Ultimate fighting

Mohammed Junaid Azmuth has fought many battles: as a rugby player, as a fitness coach and as an ultimate fighter using techniques he perfected when he became a fully fledged Samurai. This month Junaid talks about the thrilling nature of full contact fighting and also the low points of a brutal sport that has been around in many different forms for thousands of years.

When once they would be held underground, often literally, and always away from scruntiny, the world of full contact fighting is now a very public money maker. Like all the other reality television shows that have taken over the television market place in the past five years, events like the Ultimate Fighting Championship have continued to grow in popularity – on and off the screen.

This form of combat has been around for thousands of years. The Ancient Egyptian kings often decided disputes by holding contests between their best warriors in a fight to the death.

The gladiators in Ancient Rome and Greece had to fight to the death, just to entertain the masses. If gladiators won enough they would be given a status, which would afford them the luxuries of the elite. In Asia prior to the Ming Dynasty whole communities would often get together and challenge each other to determine the best fighter. In the last 60 years however this rivalry has been generalized into finding which Martial Art is the most effective.

Many underground (illegal) fight clubs developed until the Gracie family decided to challenge the world with their brand of Martial Art: Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. They began the UFC with this in mind and boy didn’t they impress!

Many fighters tried to defeat this hybrid Martial Art that evolved from Japanese Jiu Jitsu and wrestling, but everyone failed. Upright fighters, heavier and stronger than the Gracie brothers would challenge, but to no avail even though the Gracie brothers were often much smaller than their opposition.

Fighters were forced to realize that a single style of fighting was not successful in a real combat, no holds barred situation, and that an all-round approach and expertise were needed to be successful.

Technique

This is when the Mixed Martial Arts Championship was born. Every fighter nowadays will train in two or three different martial art styles in order to become a champion. But apart from good fighting technique, intelligence and superior physical fitness are important factors in becoming a successful extreme or ultimate fighter.

My sensei always believed that the best warrior was one who could avoid a fight unless challenged. In Samurai culture to be challenged means that it is your duty to accept this challenge. Other than this you do not hurt people. Samurai means “to serve’’, only to harm if it is the last option.

My ultimate fighting experience had nothing to do with money but with pride in what I had learned. The way I see it, I never chose ultimate fighting. Ultimate fighting chose me.

My sensei believed that Samurai Jiu Jitsu was an individualistic evolving art that was only perfected when you were exposed to every possible martial art. When I defeated several masters and black belts in different Martial Arts I rubbed many people the wrong way, especially when the defeats were executed with minimal force and with very little, or no, injury my opponents. (Many fighters would rather be defeated and have an associated dislocation or broken bone. They seem to think that their pride remains intact).
Many of my victories were perceived as an insult. So challenge after challenge became part of my life. My body had to be at its peak condition all the time. And this was easily attained with good food, rest, meditation, training and a positive mindset.

Fitness

Fitness for martial arts doesn’t mean that you need to skip for 30 minutes or run 15 min everyday whilst listening to “eye of tiger’’ on your MP3. My sensei would chuckle when he watched kick boxers and other martial artists train for two hours flat to get fighting fit, everyday.
When I asked a few Senseis why they trained in this way, they would reply that the fitter you were the more impact you would be able to take and the longer you could fight. I was shocked.

Why would someone want to take a beating? That is the most idiotic thing I ever heard. Why would you want to fight for a longer period of time? The whole idea of fighting or self defence is to defeat your opponent quickly and efficiently.

Anyone who fights for more than three minutes and still hasn’t defeated his opponent is either not a fighter, or not very bright. Every time your head gets hit, the impact results in a collision of your brain against your skull. The amount of neural damage can leave with very severe conditions, like Mohammed Ali…

My sensei would call this sort of training, monkey fighting. Because only monkeys would be so idiotic as to allow someone to hurt them that much.

Sensei believed that training should happen in short one-minute bursts while focused on executing techniquse perfectly with a maximum two minutes of recovery so that the techniques practiced would be executed accurately every time. His argument was that if you are fatigued and yet continue with a technique, the efficiency of that technique deteriorates as one becomes more engrossed in completing the workout.

As far as conditioning the body is concerned one must realize that your body will condition itself for physical contact when it is ready to do so. I used to ask my Sensei, “how could I absorb the devastating kicks and strikes of powerful fighters?’’ He looked at me with pure confusion and said: “Stupid boy, that’s simple. Don’t get hit - get out of way!”

Some people might argue it’s impossible to concentrate for that long. But I say, how long do you want to fight for? It’s possible if you train the way one is supposed to fight. If you are training for more than an hour of intermitted activity then you are looking for a good beating.

TRAINING SPECIFIC

* Half an hour bouts daily are more desirable – keep your training specific. You find fighters running 10km for fitness. Unless your strategy is to run away – a 10 km run should be left for long distance runners. Concentrate on bag work for a minute using different sequences and resting for one or two minutes. Train at 75 per cent of your maximum capacity and do it for 10 sets.

Try and train with three of your friends. Go to a gym which has aerobic mats. Place these out. Two of you will get on the mats. One must lie on his stomach while the other tries to roll him on his back and hold him there for a min only. After a minute change partners. Do this for 20 minutes and you will feel like you were hit by a bus – your muscles will be that stiff.

It is the ultimate strength training program and works every single muscle in the body in a three-dimensional way. It will also accustom your body to contact.
I had no training partner (apart form my Sensei beating me to a pulp when he was in a bad mood) whilst I was training, most of my training was done using weighted duffel bags, climbing palm trees, lifting bowls and fighting my Sensei. So if you don’t have a training partner you have no excuses. mother nature has the best training equipment. My Sensei firmly believed that too much of sparring decreases the instinctive reactions of a fighter and makes him telegraph moves, which is something you see a lot of in fighting sports nowadays. It leads to fighters missing punches and kicks that can be devastating.

My Sensei would always talk about the Zen State, a state in which one relies on instinctive energy for effective fighting. Sensei’s favourite saying was:
“When mind is busy, body can’t move. When body move, mind not busy. There must be unity. Bring body and mind as one.’’

There has to be a balance between your mind and body. If you think about what your opponent’s next move is going to be, you become stressed, and when you are stressed your muscle tone increases, makes you rigid and unprepared for responding to any attack.

If you are concentrating on what your body is doing, trying to concentrate on attacking, your brain and senses do not pick up your opponent’s attack which means that your reaction becomes poor. So a balance is required. Your mind must be relaxed and focused, your defence and attack must be reactive and decisive. No other emotion or thought should enter your mind. This is the state of Zen.

In today’s fighter’s all I see is a bunch of brawlers who psych up to heavy metal music and then burst into the ring like a bunch of barbarians. This Mixed Martial Art is about composure, technique, control and athleticism.

So if you want to be ultimate-fighting-fit, ensure that you have an equally fit mind to match an equally fit body. Practice doing your Martial Arts training in this state and see your fighting skills improve.