Fighting Style Preferences

A.K.A. Honey Badgers and Spiders

When my dad recaps most of my victories in our Jiu Jitsu sparring matches he tends to refer to his mistakes as, “going deeper into my web.” It was then that I even considered this analogy. Spiders like to set up their webs as traps to catch unsuspecting prey and then nature kicks in and they either disable or dismember their prey.

As a personal example, in grappling sparring I tend to make it seem safe to attempt a submission then break free and catch him in my own submission. Then during striking or TaeKwonDo sparring I tend to crowd my opponent forcing them to take a step back. Then I use that opportunity to use a spinning back kick and possibly even land in a way to set them up for another spinning back kick because I will be too close again.

My brother’s fighting strategy on the other hand is the honey badger strategy. There’s a meme going around about honey badgers not giving an expletive and that’s basically the strategy. Not caring and taking the opportunity when it comes. He picks what he wants to do and just does it. If we’re sparring he commits fully to a technique. If something else gets in the way it shouldn’t be and he will try to go through it.

Neither strategy is wrong in and of themselves. I’m faster than my brother and have more technique. My brother is stronger and built in a better way to take the force of his punch going back into his hand should his opponent try to block.  If I tried to use the honey badger strategy I would end up hurting myself because I do not have the strength to just barrel through a block. On the other hand, my brother would have difficulty using the spider strategy since his reaction time would be slower.

In the end it’s up to the martial artist to decide what fighting style to use. These two examples are more or less the two extremes. There is plenty of room in between to create mixed styles to suit your own body’s movement.