This season's The Ultimate Fighter had Ronda Rousey come on and give Team Sonnen a few pointers. Check her out vs. Uriah Hall.
Rousey's comments:
A lot of the guys I roll with, I call it "testosterone poisoning"—where I get a couple of [moves] on them and they try to rough me up back because they get frustrated.
[Team Sonnen] kept their composure and it's a quality that's very valuable in fighters. If you can't keep your composure in practice against some chick, if you're in a ring with some dude swinging at your head, you're not going keep your composure there, y'know?
Some comments on the vidclip from 2 friends:
Excerpted from Spladdle Forum on which my friend Joe Silvia aka "Ausgepicht" wrote on the Martial side of the vidclip:
| She does something that EVERYONE should be doing. They even talk about
it. Everyone knows it, but few actually practice it: chain wrestle. It's
the whole point of taking up martial arts, isn't it? Using technique to
overcome someone bigger, stronger, and faster. Otherwise, why take
martial arts? The height of martial arts is being so far above your
opponent technically that he is out of his/her element even if bigger,
stronger and faster. If your opponent is in a situation, where he doesn't understand the territory....you are chaining a,g,h,e and his experience is a,a or a,b then he's f*cked. You want to be Neil De Grasse Tyson discussing dark energy and actual equations in a class of 6th graders discussing the solar system. We actively work on this stuff at Hematoma. We A,B,X drills, pioneer drills, exploratory drills, root drills, primary drills, and often I will present a problem to everyone and based on the PRINCIPLES they have been taught, they have to dialogue and play to find the solution. I may drop hints in the form of QUESTIONS, but don't really play a role. I want people to find solutions that work for THEM. I want them to develop sport reading and being attentive to the MOMENT not a combo they learned in a strict manner. I want to be alive. Ronda excels at this. You think the solution is to power out of it, to smash and mush. This works GREAT against beginner's and intermediate fighters, but once your technique is chain wrestling is off the charts, the only solution is a technical one. |
My friend "jonwell" wrote on the Ego/Social/Sub-conscious side of the vidclip:
| She's REALLY GOOD, on any scale. And it's going to take guys a long
time to figure that out. Uriah was very respectful in the interview but
on the mat he still couldn't resist the jokes that I'm sure Rhonda has
heard 1,000,001 times now. It's self effacing yes, and I know he meant
no harm, but he and his coaches and the spot in general were all focused
on the disbelief of what happened. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If Male Judo Gold Medalist And UFC Champion showed up and tore threw the TUF cast it wouldn't be worthy of comment, in fact it happens all the time. "It was great to train with George (or wev) cuz he's the best and he showed us some great stuff." It's an event when Rhonda does it because it's not considered normal for women to compete athletically with men. And ya, like I said, I know he was kidding. But there's still a difference between the jokes you hear when Male Champion shows up and when Rhonda shows up. I'm not saying Uriah is a jerk or anything, he seems very nice and genuinely respectful. This is a comment on more deeply ingrained misogyny, something you don't even notice unless you look for it or experience it (like Rhonda obviously does when she talks about testosterone poisoning). For related concepts see, "It's not racist to say that Asians are good at math because it's a compliment!" (It's still racist.) |
Food for thought from both Ausgepicht and jonwell! My sincerest thanks to them for their insightful comments.
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