Rip on "Louder With Crowder"

[Mark Rippetoe]

Oooh, this will be fun...

[Kyle Schuant]

Technique training is not as hard on the body

It's not? You don't get injuries in your dojo? Injuries which take someone out of training for weeks or months?

[StevenCrowder]

It's not? You don't get injuries in your dojo? Injuries which take someone out of training for weeks or months?

Firstly, gym. Only silly kung-fu people call it a dojo.

Secondly, this appears to be a common misconception among the untrained. Galvao, Garcia, Mendes brothers etc. Nearly all world champions spend much more time drilling than rolling.

When beginning, it was easy to go nuts and think that I was progressing. That's when you rack up the most injuries.

Most advanced trainees not only spend a majority of their time drilling (which is comparatively easy on the body), but their live rolling tends to be much more controlled, relaxed and flowing.

Drilling is only as taxing as the recovery (which is not nothing, granted), and I've never been injured during a drilling session. Live rolling is where you'd find greater risk. Particularly with newbies.

[Nick Delgadillo]

The point I always make that fighters/grapplers/boxers don't understand is that for a given period of time, there is quite literally nothing you can do on the mat after your first 6-8 weeks of starting to train and spar that will improve performance more than getting stronger. Just like with any activity, everyone gets very excited about the novice gains and keeps doing the thing they were doing as a novice with the intent of improving their now non-novice self.

Now, to get to the level where a 50 something year old guy can choke out everyone at WFAC (including me) takes a VERY long time. Getting stronger with the intent of improving sports performance can take ... 4 months or less depending on how motivated a guy is. Fighting is hard. Probably the hardest thing a guy can do and the guys that do it well have practiced their skill a ton. More than you can imagine if you've never done it. But again, these are skills that are honed through mat time with lots of different opponents who are better than you. Even in an ideal training situation where you drill and roll with multiple purple/brown/black belts, it still takes a lot of time to make significant improvement.

My first Brazilian Jiujitsu instructor was 150 pounds and a black belt. I was double his size, but he handled me with ease because he was so much better than me. That's your point, Steven. My second instructor was 320 pounds and a purple belt. Also handled me with ease, but also completely devastated people (including me) on the mat because he was also damn strong. Now if you have both of those guys fighting someone of similar size and skill respectively - who wins? The stronger guy, of course. No matter where you are on the spectrum of experience/skill, being stronger always makes you better.

[Adam Skillin]

there is quite literally nothing you can do on the mat after your first 6-8 weeks of starting to train and spar that will improve performance more than getting stronger.

You think the analog to the linear progression in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu runs itself out in 6-8 weeks? Or am I misunderstanding you?

[Sean Herbison]

But I still hate Mark Rippetoe.

Good thing you invited him to train you then. Although from your description of your wife, you may want to rethink letting Rip train her.

And if it doesn't work out, there's always Planet Fitness.

[StevenCrowder]

The point I always make that fighters/grapplers/boxers don't understand is that for a given period of time, there is quite literally nothing you can do on the mat after your first 6-8 weeks of starting to train and spar that will improve performance more than getting stronger. Just like with any activity, everyone gets very excited about the novice gains and keeps doing the thing they were doing as a novice with the intent of improving their now non-novice self.

Now, to get to the level where a 50 something year old guy can choke out everyone at WFAC (including me) takes a VERY long time. Getting stronger with the intent of improving sports performance can take ... 4 months or less depending on how motivated a guy is. Fighting is hard. Probably the hardest thing a guy can do and the guys that do it well have practiced their skill a ton. More than you can imagine if you've never done it. But again, these are skills that are honed through mat time with lots of different opponents who are better than you. Even in an ideal training situation where you drill and roll with multiple purlple/brown/black belts, it still takes a lot of time to make significant improvement.

My first Brazilian Jiujitsu instructor was 150 pounds and a black belt. I was double his size, but he handled me with ease because he was so much better than me. That's your point, Steven. My second instructor was 320 pounds and a purple belt. Also handled me with ease, but also completely devastated people (including me) on the mat because he was also damn strong. Now if you have both of those guys fighting someone of similar size and skill respectively - who wins? The stronger guy, of course. No matter where you are on the spectrum of experience/skill, being stronger always makes you better.

With all due respect, no.

Again, I'm an advocate of Starting Strength. Two people of equal skill, the stronger man will win. At my gym, I'm constantly advocating that other grapplers strength train.

If you are not a blue belt, any moderately strong (let's say a 225 squat and even a 205 bench) blue belt can put you down, choke you and end your life with ease. Literally with ease.

Takes about 8 months at 4 days a week to hit blue.

Same goes for those blues with purple belts. Takes about 2 years to get to Purple.

Once adequate strength is achieved, it should be maintained and time is best served in the sport.

Again, huge advocate of strength training.

[Mark E. Hurling]

Well shit. Where to begin?

If I had a lick of sense I would just leave this alone and keep concentrating on the commands for the lifts I have to complete tomorrow. But I'm tired of reviewing them so I'll get into this melee.

I've had over 40 years of interviews, field interrogations, and up close and personal interrogations in small rooms and over tables about things that happened or that other people want to know about in law enforcement and various security jobs. The bottom line was, go for the information they had to convey others who needed it, and not talk about yourself. We have two ears and one mouth, so listen more than you talk. It isn't about you, it's about what other people want to know or might be interested in. Listening to a master of interviewing, Hugh Hewitt, might be in order for an example.

With all due respect to everyone's forebears (The Old Man was a combat Marine Raider bad-ass in the Pacific), time on the mat is not life, and saving your ass and being harder to kill when someone might be trying to kill you is paramount.

Martial arts are conducted within sets of rules. Combatives (sorry to slightly explicate you here, Rip) are about killing other people on a battlefield. Given the US rate of enlistment in the military, less than 2% of our population has to concern themselves about killing others. Slightly more than that is tasked with the subduing and control of them domestically.

Entertainment is not life. Entertainment is about exciting others. It's always good to keep that in mind.

Being strong is a fundamental aspect of being alive and staying alive longer. It's hard to balance strength training and martial arts of any kind. Whether for competition or self defense. I haven't competed since 1975 in judo. In that last match, I got my ass handed to me by the biggest Asian I have seen in real life to this day. He was 6' 7" and 280 lbs. at least. The match lasted less than 45 seconds when he countered my harai goshi and threw me so hard I wasn't completely sure I hadn't crapped myself. I went to work on 3rd shift that night with a headache that stayed with me for a week. No doubt some head trauma that everyone leaks a little into their Depends about these days.

Strength does matter. At 64, I have to figger out how to balance jujitsu, conditioning, and strength training, as well as put in 40 hours a week at work and be a good husband and father to find my way into my impending golden years. It's not easy and I find myself hurting a lot with an accumulation of 3 broken arms, 2 broken ankles, a dislocated shoulder, multiple head traumas from football and judo, as well as a total of about 28 stitches from for-real fights with no referee and no rules in dark alleys as a cop. But I still deadlift, bench press, squat, overhead press, power clean, and curlz (for the girlz). That's along with twice a week lifting and twice a week mat time in jujitsu.

Life is hard. Meet it or be defeated by it.

[Barry Charles]

What martial art are we talking about? I want to be able to put anyone down and end their life with ease.

[Nick Delgadillo]

Once adequate strength is achieved, it should be maintained and time is best served in the sport.

This is the heart of the matter, isn't it? When are you strong enough? You don't know until you've run out the process.