InFi and MMA

Some days ago, I had a chat with a martial art expert about individual fighting. After my first two sentences, he said, 'aha, then it is similar to MMA, isn't it?' Yeees, in some respect, it is, I said, but in many essential aspects, it is definitely not.

In columns, I list their attributes. What is more, I start with the well-known concept of freestyle to make the picture even clearer. None of them is a corporate style. I highlighted with green the similarities and with pink the differences from InFi. Each line represents the same aspects in all columns.

In summary, we could call MMA sport InFi or restricted individual fighting. But we must not name InFi as free MMA, in general, because the restraint in MMA is not only technical. The whole mindset is different. The essential discrepancies are in the third, fourth, and fifth lines (above), which are not about freedom or limitation. Of course, all MMA fighters have their InFi out of the contest, and their InFi must be pretty much similar to their competition style. Over and above, InFi is not only an activity. It is a concept, a phenomenon, or a property. Compared with the population, only a few people do MMA, but everybody has InFi.

YOU HAVE AN INDIVIDUAL FIGHTING STYLE 

THE FROG AND THE TOWER

There once was a bunch of tiny frogs who arranged a climbing competition. The goal was to reach the top of a very high tower. A big crowd had gathered around the tower to see the race and cheer on the contestants.

The race began…

Honestly, no one in the crowd really believed that the tiny frogs would reach the top. You heard statements such as:

“Oh, way too difficult!!”

“They will never make it to the top”.

“Not a chance that they will succeed. The tower is too high!”

The tiny frogs began collapsing. One by one except for those who in a fresh tempo were climbing higher and higher. But the crowd continued to yell:

“It is too difficult! No one will make it!”

More tiny frogs got tired and gave up.

But one continued higher and higher. This one wouldn’t give up! At the end, everyone else had quit climbing except for the one tiny frog who, after a big effort, was the only one who reached the top! Naturally, all of the other frogs wanted to know how this one managed to do it – to reach the goal?

As it turned out, this particular frog was deaf.