Zoo EXTREME Sports Performance
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You will see right from the start the signs of Mass practice. Constant strikes with no breaks. In this one short training session, I counted more strikes than an average MMA battle.
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The striking session was broken into parts. The skills were dissected into discernable chunks and once each strike was mastered they combined the chunks making it a whole skill. MMA has risk elements, unlike sports like tennis, volleyball, rowing, etc. There is an advantage of chunking especially with the young fighter to embrace all elements for safety's sake. We do not want athletes to adventure into finding out how to punch or grapple and on their own find the safest way to do so. This is where Part practice is beneficial.
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You can also classify this as a Fixed training session as the conditions are set and the strikes are repetitive. Having no opponent and striking pads creates a controlled environment and again adheres to safety training. What I see in traditional training is the same practice imparted on seasoned and professional fighters. This takes up too much of the training by far. Pads to not move like an opponent and more importantly, the pads do not hit back.
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One fix for the practice is to create angels and move with the striker as it would be in an actual fight. Some examples of improvement to this session will be covered with the young Zuko fighters, Kai and Kali
In the second video, you will see some more realistic movement by the coach but there is one flaw that I need to express in almost all my sessions. This is all concentrating on offence. It would be a fantasy to believe a match could turn out this way.
As mentioned in the grappling tutorial, there seems to be an imbalance in activity to instruction. Going back to my roots in basketball, I measure player significant contribution time to that of a 2-hour practice. At the most, I have ball handlers and playmakers touching the ball and using their skills for a quality 20 minutes out of 2 hours. Much time is listening to the coach and waiting in line watching the rest of the team in drills. This was a women’s national program. In MMA we have more time being physical and immersed in the competition. I still see there is a disconnect between time doing versus practical practice. By practical, I meant the training session was based on how a match would transpire. An enormous amount of time in the video you see is repetitive punching and kicking. A standard fight is 3 – 5 minutes rounds. All championship fights are 5 – 5-minute rounds. High production round that I have witnessed will have less than 30 punch kicks or a combination thereof. There are times that only a handful of kicks are thrown due to strategy, defensive acuity, or basic incompetence. Punches and kicks are timed at less than a second. If an unheard-of aggressive fighter attempts an inordinate amount of strike, say 60+, that still leave 4 minutes in a round. From my experience, if this were an actuality, the fighter would be too exhausted to function.
Having the Covid - 19 hit us hard early in the year, made for some compensations in my project. I have an amazing and supportive family and with the help of my son Kai and daughter Kali, I show a little of how I combine traditional and progressive practice. Much of what you see is the kid's given outcomes and for them to find their path to success. They are not totally new to MMA as they were raised in my home. You can also see them learning and replicating each other which is a strong influential coaching technique. Putting the exercise together would create a Variable warm-up that is very sport-specific. Training is not stopped for instruction. It is like a teacher asking questions in class. You give enough inspiration to keep the students motivated; you create inquiry by asking questions and importantly, the teacher/coach does not jump in to early and allows for the student/athlete to discover on their own.
One solution for the practice is to create angels and to move with the striker as it would be in an actual fight. Some examples of improvement to this session will be covered with the young Zuko fighters, Kai and Kali
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In the above video, you will see some more realistic movement by the coach but there is one flaw that I need to express in almost all my sessions. This is all concentrating on offence. It would be a fantasy to believe a match could turn out this way. This is the time to create a Variable practice situation. The coach could have the young fighter striking with hands, feet, elbows and knees. It all is striking but each is warranted in different scenarios.
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I have used many techniques to create a Random practice. Once we discern what areas of concentration that we would adopt for an upcoming match, I would then find proficient combat athletes that excelled at their discipline. For example:
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In the octagon or on the mat I could bring in a guest wrestler, boxer and Muay Thai Fighter
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Setting the time for five minutes I would call out one of the 4 disciplines and the athlete in training would then have to engage with the respective opponent. It ramps up the Randomness and taxes our fighter as the opponents get breaks and only participate at intervals in the round.