Introducing Fight Literacy: Our Guide to Martial Arts Analysis

Fight Literacy will be an ongoing series on fights to watch and how to analyze them (our goal is not to fight literacy, any activity with shots to the head can lower the literacy rate by itself). Often times we put our work in at the gym and our training ends there. Maybe if you are diligent you have an outside strength and conditioning routine as well as recovery work. But there are ways to improve your fight game without taxing your body.

Fight Literacy

By looking at those who came before us we can start understanding more than the how of martial arts (technical training) and begin the to learn the why. When to use one technique over another, the logic of one shot leading to a second, then third, and how defence and offence are fluid. People interested in martial arts tend to consume fights but if we plan on learning from the fighters at the highest level we must ask ourselves are we watching for entertainment (passively consuming content, waiting for big moments) or are we watching critically (seeing how a fight evolves over time and why it goes one way instead of another).

In this series we will have match and technical analysis but the point of this blog is more esoteric. The goal is to give practitioners to keys to deciphering a match up. Occasionally historical concepts shall be brought up to explain how we got to our point in time, to contextualize the modern world of fighting in its social and material setting in our world. Individual techniques may be used as example (ex. how body shots set up the head) but the point is to gain an overall better understanding of martial arts.

Oft we hear "rules are meant to be broken," so none of the articles here are meant to be hard fast rules of martial arts. Rather we hope to provide a guide and context for your personal martial arts journey.