Style of the Week VII: Gatka

Gatka is a martial art originated by and still closely associated with the Sikhs. In my part of the world, Sikhs are little known or understood and frequently mistaken for Arab. Even those who are familiar with Sikhism as a religion are unfamiliar with their history. It turns out that the Sikhs are also a true warrior culture, and a fairly badass one at that.

Gatka is a weapon-based martial art, to the extent that it doesn't seem to have any unarmed component. There are numerous weapons including swords, daggers, staff (the lathi), spears, and battles axe (tabar). However, the most fundamental aspect of the art seems to be the panthra, a footwork form. Some of the sword movements are reminiscent of the Chinese broadsword, but the style itself is very distinct and rhythmic. Here's a video displaying sword and shield techniques:

Endurance Sports and Martial Arts

I really like this post at the blog Jonathan in the Distance. If you're in the rare intersection of martial artists and endurance athletes, it's a great read. This is the fifth post on the topic, so there's plenty there to read.

Why Did Boxing and Wrestling Evolve Differently?

I'm not nearly the historian of boxing and fighting in general that many fans of the sweet science seem to be. A question I've been trying to find an answer for recently is why boxing continued to be a more-or-less legitimate sporting competition while wresting became, well, the WWE. The simple answer is of course that amateur/Olympic wrestling is boring to watch while boxing can be exciting for the right match-up.

I'm not convinced of that though. First, people have proved to be willing to watch grappling in the context of MMA, and some forms of wrestling are major spectator events (think sumo). From what i've read professional wrestling was considered a legitimate fighting sport until around the 1920s, but was declining in popularity especially after the retirement of the legendary Frank Gotch. The answer to the decline seems to have been the rise of the theatrical style now honed to perfection in modern pro wrestling.

Even with the profusion of fight sport on TV these days it's hard to imagine a new professional wrestling organization that tries to have "real" matches, even if they incorporate judo and jiu jitsu techniques. Although some have argued that the popularity of MMA has increased peoples' awareness of pure boxing, I haven't seen evidence yet that this translates to more viewers for live and pay-per-view events.

Style of the Week VI: Gladiator Combat

OK, so this isn't so much a style as a category. The gladiators were among the first warriors trained exclusively for sport fighting, albeit of a particularly brutal nature. The word gladiator means "one who wields a sword", so not surprisingly the training of gladiators often involved sword training. But other weapons and methods were used, for example the type of gladiator known as a retarius used a trident and a net to capture opponents' weapons.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of information about exactly what the combat style of a typical gladiator might have looked like, but there is evidence that gladiators were often trained in set of choreographed routines and that they would fight according to these sometimes in gladiatorial contests. Some archaeologists have even suggested that gladiatorial events were a sort of ancient WWE-style spectacle, although it's clear that combatants did in fact sometimes die in these contests.

Gladiators were trained in schools called ludi, the best known being the ludus magnus that was connected directly to the Roman Colosseum. There were also schools in which combatants were trained specifically to fight animals. Gladiators were owned by men called lanista, who were sort of the Don King/Dana White equivalents of their time. Sources including Epictetus and Cicero indicate that gladiatorial training was also like modern fight training in the sense that it included conditioning and dietary restrictions.

True gladiatorial spectacles, called munera, are mercifully a thing of the past. But apparently, you can still engage in the training of the gladiator.

UFC 76

Wow. I was not only wrong, but had Jardine followed up on his knockdown of Liddell in the second round, i'd have been wrong in reverse.

It's kind of hard to believe that not long ago Randy Couture was retired, Liddell was thought unbeatable, and Pride was considered by many to have the superior fighters. The idea that any fighter can win on any given night is what gives MMA much of its appeal, but i'm not sure if fans are going to want a situation where there is no dominant fighter at any weight class.

Personally, i thought that both Tavares/Griffin and Sanchez/Fitch were excellent fights even if they went to decision. But Griffing/Rua and Liddell/Jardine were only interesting in the "what the hell is going on here" way. That's the Rua that KO'd Quinton Jackson and outpointed Nogueira? Very unimpressive. And Liddell was pathetic. When he raised his arms at the end of the fight I was actually embarrassed for him.

TUF 6

I'm already bored with TUF 6. Even Matt Serra can't sell the idea that there's some sort of legitimate feud between him and Hughes. It cracks me up when Serra says about Hughes "He thinks I got lucky". Got news for you Mr. Serra. Everyone thinks you got lucky.

Here is the one really interesting thing that i learned from Episode 1 of TUF 6: Mac Danzig is the world's most bad-ass vegan. I hope he wins on that basis alone.

UFC 76 Predictions

One of the good things about the UFC is that the good fighters get matched up (sometimes, still waiting on Emelianenko/Couture). The bad thing about that is it's pretty easy to lose a couple of fights in a row, which can be tough on a fighter's career. That could be the theme for the night at UFC 76 though. Clearly, somebody will have consecutive losses in the Liddell/Jardine fight since both are coming off losses, and i think it's entirely possible that Sanchez loses to Fitch. Although Griffin won his last fight, he's in a similar boat. He might withstand a loss since he's incredibly popular and everybody seems to acknowledge that his opponent is simply better than he this time, but this would be three losses in five fights.

My predictions: Liddell by KO, Rua by submission, Sanchez by controversial decision. Of course, the only thing harder to predict than the future is a future MMA fight.

The only really interesting undercard fight is the Thiago Tavares/Tyson Griffin match up, since there's some speculation that the winner could fight BJ Penn for the lightweight title left open by Sean Sherk's suspension.