Does Size Matter?

[Chad W. Getz]

Hey Kev. I don't believe Brandon lost to Kimo because of Kimo's size. Maybe the idea is that he lost because he had poor "technique" at the time. He trained point and tournament karate. Kimo fought, and each time he fought, he got better at it. Where as, each time Brandon won a tournament, he got better at winning tournaments. I would suspect, since I wasn't actually there, nor do I know him.

Kev, you should come out and work out with us when you get the chance to. It's no charge. Basically, we create the need to get better. If somone wants to work against someone punching, we create that environment in an isolated and progressive manner. With or without headgear, the training is set by each individual. Want to work out against the takedown, we have someone take you down. Feel uncomfortable when someone has you in the side mount? Guess where the guy is going to end up training until he feels comfortable. On his back with a bigger guy on the side mount whild punching aggresively at you. In a progression. If someone trains correctly, I don't believe that size makes a difference in the outcome.

I believe that size matters in the sense of how I train though. It is a factor for me, if I feel that someone overpowered me in a certain area, I train strengthening that area. A push, or a pull, maybe. Now in the fight, I also train to have enough sense that if he is stronger than me to flow into another move.

An idea that inspired me greatly by Matt Thornton: No politics, no titles, no hiearchy. Just training. Also Burton Richardson's signature line.

Hard training that we sweat for. Our idea is not to perfect the technique, but to perfect the application of the techniques. We choose to face our fears every Sunday, if you are afraid of something, we will work it until you are comfortable.

So can a smaller guy beat a bigger guy? I think so. As long as he trains it. Hard. Very hard.

[thekuntawman]

no i dont think size matters. i think what matters is how strong and fast you are, and how much meanness you have. dont let anyone tell you you dont need physical strength to win a fight, unless you are fighting a weak hearted person, and even then you might lose if he has strength over you. strength is needed if your techniques will do any damage, and you have to have the mean heart and the lack of fear to get it done. because if you are nervous or scared, your techniques and physcial abilities dont mean nothing.

[Kevin]

Hello der...

Hi Chad....

Would love to come work out with you!
I didn't post the Brandon-Kimo story.... but I have heard of that Kimo guy :') And no... I wouldn't want to fight him!

I never said that size is the ultimate factor... it's not the end all... but, I did say size matters(in reply to the topic of this thread). The majority of the respondents to this thread said that size doesn't matter at all. So if you fought a "giant" of a man who was 7'4" and 575lbs... no problem.... your superior attributes of speed and skill would negate his size. A sure thing.... no question about it!!! I wonder why they even bother with weight classes in boxing, Muay Thai, and wrestling? Those silly gooses.... don't they know that size doesn't matter! I stand by my statement that the one with the superior blend of attributes at that point in time is the winner... and size is an attribute in my book... along with speed, timing, killer instinct, etc... Not the most important... but definitely a factor.

JMO...
~Kev

[Chad W. Getz]

Kevin, I realized this misconception would come up sooner or later, sometime last week. I respond to you as Kevin, and I respond to wong sheung as Kev, that's his name. He lives in Hawaii, we met sometime last year at a seminar. I'm always trying to get him to come out and work out just once with us. Sorry, I'll respond to people by their handle. But Kevin(the official one ), you are welcome any time you make it to Hawaii, bro.

Kuntawman also brings up something not discussed here at this table. If the guy training doesn't have that taste in his mouth to be the best, he won't be the best. Having what it takes to take someone out, the ability to bite and dig your thumbs into his eye, or bend his elbow back unnaturally until it snaps, pulling someones finger back until you see the bone pop out does of course play a factor. You can't just 'teach' someone "to fight". They have to want to learn. From there you can provide an environment for that student to come and learn.

[wong sheung]

training

I plan on going to Sifu Richards seminar on the 30th. I would love to train consistently, but I have so many sticks in the fire, I could make a few Saturdays. Are you and Stu going?

[Chad W. Getz]

I'm not sure if Stuart is going or not.

I probably won't make it, though, I've been spending alot of time with the fighters and trying to maintain and develop better ways of training with everyone. Full Contact Hawaii has been taking up all of my time, have fun at the seminar, though.

[Monkey]

Im a third year engineering student and a JKD student, and Ive been doing martial arts for a while. A lot of people quote things about force and power and only confuse the issue more. Usually classical instructors who know nothing about physics but want to declare scientific reasons why their techniques are the 'best'.

So lets define some things.
What causes anything to break or fracture or yield is a pressure.
Pressure = Force / Area
If we are talking about punching for example, then the pressure is from the knuckles, and assume that the big guy and the small guy have equal areas on their knuckles, or whatever striking area. If the area is equal then it is the amount of force in the punch that determines the pressure from the punch, which is what causes the damage.
So lets define some of the terms that people use and throw around without knowing the relationships between them.
Even Bruce Lee stuffed it up, quoting acc = mass x 'speed'.
But he understood none the less because he understood the relationships between mass and velocity, etc even if he didnt know the exact terminology.
Acceleration = Rate of change of velocity
Force = Mass x Acceleration
Momentum = Mass x Velocity
Energy = Force x Distance
Power = Rate of change of energy

Now if u put force in terms of momentum by substitution,
Force = Rate of change of momentum

Now, if a big man is able to put twice as much mass behind his blows than the small man, then they will have twice the momentum and so twice the force, assuming that when the punches connect it takes a constant amount of time for the momentum to be transferred. (This is where 'snap' in a technique comes into it. If a technique 'snaps' then it reduces the time over which the momentum is transferred, which helps to increase the force of the blow. But thats bot we are talking about.) The drawback is that a big man will need more time to accelerate his blows and his extra muscle mass will likely slow him down, so if the small mans blows are twice as fast at the point of impact, then overall the two men will have the same momentum and hence the same force and hence the same pressure and hence they will do equal damage and so the blows will be of equal power.
Bruce Lee understood this and knew that u didnt need to have a lot of mass behind ur blows if generated enough velocity at point of impact from using the acceleration potential of all ur muscle groups. He realized that for a human being to generate large power in their punches they had to train their bodies to generate large velocities rather than simply increasing their mass, because making urself faster doesnt take away mass, but adding mass does slow u down. This was especially relevean for somebody of Bruce's size. He also saw the tactical advantage in this way of training and execution of technique, because if the punches have larger velocities, they reach their targets much more quickly and so they are harder for an opponent to defend against.

Im 5'11 and not very muscly, im about 69kg, I think thats about 150 lbs. But I know for a fact that my punches at least as powerful as my weightlifter gym buddies who are taller and stronger than me, they've been curious about my training and weve tested it. When a big guy I knew let me hit him in his big hard muscly stomach he got doubled over and moaned for ages and he told me that later when he went to take a leak he was pissing dark liquid (???). But nobody would think that somebody my size could generate a lot of power in a punch even if Im very fast. But they dont realize that power IS speed and speed IS power, because they are closely related.

I say the best way to develop power is to increase the speed in ur punches, meaning the velocity at the point of impact.
This will also mean that ur techniques will be faster which means the advantages are two fold.

Of course there are drawbacks to less muscle mass, such as not being able to absorb as much damage (which is still arguable in any case).

People get stuck into saying that "this is this" and "that is that" without realized that all these things are related and that u shouldnt draw lines between them because they are just all different ways of looking at the same thing.

What Im talking about is attributes and technique.
People call power an attribute, but hopefully u can use technique to make u powerful by using all the parts of ur body to generate a big enough momentum in ur strikes.
So technique and attributes are related too, of course.

Another thing that people get stuck on is speed. Like William Cheung, 'world speed punching' record holder. Yet they do not measure his punching speed by his velocity at point of impact, that is the speed of a punch, they measure it in punches per second. That is rapidity of punches, how many punches he can shoot out per second, but thats not speed. Of course his punches have tiny velocity and tiny power, he just whooshes them back and forth and a very big rate. Here people have realized that there is a relationship between rapidity and speed but they've got the two confused because they havent thought it through what speed really is and how u measure it. And nobody has questioned all this, that I know of (except me!).
Anyway the point is dont get stuck into one way of thinking, search for the truth, eg the laws of physics, for that is all that matters when it comes to 'attributes' and 'technique'.

So. Size itself doesnt matter, its just an indicator that somebody has more muscle mass to make use of. But good technique can tip those attribute scales in favour of a MUCH smaller guy (like Bruce), without even talking about the tactics of how a technique is used in combat.

I hope that clears things up a bit.

Peace

[jester700]

My only question is why you assume that size slows one down? The fastest sprinters have big leg muscles (versus distance runners, who usually don't). Their bulk doesn't slow them down.

Perhaps it's the "normal" training regimen of weightlifters who TRAIN only slowly & deliberately, vs. someone who trains speed. Sprinters, again, train their legs in strength AND speed, to great effect. I'd think that methodology, applied to all (or as any as practical) muscles would be the best.

[Monkey]

Again, sprinting is different because of two things. A sprinter is more worried about the rate of his legs pumping ie how many strides per second than how hard his feet hit the ground. Ultimately a sprinter would want to reduce that force of hitting the ground because its a waste of energy, ie it wont make him/her go forward. They run in such a way that their feet meet the ground slowly then push off it. It should not be making a loud noise when their feet are hitting the ground because its pushing not hitting.

The second thing is, running is feet pushing off the ground, not feet striking the ground.
A hit is different from a push.
Thats why a side kick with a snap of the hips does much more damage and makes a much louder noise and rattles the chain than one which does not snap, but pushes... the bag goes further but there is no loud noise and no shock simply because there is a large momentum transfered to the bag but it takes a long time, compared to the one that snaps.
Refer to the previous equations if u want to see how that works mathematically.

How many elite boxers carry any more weight than they need to? The way they train, they train to hit harder by hitting faster and using more of their body to accelerate their punches.

Anyway back to the original topic, boxers and runners alike use technique to win rather than rely on physical prowess alone for their attributes rather than just size. A boxer or runner with the same body but no developed technique will not be able to fight or run at a competitive level. So if running speed is an attribute then technique has a big say in it and if striking power is an attribute then technique has a big say in it too and so to say that technique is different from attributes is probably not looking at the picture completely.

So I think its safe to say that technique is much more important than size because size is not what matters, power is what matters and technique has a big say in how powerful a person can be whether big small or whatever.

Peace