutter, *mark Coleman, *Richardo Arona, *mark Kerr, *Chael Sonnen,* Jake Shields, big nog,Jeremy Horn,matt Hughes ,*Paul harris, robbie lawler, Anderson Silva , Tito Ortiz,Jacare,Anthony Johson, tim sylvia,Dos Santos ,Shogun, *Ronda (beginning career)* Matt Serra,*Brock Lesnar,*Andre Arlovski,*mark hunt,*Vinny Magahles,Wand,

Double majors(very good at two)- The 209, Liddell, pettis, little nog, Rashad Evans, Cain,*Dan Henderson, *Randy Couture,* Matt Lindland,* CroCop, *Romero , Daniel Cormier

Swiss Army Knives of DOOM!- *Machida,GSP, Rich Franklin, Forrest Griffin, *Werdum, *Ronda Rousey (now),*Bj Penn, *Fedor, Jose Aldo, *Dos Anjos ,*Chris weidman,*MegaReem,BigFoot, Jon Jones,Rory Mcdonald, Jonny hendricks,

*=proven to be world class in at least a single art

Being a specialist doesn't mean you aren't a good fighter. Jake Shields is pretty easily the 3rd greatest w.w. of all time and he got touched up by a bully on bully beat down during the striking round.
Also one thing to think about is the people that are Swiss army knives of doom have a strong base in a single art for the most part. I don't think there is a wrong answer except for, "grappling is a myth . I will just spin kick someone with my rex-kwon-do that trys that queer grappling on me." There's no exact formula but I think the best idea is to drag someone out of their comfort zone and into yours and you can be the victor consistently.

[W. Rabbit]

Training 10,000 hours makes you an expert in something

This is an oft-repeated non-fact. I know the zeroes make it like an actual statistic, but it's not. People just love repeating random numbers like this, "99% of fights go to the ground is another".

First off, most people never have and never will spend 10,000 hours at something that actually falls under the heading "self-improvement" ie skill development unless there is a financial incentive (learning a trade, trying to go pro sports, etc) or they have some other strong motivational factor (love, vengeance, megalomania).

Most of the things the average joe does to that extent will be occupational (e.g. driving a car), but it still won't "expertize" them magically.

"Expertise" is a shallow label, because even experts fail due to bad luck, bad choices, circumstance etc.

Expertise is not really something to strive for, there is no real "you're there!" moment. You don't set your goal at 10,000 hours. You should train without parameters or limitations like that, and if you happen to surpass "expertise" chances are someone else will have to tell you so.

Otherwise you'll be the guy spouting "I've trained in X for 10,000 hours" and suck ass at it, while somebody else has trained fewer hours, and is better than you.

[Raycetpfl]

This is an oft-repeated non-fact. I know the zeroes make it like an actual statistic, but it's not. People just love repeating random numbers like this, "99% of fights go to the ground is another".


.

It's not random. It's from a paper written by Malcom gladwell in 1993 called outliers. It may be bullshit. Lots of people are saying it is now days,but it's not random.
The point stands no matter what the number of hours. Let's say it's 3000 for you and 5,000 for me to become advanced in a given art. How much time do I have to give ? It's my opinion it's better to be of an expert level in one thing opposed to being novice-intermediate at everything.
Honestly 10,000 hours was his "anyone" becomes an expert number. If you have aptitude it might only take 10 hours.

[gregaquaman]

So a related question: what strategies are used to develop effective skills in a diverse art? Do you have grappling days and striking days? I have never been to a mma class. I have no idea.

Mma is kind of an arms race. So it becomes a master of all styles approach. The idea is you can stand up on the individual pursuits like boxing wrestling bjj and so on.

So a grappling class striking class and so on. Then you would have mma class to bring it all together. And your mma guy just never goes home basically.

[Devil]

Yeah, the 10,000 hour thing is complete bullshit. I don't buy into that for a second.

If you want to talk about expertise start by examining true mastery. Look at real expertise. The kind of expertise that comes from proper training for your entire life. The kind of training and lifelong dedication that produces a Peyton Manning, for instance.

When you translate that to fighting, you'll see that there's plenty of time to become both a specialist and a generalist. There's probably even time to become a specialist in multiple areas and still cross train.

When I look around at the martial arts world I don't see one single system that can produce the Peyton Manning of fighting. I think the best way to achieve that level of expertise is to specialize AND generalize and to approach both with equal focus.

[Raycetpfl]

When I look around at the martial arts world I don't see one single system that can produce the Peyton Manning of fighting. I think the best way to achieve that level of expertise is to specialize AND generalize and to approach both with equal focus.

I agree with this quite a bit. I like Ronda as an example. She became world renowned in multiple facets of a dynamic art and has since focused on striking and has developed legit stopping power in her hands and legs. That's special
I don't think everyone has the time to devote to that sort of thing though. Ronda quit school to peruse judo. She trains an insane amount of time to improve her skils.
Who has time to do that on a part time basis? Except for outliers, it takes a lot of practice to become good at any oNE thing. It really starts to come down to who each person is and how they feel about a given activity. Rampage will probably never be good at bjj. He doesn't like it. He just powers out of subs rather than learn escapes that would take half the energy. He has said he doesn't dig it. So he will probably never be a bjj black belt and that's ok. He's still a bad mother fucker.

[Devil]

I agree with this quite a bit. I like Ronda as an example. She became world renowned in multiple facets of a dynamic art and has since focused on striking and has developed legit stopping power in her hands and legs. That's special
I don't think everyone has the time to devote to that sort of thing though. Ronda quit school to peruse judo. She trains an insane amount of time to improve her skils.
Who has time to do that on a part time basis? Except for outliers, it takes a lot of practice to become good at any oNE thing. It really starts to come down to who each person is and how they feel about a given activity. Rampage will probably never be good at bjj. He doesn't like it. He just powers out of subs rather than learn escapes that would take half the energy. He has said he doesn't dig it. So he will probably never be a bjj black belt and that's ok. He's still a bad mother fucker.

I see where you're coming from but I disagree that Ronda is a great example of the level of skill I'm talking about. She's definitely a specialist and she has definitely cross trained to build her other skills. But she is in no way the Peyton Manning of fighting. Her striking is good enough but she didn't train her whole life to be an MMA fighter. That's the difference in my view. As good as she is, she's still a judoka who crossed over to MMA and she always will be. She was not bred to be an MMA fighter and I think that's the future of MMA and that kind of lifelong commitment to the sport is what will produce fighters of a skill level we've never even seen yet.

[NeilG]

I'm not seeing the Peyton Manning analogy. How is he an example of a generalist? Dude is a quarterback.

[Raycetpfl]

I see where you're coming from but I disagree that Ronda is a great example of the level of skill I'm talking about. She's definitely a specialist and she has definitely cross trained to build her other skills. But she is in no way the Peyton Manning of fighting. Her striking is good enough but she didn't train her whole life to be an MMA fighter. That's the difference in my view. As good as she is, she's still a judoka who crossed over to MMA and she always will be. She was not bred to be an MMA fighter and I think that's the future of MMA and that kind of lifelong commitment to the sport is what will produce fighters of a skill level we've never even seen yet.

I don't know much about football so you could easily loose me on analogies, but Manning isn't a rushing qb . He really isnt "complete" either. He can't run like Vick or scramble like flutie, he sure as hell doesn't have the arm strength of Favre, and he doesn't seem to have the luck of his little brother either. He is big , throws well , studies tape on teams more than most coaches do allegedly and makes good decisions.
I just don't think that person who is the best at every thing is ever coming unless genetic modification becomes viable.

[W. Rabbit]

It's not random. It's from a paper written by Malcom gladwell in 1993 called outliers. It may be bullshit. Lots of people are saying it is now days,but it's not random.
The point stands no matter what the number of hours. Let's say it's 3000 for you and 5,000 for me to become advanced in a given art. How much time do I have to give ? It's my opinion it's better to be of an expert level in one thing opposed to being novice-intermediate at everything.
Honestly 10,000 hours was his "anyone" becomes an expert number. If you have aptitude it might only take 10 hours.

Oh I know all about Gladwell, and yes it's absolutely random (in the literal, probabilistic sense). He rolled some 1d10000 dice to get that number.

It's a number he pulled out of his ass while analyzing an extremely small set of anecdotal data points. We can discuss some of those data points but I think you'll find in each case, he makes huge leaps in logic or more often, tosses logic in favor of wild, tangential conclusions.

Those sorts of conclusions are not so much removed from other popular best sellers like "The Secret", and arguments for the so-called "Laws of Attraction", "New Though" and other New Age horse shit.

Correlation is not causation.

If you want to inspect an author who actually knows what they're talking about when describing how statistics and probability weight in to the real world, see Nate Silver's "The Signal and the Noise".

Note the difference between these two men: one is a journalist, the other is an actual mathematician.

[Raycetpfl]

Oh I know all about Gladwell, and yes it's absolutely random (in the literal, probabilistic sense). He rolled some 1d10000 dice to get that number.

It's a number he pulled out of his ass while analyzing an extremely small set of anecdotal data points. We can discuss some of those data points but I think you'll find in each case, he makes huge leaps in logic or more often, tosses logic in favor of wild, tangential conclusions.

Those sorts of conclusions are not so much removed from other popular best sellers like "The Secret", and arguments for the so-called "Laws of Attraction", "New Though" and other New Age horse shit.

Correlation is not causation.

If you want to inspect an author who actually knows what they're talking about when describing how statistics and probability weight in to the real world, see Nate Silver's "The Signal and the Noise".

Note the difference between these two men: one is a journalist, the other is an actual mathematician.

You don't like The Secret? Well then never mind that invite to join my book club I emailed you.

[Devil]

I'm not seeing the Peyton Manning analogy. How is he an example of a generalist? Dude is a quarterback.

I didn't mean that I think Peyton Manning is a generalist. I was making two different points.

Point 1 - Peyton Manning has reached the highest level of mastery in his sport because of a lifetime of commitment and quality training.

Point 2 - In my opinion, an MMA equivalent to Peyton Manning would have to have equal commitment to quality training. And I happen to believe that quality training would include specialization as well as generalization. I can see how that came across but I didn't mean that Manning is a generalist.

[Devil]

I don't know much about football so you could easily loose me on analogies, but Manning isn't a rushing qb . He really isnt "complete" either. He can't run like Vick or scramble like flutie, he sure as hell doesn't have the arm strength of Favre, and he doesn't seem to have the luck of his little brother either. He is big , throws well , studies tape on teams more than most coaches do allegedly and makes good decisions.
I just don't think that person who is the best at every thing is ever coming unless genetic modification becomes viable.

See my last post. I didn't mean to confuse the points about lifelong commitment and generalization.

But as far as QBs go, Manning is light years ahead of the guys you mentioned.

[NeilG]

I didn't mean that I think Peyton Manning is a generalist. I was making two different points.

Point 1 - Peyton Manning has reached the highest level of mastery in his sport because of a lifetime of commitment and quality training.

Point 2 - In my opinion, an MMA equivalent to Peyton Manning would have to have equal commitment to quality training. And I happen to believe that quality training would include specialization as well as generalization. I can see how that came across but I didn't mean that Manning is a generalist.

OK, lets look at Masahiro Miyazaki from that point of view. I'm not sure what age the guy started training kendo at, probably age 3 or 4. He progressed through a system of development for kendo in Japan where increasing levels of competition and coaching are available, with massive opportunities for tournament play at grade school, middle school, high school and college levels. The infrastructure there is not dissimilar to what we do developing hockey players in Canada. He went on to win the All-Japan championship 6 times and IIRC he was world champion (a lesser accomplishment actually) twice. He passed his 8th dan exam on the first try at the minimum age. He's now coaching the national team.

How is this not the highest level of mastery possible, gained from a lifetime of training in a martial art by a guy who is clearly a superior talent?


Yamashita for judo is a similar example, although I don't have all his details to hand.

[Devil]

OK, lets look at Masahiro Miyazaki from that point of view. I'm not sure what age the guy started training kendo at, probably age 3 or 4. He progressed through a system of development for kendo in Japan where increasing levels of competition and coaching are available, with massive opportunities for tournament play at grade school, middle school, high school and college levels. The infrastructure there is not dissimilar to what we do developing hockey players in Canada. He went on to win the All-Japan championship 6 times and IIRC he was world champion (a lesser accomplishment actually) twice. He passed his 8th dan exam on the first try at the minimum age. He's now coaching the national team.

How is this not the highest level of mastery possible, gained from a lifetime of training in a martial art by a guy who is clearly a superior talent?


Yamashita for judo is a similar example, although I don't have all his details to hand.

I have no idea what point you're trying to make. We're talking about MMA and neither of those guys are fighters. What are you getting at?