Pablo Picasso was once quoted to have said ‘Good artists copy, great artists steal.’
While MMA isn’t technically a creative profession, there is much from this quote that applies to my sport of professional fighting.
The very essence of mixed martial arts is integrating techniques from the various disciplines of pugilistic combat into your own varied fighting style.
We should always learn from successful people. As much as possible, try to copy what they do well and learn from their mistakes.
I learned so much just from watching other great fighters and contemporaries in the octagon.
Back in my day, fighters were stuck in a gym studying grainy footage off VHS tapes. Frame by frame, we would peer tirelessly into the television monitor. Clicking the fast-forward and rewind buttons till they faded beneath the black rubber.
Instant replay, cable, and the internet have changed that. But the premise remains the same today.
Keep tabs on the best fighters. Watch their effective moves. Break it down. Copy them.
I’ve found this a more effective strategy than trying to reinvent the wheel.
Pro-MMA fighters can get about two to three solid matches in a calendar year.
That’s not many opportunities to make a statement. Rather than risk trying to be original, you’re better off using proven techniques and working to improve on them.
A win’s a win as they say.
Every win moves you up the pecking order in the division just a little bit. Do it consistently enough and you’ll work your way into a title shot as I did at Middleweight.
When I started my career as a pro fighter, I remember watching the first UFC in slow motion to see how Royce Gracie triangled Dan Severn.
Then, I saw how Pedro Rizzo was using leg kicks – how he rolled his hips and used his footwork.
Or when I saw Mark Coleman’s technique of shooting in blast doubles on people. Ah, good old memories.
Also, I paid close attention when my training partner Jeremy Horn one-arm triangled Chuck Liddell at UFC 19, handing him his first and only submission loss.
Even if I had the information and steps to execute that move, it would have taken me such a long time – years in fact – without a coach and watching films of Horn and other fighters just to master it.
Copying others cuts the learning curve down significantly.
When I was teaching, we used to joke that we were stealing other teachers’ ideas and implementing them in our own classrooms. Well the truth is, the best ideas are the borrowed ones.
Let’s say I’m teaching a move at a seminar. Now when I teach that move, you may perform the same move a certain way.
There are little details that make sense for the biomechanics of your body. Whereas someone else who’s not the same height or weight or has different physical distribution may execute the move slightly differently.
And so even if it’s a move that I already know, I still watch other MMA fighters or practitioners, whether it’s a stand-up move or a grappling move, it doesn’t matter.
The devils in the details. While watching, you may notice something that makes you go ‘Hmm. I’ve never actually thought of that before.’
You may think about it three years down the road, but you can definitely get a head start and cut that time out just by watching and copying others.
The copycat technique is an effective strategy for success that applies to almost every industry.
While “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” it’s also important to copy what people do well. Don’t just imitate, iterate.
Look at what somebody else is doing and see what works. Discard what doesn’t work for you, and then implement new details to improve it. And that’s pretty much what I’ve done my entire MMA career.
A young Benjamin Franklin, who considered himself a poor writer sought to improve his skills.
He admired the English magazine, The Spectator, and its talented writers.
So, he took some of their papers and made brief notes about each sentence. After a few days, he would try to reconstruct the sentences in full without referring to the original.
He did his best to express and recreate it the original with its full meaning and intention. Then, Franklin compared his copies with The Spectator, identified his mistakes, and learned from them.
Franklin wasn’t concerned with simply reading. He painstakingly broke down each piece, sentence by sentence, and learned through sheer hard work.
Fortunately, MMA doesn’t quite garner the same level of scrutiny as a creative profession, like a painter or writer, where copyright infringement and plagiarism are real things. The true value of mixed martial arts lies in the creative impulses of the fighter.
What are some great things you guys have copied that have helped you in your field or profession?
I’d love to hear more!