Hey AFers,
Some poster made a thread about boxers and it reminded me to make this thread, since there seems to be some fellow martial artists here (Black Swan, Bodisathva…)
I have done full contact sports most of my life, and currently do judo, BJJ and MMA. Not that I am hard core at it, I just like technical sparring and being in shape.
How about having a general discussion about it, and more importantly, the implication of this hobby on your career in Funnance ?
I’ll start:
My approach to both these aspects is simply that I refrain from hard sparring (in striking), so that I am never rocked. Also, I can mostly cover bruises and black eyes with make-up, given that I never get anything severe.
Grappling is different of course, you can go hard without ruining your face and your brain (you just have to worry about serious injuries to knees, shoulders and spine 
In my former job i was competing and made it known to my employer that I would be coming in with cuts. I typically used grease and head gear but often times my crazy brazilian coach wouldnt allow for head gear bc he thought it brought on bad habbits. I was sparring 3-4 times a week with Friday being the most intense sparring night (allowing for better healing over the weekend). Now a days I’ll have to let you know how my new employer reacts to my cuts / bruises bc i just started up again.
I do believe you can feel the effects of sparring with respect to recollection and word retention. Having said that, I can’t stop training - its almost like a drug.
Finally, I would be careful when grappling (esp if you are wrestling). I developed cauliflower ear which i had to get drained a few times.
This was more of an issue with my previous employer simply due to the personalities of the people I worked with there, they were accountants. Where I work now it really hasn’t presented as an issue and there are a few reasons why.
First of which is simply the personalities of the people I work with, they’re nearly all men and all in sales and trading so instead of being precieved as a meathead most think that it’s pretty cool or ask me about how the training is going. Second, everyone knows I do it and that I don’t drink or hang out in bars, so when I do come in with a bruise they know its not because I was mouthing someone off and got myself in trouble. Third, I work with a guy who played professional rugby on an international level and he has alot of facial scars and he shaves his head, he looks tough, so relative to him I look pretty tame coming in with a cut or bruise on my eye. I imagine the biggest issue would be in a face to face meeting with a client but fortunately that hasn’t happened yet. Also I rarely come in with visible bruises.
As for the second issue, well thats a much bigger concern with me and with a few of the guys I train with. First of all, I made sure to buy disability insurance, lol, so incase anyhting bad happens Im covered somewhat. Also I almost always wear headgear and 16OZ gloves when I spar so that gets rid of alot of smaller cuts and bruises and some of the fog that comes from getting hit in the head. Also my gym is a traditional Muay Thai gym run by a former pro who fought in Laos/Thailand in the 70’s so the way we train is quite a bit different then boxers and MMA guys. Since in thailand fighters have to fight to pay their bills they also generally fight every 2 weeks or more often. for example there is fighter at our gym who fought professionally in thailand and had thirty fights over the course of three months. Given that, the focus at traditional muay thai gyms is to spar lightly inorder to avoid injuries because if you are injuried you can’t fight and if you don’t fight you don’t eat. We do lots and lots and lots of pad work and conditioning work to develop power and the sparring is mostly focused on developing timing, technique and geting used to getting hit.
So since the training is different I think it mitigates alot of potential for head injuries but like I said I make sure I wear headgear when I spar. I do notice a bit of fog the next day but it’s mostly from dehydration, or so I hope.
This is generally what sparring would look like in my gym, only we do it slightly harder and faster because we have gear on;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkhiylGbtcg
Instead of sparring hard this is what pad work looks like;
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152769087390215&set=vb.391370630214&type=3&theater
^^
Ok, not to get into an argument, but by light sparring I mean something harder than that.
It’s interesting though to note that there seems to be this misconception in the West that Muay Thai sparring always has to be 100%…
^I’m assuming by west, you mean western europe? Def not the case in USA unless its some amateur’s first time getting hit.
how sick are these – had to order them
My old boss used to call me in his office all the time about how my bruises and cuts were unacceptable at an I-bank. In truth, I think he was just really insecure. He got all weird one time when I was just casually talking about my weekend practicing tricks on a snowboard. He made sure to slip in the conversation how it wasn’t impressive in the least. He was an OK skier back in the day and always wanted to go pro…
Wall St. is full of dicks.
CFABB is the man ^. ughhh ok I don’t know how I have come to this decision point in my life. But, I really want to fight in Thailand. It seems crazy, but it seems like the only logical option for me at this point in this sport. I’ve been training a lot of knee specific training to physical therapy my knee and baby it, so have been missing ATT training, but still have been putting in bagwork. Now it just looks rare that my coach will approve me for the kickboxing tournament in the fall, so I’m just about to jump out of my skin right now to get in the ring. The only way to really prove myself is if I go against a seasoned Thai fighter or any Thai fighter in Thailand. I’m almost a bit nervous to say this to my Muay Thai coach as he is crazy and will probably get really excited to hear this or something. My dutch Thai coach invited me to train in Thailand over the winter when he went, but even then I thought venturing to Thailand for training or fighting was just a bit too much. In time and cost. Now, here I am. We kind of have an affiliate gym there that everyone on the team goes to - AKA. I’m not sure how much of a time commitment I would have to give them prior to a fight, but it looks like their site says up to 3 months. I could do maybe a few weeks, but 3 months is a long time. I don’t think I could adjust my food intake and general training habits to something in Thailand as everything is different over there… for 3 months. http://akathailand.com/ Also, why go all the way to Thailand for one fight? I’d rather do some tournament or something. If I had the potential to win like 5 matches in a day, would be awesome. But, there is this story about a guy my coach trained who tried this and got absolutely crushed in Thailand. So that could be me too.
my cousin does muay thai and works corp funnance. he goes on tournies locally, i’ve seen a couple. its kind of cool watching people fight. i should prolly tell him not to do it. but it just looks so god damn cool. watching it makes me want to do it as well. but then i realize its too much work plus ur face gets fooked up after a fight. so im gucci!
Yeah, you’d get murdered if you take on the locals.
When is the next Kumite? It’s only every ten years or so, right?
this your next flavor of the month thing ACE? idk if the bartenders are busty enough for you there, although im sure they provide women with breast enhancements there as well
Ace is kind of a big guy. Luckily for him, they probably don’t have locals his size.
but they are likely 10x as skilled as him and been practicing for 20x as long. he’d still get his ass kicked unless it was part of some program where they bring in americans and make them feel special by letting them win. its probably a decent business idea
My base case is that ACE shows up at some underground fight like Bloodsport and the crowd parts for this guy:
