11 Things You Should NEVER Do In Martial Arts

Although martial arts are all different from one another, they all share common core values. These values are important ideals such as respect, honor, loyalty, and willingness to learn. Whilst these are practiced by most students, if you’ve studied any martial art for an extended period of time, there is no doubt that you will have come across someone who bends and breaks these rules.

Even though you are paying to learn martial arts, this is not a license to act like a jerk and behave how you want at the expense of others. Granted, you are a customer in the gym, but this does not give you free rein to act however you like. Martial arts is a place where you should respect people around you and learn as much as you can.

If you are new to martial arts, there isn’t really an excuse for breaking these rules either. In general, they’re just a group of fundamental things you should do in order to progress quickly, learn from others and not irritate people around you. If you’ve got by fine in life so far, then you will not have any worry about any of the pitfalls listed below.

Lastly, it’s likely that if you find someone who doesn’t care about one of these rules, they’re likely to break many others too. These serial offenders are the bane of martial arts and jump from gym to gym never managing to stay for long.

Things You Should NEVER Do Or Say In Martial Arts

Big Ego

Unless you’re a hedge fund manager or the CEO of a multinational company, it’s likely that having a big ego is going to benefit you in life. Even if it does, it won’t be beneficial to you.

Almost every MMA champion and competitor has accepted that they needed to learn from others and they were not the best in the world. Many fighters who have fallen from grace developed an ego and then thought they were better than they actually were. This led to them stopping training and learning as much, which is when they began to lose fights.

Although the average person is not going to be an MMA champion, this advice can still be applied in the gym. You will learn a lot more and progress a lot more quickly if you do not have a big ego.

Tell Others What They Should Do If They Are Better Than You

This mostly seems to be an issue with people who have very limited experience in martial arts and is thankfully mostly done outside of the dojo. Whenever a fighter loses a TV fight in spectacular fashion or is severely outclassed by their opponent, you will find that armchair experts who have never trained in their life give advice on what the loser should have done.

Whilst you will not get criticism to this level face-to-face in the gym, it still does happen. Bad practitioners will often be caught “coaching” people better than them through various positions, throws, and strikes, even though they cannot do it themselves.

Thankfully, these people generally move from beginner to beginner as more and more people ignore them. As soon as they realize a beginner is now better than them, they will move to a new target.

Think In Absolute Terms

In any martial art – there are no absolutes. What may be theoretically bad in one situation might be great in another. This situation reveals itself again and again in any fight situation where a technique will work in one scenario, but with a variable changed – it no longer works.

A prime example of this is kuzushi within judo. Moving your opponent around will set up a series of throws which will only work when the weight of the opponent is unbalanced. Attempting a technically sound throw at any other time will not work. It is only when all of the variables are aligned correctly, the throw will then work.

By thinking in absolute terms, you limit both your mind and your skill set. Learning will be extremely inefficient since you’re sticking to a set of “rules” which aren’t correct. By allowing yourself to think fluidly you will learn a lot faster and truly understand the art of fighting. Bruce Lee was perhaps the biggest proponent of this with his “be water” speech shown below.

Sign Up To A New Gym Before A Trial Class

Signing up to a gym before a class will not hurt anyone else, but is a stupid thing to do as it may hurt your pockets. A trial class is still a very limited time to get to know what a gym is truly like, but it will at least give you some information.

For all you know, a gym could look very nice but be a true Mcdojo when it comes down to technique. The last thing you want to do to yourself is enroll in a 12 month contract in a place that doesn’t teach properly.

Even with experienced and established martial artists. They may have world titles under their name, but if they do not care about their own gym, it may not be worth training there. If the owner is not bothered about his students, a less well known gym may well be a better option. In either of these scenarios, a trial class will give you a small overview of what each gym is like.

Have A Closed Mind

This is a typical attitude from someone who already has a little bit of martial arts knowledge and has now decided that they are the authority on what works and what doesn’t. In a grappling class I have heard – “that wouldn’t work in krav maga” 4 or 5 times before the guy eventually quit. I am still not sure why he thought krav maga was relevant in a submission grappling class, or at the very least why this would need to be verbalized.

It is of course possible, that a submission grappling technique might not work in a street fight, but if you’re a white belt then it is also possible that you don’t really know enough about this to make such a comment.

In short, if you are closed minded, this will stop you learning properly. If you have a rigid set of rules about what works and what doesn’t as a beginner, this will hold you back.

Ask “Stupid” Questions For The Sake Of It

Unfortunately, every gym has one of these people. They clearly have a reasonable understanding of the technique being demonstrated, yet insist on asking an irrelevant or basic question that has already been answered.

This kind of person usually wants the full attention of the instructor and class at any price. They do not really care about learning too much, but would rather just be the focus of the class.

When compared to the other things you should not do in a martial arts class, this is more annoying than harmful and therefore is not in the same league as any of the other offenses. It is still stupid though, as when you have been in 20 classes with the same person and they ask a different silly question each week, eyebrows from other members begin to raise.

Hit People Hard Then Complain When They Hit You Hard

If you have a reputation for someone who spars hard, you are likely to attract other people who want to spar hard.

People spar at all different kinds of intensity, so it is fine to be a person who spars softly or hard, but you should be generally respectful of what your opponent wants – especially in a non-professional gym environment.

However, if you are a person who hits hard and then gets upset when somebody drops a bomb on you, this is a little ridiculous. If you are a hard sparrer, you should accept that getting hit hard comes with the style. It’s no use being able to dish out heavy hits and then back away from them when someone skilled is taking you apart.

Coaching Others More Than You Spar

Another strange phenomenon is the white belt coach. These are not too common, but they do exist. There will be a small crossover where this is acceptable, for example, if a judo black belt is in a BJJ class as a white belt, they of course would be welcome to teach other belts about a specific throw.

However, most of these white belt coaches do not spar and have not trained any martial arts before. Instead of spar against anyone themselves, they would rather just watch and give tips from the sidelines about what should and shouldn’t be done next.

Thankfully, most of these inexperienced coaches get told to stop what they’re doing by real coaches. Generally, these types of people are pretty harmless and end up leaving martial arts rather quickly. They can even be entertaining and fun to laugh at due to their lack of self awareness.

Act Like You Know Everything

A common trait amongst arrogant beginners is that they know everything, yet have only trained martial arts for a couple of months. This problem can also occur in more experienced belts and is extremely annoying at this level since they become even more arrogant. However, for the most part beginners that think they know everything often quit very swiftly – for the obvious reason that they think they know everything already.

Resist During Drilling

One of the weirdest things you will see in a gym is a resistant drilling partner. Not only is this strange, but it is also extremely annoying. The coach may have explained several times that they should let their partner throw them, or react a certain way, but they still refuse to cooperate.

Of course, in a real fight, or sparring situation, everything is not going to go as planned. However, by stopping others from completing a technique, you are hindering their learning. This way if the situation did occur during live sparring, the person who was unable to learn properly will not be able to execute the proper technique.

The people who resist during drilling are usually ultra competitive and see drilling as a small competition. Usually, these kinds of people leave gyms very quickly as soon as they start losing.

Think That Your Martial Art Is The Best

Arrogance is not limited to a single martial art. In almost every discipline, people think that their way of fighting is better than every other way. This is standard tribalism and is not just limited to martial arts, but almost every other walk of life.

Bruce Lee changed martial arts when he began to develop his Jeet Kune Do system, which was essentially a mixture of various martial arts. When Bruce Lee began to compete, he realized that Wing Chun was not the complete martial art he thought it was and realized cross training was the best way to master all skills and become a more complete fighter.

Cross training is not essential for hobbyists or anyone who trains martial arts for fun. However, if you haven’t trained other martial arts, you shouldn’t really have a strong opinion on how good they are. If you have trained other martial arts, you likely know that they all have strengths and weaknesses.