There was a classic UFC fight Saturday night featuring a Brazilian, Michel Pereira, a showman of WWE proportions. Pereira break danced his way to the cage. There were Capoeira spins, a Superman punch off the cage, and a pro-wrestling Rolling Thunder! Pereira even attacked using a backflip. His opponent, Tristan Connelly, a Canadian, was fighting in the UFC for the first time ever, took the fight with only 5 days notice.
Connelly was the biggest underdog on the card, with Vegas odds having him losing by a landslide. When the two stepped into the cage, Pereira towered over Connelly. It looked like a battle of David vs. Goliath. Connelly usually fights at 155 lbs. This match was in the 170 pound weight class, and Pereira came in over weight, so he was even bigger.
Despite the flash and flair of Pereira’s moves, Connelly beat him thoroughly every round, and won the fight by unanimous decision. Connelly’s quote after the match summed it up perfectly: “If doing backflips was what I believe was important in fighting, I’d be great at backflips, but I couldn’t do them to save my life. I practice punching people, choking people and kicking people, because that seems to work in most of the fights I watch.”
In Karate, new students in particular, love the fancy moves. Heck, they are a lot of fun, and they look cool. Well, as Connelly summed up, simple is what works. It works in sparring and combat sports, and it works in self-defence. This week, with karate classes back in action, we focused on the basics of the basics: stances, blocks, strikes and kake drills.
To add a quote by Bruce Lee, “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once. I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”