Finding Your Own Style In Martial Arts

Bruce Lee summed this up perfectly. "Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is essentially your own."

Knowing what you want from your training is a big part of finding your own style, and luckily for me I found it right away when I started grappling. When training various martial arts as a teenager I didn't really think about 'my style'. I only realised it when I started Jiu Jitsu 7 years ago. I remember searching gyms around my area in Christchurch, New Zealand, and I landed on a gym called Axis. I knew at that time I was looking more for self-defence than for playing the game of BJJ. I went on the website and came across Sam, one of New Zealand's top wrestlers. We were the same height, similar build, and he knew how to take people down and submit them. He’s a wrestler and BJJ black belt with heavy top pressure. I knew right away this was the style of grappling I wanted to learn and I always thought to myself, if you can't take someone down, you can't use jiu jitsu, as it's all about groundwork. So my key focus became clear, be capable of taking someone down, use heavy pressure to pass the guard and fatigue my opponent, then submit them with a choke. I liked chokes because they felt more final than joint locks. If you don't tap, you're going for a short nap. With an armbar, sure, you could break someone's arm, but they can keep fighting. That was my game plan, and for the next 5 years I tried to make every one of his classes before he eventually moved overseas. I am so thankful I started out by finding the right coach for the style I wanted to learn. I went to other classes too, like fundamentals, but always to an instructor whose game I wanted to take something from.

Comparing

Most people have compared themselves to others in the room, and that is fine in the right context. I used to compare myself to people ranked the same belt as me to gauge where I was in my journey. If there were 10 purple belts in the room and I didn't have a hard time against any of them, I knew I was on the upper end of that rank. I also enjoyed feeling the gap when I was a white belt rolling with a brown or black belt. It gave me something to strive towards. They were just further along than I was, and if I kept showing up consistently I could be there one day. It becomes clear the other way too. It’s hard to see how far you've come when everyone around you is growing at a similar rate, but when a beginner joins and you’re only a few months in, you really notice your progress. But in the wrong context, comparison can take the fun out of martial arts. Everyone is on their own journey, at a different starting point, with different things they bring to the table. Focussing inwards and comparing yourself to who you were last month or last year should be the real motivator in driving future growth.

Your Own Style

Watch a room of people who have trained for years and none of them move the same. They have drilled the same techniques under the same coaches and still ended up with a completely different approach, because a style is not the list of moves you know. It is the small handful of things you keep coming back to when it counts or when you're fatigued, the movements that suit your body and the techniques you gel with the most.

A good way I learned quickly was this. If I wanted to sharpen my kimura, I would find whoever had the best one in the gym. After rolling I would pick their brain on every detail. Then I would give myself 4 weeks to only hunt for that one submission. Focusing on a single thing and trying to master it did more for me than spreading myself thin ever could. I would watch YouTube videos on it, take detailed notes, and map out every position I could reach it from. This way of learning pays off if you plan to train long term. After the 4 weeks I would move on to something else, like the armbar. Do that for a couple of years and you will have found your go to moves and how to link them together. You also learn to set traps, so you are building towards a submission many steps before it lands.

Your Attributes

A lot of what works for you comes down to your attributes. I personally struggled more in jiu jitsu, judo and kickboxing against tall, long-limbed people, as they have great leverage and reach. Your build is a real factor in the style you develop. Mike Tyson was never going to be a long-range fighter as a 5'10 heavyweight, but his speed, power and ability to get on the inside and cut angles was something special to watch. For his height he had to get close, so he built a whole game around it and used what he had to the fullest. Lennox Lewis was the opposite, tall and long with an exceptional jab. That proved hard for Tyson to get past, and the jab broke him down until the big right hand came behind it and it was over. The way you strike or grapple comes down to how your body moves and performs in certain positions, so lean into what works for yours.

One Kick, Ten Thousand Times

It is good to know a little about a lot of moves and a lot about a small number of moves.

Knowing a little about a lot helps because you can anticipate most of what is coming your way, so you know how to defend it. It is hard to be surprised by something you already recognise.

Knowing a lot about a few is what holds up when it matters. A technique you have drilled thousands of times stops being something you think about and becomes something you simply do. It becomes muscle memory. Under pressure you don't rise to the level of your knowledge, you drop to the level of your training. A move you half know will desert you the moment someone resists it. A move you have grooved deep into your body will be there without you having to call for it.

This is why Bruce Lee's line lands the way it does. "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times." The man who has thrown one kick ten thousand times is not dangerous because he knows a lot. He is dangerous because he has taken one simple thing and mastered it.

Partners

The people you train with shape your style as much as any coach. Every partner leaves you with something. The bigger, stronger one teaches you that a technique has to be legit or it simply will not work. The technical one who catches you with the same three things every week is showing you exactly where your holes are. The brand new person with no control and plenty of enthusiasm teaches you to stay calm and wait, because they will gas themselves out, and pacing yourself turns out to be its own skill. You can learn something from everyone, always keep that in mind.

Summary

There is no single right way to do this. What works for me might be useless to you, and that is the whole point of finding your own style. A good coach got me started, but the rest was just years of trial and error. Hours on YouTube, pages of notes, drilling one thing until it was mine and then moving onto the next. Some moves suited me and some never did. The ones that worked stuck, and the rest I left behind. Everyone gets there their own way. The game never stops changing and neither do you, so there is always something new to work on. That is what I love about it. It never really finishes.