Are You Trying To Reinvent The Wheel?

Are You Always Looking For New Ways To Reinvent The Wheel?

Today I wanted to talk about folks who always try to come up with their own new techniques. I always say that these are the folks looking to reinvent the wheel. More often then not, this is done to a fault.

I’m all for being creative. Nothing wrong with that. But you’ll need to get to a certain level before that can happen. That level happens to be years away from all new mixed martial arts students.

Just so you know, there’s a really thin line between creative and reinventing the wheel.

Most people fall into two very different categories. On one side you’ll have those who come up with silly techniques from stuff they might see on youtube or some website like that. Almost always, what they come up with doesn’t work (not even close).

Many times these made up techniques not only don’t work but are also unsafe for training partners.

Then you’ve got the other type of person that never deviants from the instruction given. They do everything taught down to the last detail.

Look, I don’t want to paint this picture that It’s evil if you’re trying to be creative in your training. A little bit creative = Okay. Trying to reinvent the wheel = Bad.

What level do you need to be at in order to reinvent the wheel?

Like I was saying before. The problem with being creative and developing new things is that the white belt is just too new to be creative in the first place. I’m not saying this to be mean but It’s the god’s honest truth.

You need to attain a certain level of skill before attempting to add your own tweaks to techniques and situations. 4+ years is about the right time frame for all the tweaking to start.

By the time you’ve hit 4+ years of MMA training, you should be able to begin making small changes to your techniques. Maybe sooner but I doubt it. Four years seems to be the golden time frame for most students.

The very best fighters are also some of the most creative. These are fighters who’ve mastered a system of combat that suits their body type, skill, age and overall abilities.

These same fighters have also mastered the basics too. They use some “beyond” the basic skills and it works, as proven in events such as the UFC.

Don’t try to reinvent anything until the basics have been mastered…

My old training partner used to always say that the time spent on trying to be different becomes time wasted. That same time could have been used to gain a higher level of proficiency within the basic skill set.

Another way of looking at it would be to try and make that plan old wheel turn a lot faster!

Being creative has it’s place sure, and I think It’s necessary for success at the higher levels. But in the beginning, shoot to make the old wheel turn faster. By that I mean make your basic skills better. Never stop, no matter what level you reach, trying to make your fundamental skills as good as they can be.

Being creative gets put to the test. Does your idea work, Y or N?

I wrote about this the other day in a different blog so I’ll just touch on it here. You can be as creative as you like but if the techniques you come up with don’t work during a “live” training situation then it’s all for nothing.

You’ve got to always be putting your new moves to the test. If they don’t work against a live resisting opponent then what’s the point?

Most of the stuff you come up with won’t work. Sorry, but that’s the reality.

You’ll have to keep at it, testing things out over and over again. Over the course of time you’ll find techniques that do work, and some will work really well.

I guess now’s about the time for you to get in some drilling, wouldn’t you agree? The videos I provided below should help you along 🙂