As unrelated as a game may sound to human athletic conditioning, what that quote also holds true to is in the MMO Sandbox Second Life- interestingly enough, keeping joints that are not involved in a particular animation ALSO allows the animation to appear more natural in game! To know this principle is rooted in real life is a realization I felt that I needed to share.

This is, by far, my favorite post of yours yet. Having been a martial artist for years and studied under many (very competent) teachers, I’ve seen this lesson violated time and time again. Of course, the instructors are innocently ignorant of motor learning principles and are merely doing what their instructors did with them “to toughen them up.”

Better conditioning can make a better athlete, to be sure. But nothing beats actually playing your sport.

Skill work should always make up the majority of a combat athletes conditioning – train for the the sport. Supplemental work (if you have the energy left) should take the form of GPP. It all depends on goals – if your goal is to fight, spend the majority of your time training fighting skills (matt, mitts, heavy bag, glove drills, sparring etc).

I train fight skills first (sometimes only, since trainees may be spent). At the end of training I sometimes add a “Finisher”.

To many fighters focus on roadwork, lifting etc. when the majority of their time needs to be spent on practicing the basics. I take a page from Miyamoto Musashi’s book, I don’t have a quote but, he wrote that a great swordsman focused tiredlessly on a few basic and effective techniques and didn’t spend time on flowerly techniques.

This isn’t to say that GPP is not worthwhile only that it should be done in addition or as a supplement to training for your sport.

Be clear what your goals are, is it general conditioning, lifting heavy, getting big, fighting, etc. and then put your focus their for training. Everyone is different: goals, weaknessnes, challenges to overcome and as a result everyones training is different.

I know I personally had to work through a lot of tension and fatigue throughout my martial arts training, and relaxation is something I always harp on.

Very nice post.

We had all 3 of our girls at home and my wife used no drugs. All of her labors lasted under 30 mins!

Elliott