What The Masters Know

I picked up a used copy of Paul Maslak’s What The Masters Know: The Science and Psychology of Strategic Fighting last night at Half Priced Books.

First, good luck finding this one! It was published in 1980 and it appears it’s not been reprinted.

About the author: Instructor in Northern Shaolin and a black belt in Shorin-ryu karate. He’s also trained in taekwondo, Isshin-ryu, Judo, Boxing, Wrestling, and Fencing. It also looks like he is a producer/writer/director.

First the bad: The book is only 107 pages and is very light on photos. Since the book is devoted to what the author calls positional theory (i.e. essentially how to get into the correct range of combat) and covers footwork, a few more photos would have been nice. Then again, I paid $3.48 for the book so I can’t complain too much!

Now the good: He does a pretty good job of covering all ranges of combat from outfighting to ground. Given the book was written pre-UFC the ground fighting is fairly basic. Then again, it looks like the author only dabbled in judo and wrestling so this is to be expected I suppose.

He identifies four types of fighters and what positional range of combat best suits each: 1) Longer and stronger, 2) Longer and weaker, 3) Shorter and stronger, and 4) Shorter and weaker.

I generally fall into either “longer and stronger” or “longer and weaker” depending on who it is I’m facing.

• Longer and Stronger: Outfighting is your specialty. Avoid getting in close if you can. Main weapons include thrust kicks (side, round, or reverse side) or lunge punches (jab or reverse straights).
• Longer and Weaker: Outfighting again but you should avoid infighting at all costs. Here you must rely on a flash and footwork to distract and force openings. This fighter should rely on thrust kicks, lunge punches, and something he calls “the pass”. The latter is essentially just a reverse punch after you slip, parry, or block a punch.

The main difference I see is that “longer and stronger” is more linear while “longer and weaker” is more “Ali style”.

The other two are:

• Shorter and stronger: This is the Rocky Balboa-type fighter who should get in close and chop away, or use traps and ground fighting.
• Shorter and weaker: This guy has a problem. Basically he’s suited for infighting but is weak. So he needs to rely on footwork and use hit-and-run tactics. Get in then get out. If he has to groundfight he should use the soft arts (e.g. aikido, etc.).

He goes on for pages on each type of fighter and what positional strategies they need to follow. He also uses a classic boxing match to make an analogy between hard and soft styles: Muhammad Ali vs. George Foreman. The point being is that a hard or soft style is not necessarily better than the other. Rather it really comes down to the experience of the fighter, who is better at positional strategy, and which of the four types they happen to be (Longer and stronger, etc.).

There are two things he states that I’ve heard others say: 1) The best martial artist is the one who masters a handful of techniques from his or her particular art.

The recent trend among martial artists…has been toward learning any technique which seems to work…A less advanced fighter cannot easily do this.

Although it is important to be aware of the mechanics behind other styles, it is even more important that you specialize in the basic techniques of just one style…For the most part, a heavy weight is better off in a hard style and a light weight is better off in a soft style. The middleweight may choose between the two…

The offensive techniques of any unarmed martial art can be divided into four categories: striking, trapping, sweeping, and grappling. (pp. 63-64)

2) He also implicitly suggest that you should not start cross training until you have good mastery of your style (e.g. at least black belt equivalent). According to the author, after you are familiar with the fundamentals of your style you are better able to appreciate the nuances of a different style. Here he uses the classic striking styles (hard and soft) vs. grappling styles (hard and soft).

The main message here is if you are a good striker you should balance yourself with some secondary grappling skills and vice versa. In fact, the analogy he uses is a hard striker who eventually starts to train in aikido.

He closes the book with a study of 700 randomly selected boxing matches. He studied these matches to confirm his positional theory of combat. I’ll spare you the science but I will give you some of his more interesting findings:

• A longer fighter occasionally wins by infighting yet no short fighters ever won by outfighting.
• Longer limbs where the single most important physical advantage.
• Victory was dependent on the effective use of longer limbs.

The problem here is that his study was only limited to boxers. Still, the results are food for thought.

All-in-all this is a good book and if you can find a copy I’d recommend it. It’s one of those books that you can keep going back to and work through what the author is saying, then apply it to your own training.

~BCP