Here's an update for those readers who have been following the saga of "The Barbarian brothers". The brothers are two huge dudes that have been coming from the mainland to train with us nearly every Wednesday since around August.
The older brother is athletic, has wrestled and played ball sports. Younger Bro is heavily muscled. Neither one has martial experience, but young Bro has been in his share of fights. They started by coming with another Tai Chi Chuan friend of ours, primarily for Tai Chi applications. Little did we know, but young Bro had his sights set on MMA fighting. We tried to tell him months ago that we didn't train for MMA, but I guess we were the closest thing to real instruction he could find in our area.
Well, we hadn't seen them for a couple of weeks, so Monday we called them up while we were having Dojo Beers after practice. Older Bro answered the phone, and after a bit he told us that young Bro had had his first MMA fight.
We were like "What? You've got to be kidding??".
So, unbeknownst to us, young Bro had entered his first fight, held at an Eagles lodge on the mainland. He's had, let's see... about 16 hours of training.
You can guess what happened. He was paired with a guy that had about eight years of experience, and was submitted in the first part of the second round with a rear choke.
I gotta' give the guy credit, he stepped up, jumped in and got his feet wet. He also found out he wasn't so much of a tough guy after all.
It's been fun training with these guys. They are big and strong as hell. They'd be tough to handle if they were in a mad rage. But training with them has reminded us that twenty or thirty years of martial experience makes our techniques look like magic to them. Just basic body awareness, kinesthetic perception, and relaxed movement is not in their toolbox yet.
Right now young Bro has his tail between his legs and is still under the porch. But given a little time, he'll be back and ready to train again. And this time he'll look at it in a new light; With limited experience, he survived his first MMA fight without injury. Now he needs to learn how to hit and grapple.
3 comments:
"They'd be tough to handle if they were in a mad rage."
There's the rub, isn't it? Many might see this fact and decide that the correct path would be to learn how to put yourself into a mad rage.
I've never had to fight someone in a mad rage, but I suspect that they are both very dangerous, and very easy to take out, since "mad rage" seems to preclude strategy or defense.
Good point...
Good to know they're still at it! Surely there is room for growth after such a thorough weed-eating.
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