1,000 Hours of Combat Sports Training — Reflections

Well, I just hit that number: 1,000 hours of combat sports training. I just noticed it peeking at me at the top of my training log.

So I wanted to take a moment and reflect on what it means to be here as a middling athlete in my 40s.

I’ll talk about

• Some general reflections on getting here
• How good I feel at the sports
• What I want to do next

This is a follow-up from my last post: Two years of jiu jitsu/grappling.

The Heavy

Here’s the high and low of it. I’ll just write this off the cuff.

Firstly, starting learning combat sports has been one of the hardest and most rewarding things I’ve ever done. It’s right up there with my two other passions, language learning and motorcycles. I knew it was a thing I wanted to dedicate myself to from very early on in the game when I realised that “Hey, I’m not bad at this.”

When I started out, I was just really bored of powerlifting and curious about Brazilian jiu jitsu. But very quickly I started layering on more sports — Muay Thai, boxing, and even wrestling — just as coaches became available. I’m having the most fun with wrestling right now. I stink at it, but it’s so much fun!

I started in September 2021, nearly three years ago. To date, I’ve done around 700 hours of grappling (including gi, no gi, and wrestling), striking (including boxing, Muay Thai, and general “striking” in an MMA style), and a small amount of weights and cardio.

Including weights and cardio, I think, is important because competitive athletes do a lot of it. It supports training. And a lot of athletes do weights and cardio when they’re recovering from an injury or an illness (as I did — I had to have minor surgery, and another time I just had neck pain), and this is reality.

It also gives the fullest picture of my training. Just because I can’t do combat sports doesn’t mean I sit on my behind and do nothing.

There are some very normal reasons why the amount of hours fluctuates up and down so much.

1. I change gym a lot. Some gyms have 1.5-hour classes every day. Some have 1-hour classes and not every day. That kind of thing.
2. Vacation times — e.g. I was in Italy in August 2023.
3. Time off visiting family
4. Injuries or illness. I’ve been down with COVID, general bugs, had to have surgery for stuff, etc.

Some classes are also fast-paced and some are not. I just have to take the good with the bad.

In general, I’ve learned to train when I can, and not feel bad about when I can’t. In the beginning, I felt guilty about every missed class!

I also have lost a bit of strength from the time I hit my 1000 lb powerlifting total. My deadlift is now around 150-160 kg, not 190, and my squat is around 120 kg, down from 165. I’m not so fussed. I feel like these are my natural long-term strength numbers.

My cardio is fine, however.

How “Good” Am I After 1,000 Hours?

This is what I’ve been wondering for ages. How good would I be at the 1,000 hour mark?

For context, again, I’m in my mid-40s, and not a competitor. I just don’t care about competition — sparring in class is all the competition I need. I have so much other competition in my life and the gym is my way of getting away from that stress.

I’ve learned that everyone has their own level. I don’t compare myself to other blue belts, other 45-year-olds, or whatever. I compare myself to myself.

I’m comfortable on the mats doing grappling. I’m NOT “great”. But when there’s a technique shown in class, I don’t have to work too hard to follow it — I generally get what’s going on. (Not saying I do it perfectly — the coach will definitely come and correct me. But I’m not totally lost.)

When sparring, I’m a “middling blue belt”, if your school has belts. This means white belts are mostly easy for me (unless they’re going hard or are bigger than I am), some blue belts give me absolute hell, and most purple belts school me. There’s a range in all of that — some of my favourite sparring partners are purple belts.

Essentially, if someone has been at it for less than a year, then they’re not too much trouble. If someone has 2 years or more experience than me, they can usually school me.

The way I generally think of it is that I can intuitively move about 2 steps at a time, sometimes three. But I have very few sequences from start to submission. Some other blue belts do, and that’s fine for them.

I’m pretty comfortable passing the guard, I have a few go-to throws (that work in gi and no gi), and don’t absolutely hate any position — other than being in someone’s guard, under side control, or under mount…

In boxing/striking — I feel really very amateur at this. Part of the reason is that there’s almost no sparring in the classes I go to. I really don’t like this. I wish I could spar more. But to spar, I have to show up to the dedicated sparring sessions.

Basically, wow. Three years and a thousand hours in and I feel pretty average. Whatever. I enjoy it!

I haven’t competed. Younger folks than me probably would compete. Some older folk do, too, wanting to acid test their ability. I’m just not interested, though. I have too much other stuff on in my life, too many hobbies, other commitments, etc. A whole Saturday in some alien gym for a few rounds with people I don’t know, where people go hard and don’t tap, is not my idea of fun at all.

One thing these sports have shown me is confidence. I regularly spar with people bigger and stronger than me. I’ve been hit, twisted, and thrown in all kinds of ways. When people confront me on the street, I no longer care. I can already imagine the way they fight, and mostly just think about whether they have a knife or psycho drug energy (usually the case). Of course, I prefer to defuse situations verbally. But do it from a position of confidence.

Some Other Statistics

Here are some statistics of interest:

• It has been 1066 days since I started training (just shy of 3 years)
• On average, I have trained 0.94 hours a day. (But not all training hours are equal.)
• I’ve trained for 28 hours a month on average.
• The school at which I’ve trained the most is Absolute MMA (here are my thoughts on the school), which is also the last school I’ve been to. I’ve done, so far, 164 hours there.

Some people ask me what my favourite schools have been. So many of them have different strengths! I haven’t ever stayed at a school I haven’t liked for more than a session. So I’ll just say, in a nutshell

• At Absolute I love the range of classes, the calibre of the students, and the facilities. I feel the most at home in Absolute than I have anywhere.
• At Inferno I found people with the most heart I’ve ever seen (they would not tap!)
• Cercle Tissier was wonderfully old school
• Vera Fight Club was were I made the best friends (though I probably won’t be back since my coach left)
• Dog Eat Dog was where I met the most hard-ass people — anyone who does “Calcio Storico” is worthy of respect! But man, they were all nice, every single one.

That’s just a few. I’ve written a few reviews up on the web if you want to go find them.

What’s Next?

In my last post, I mentioned wanted to keep working on my own curriculum, go to the best gyms, improve my self-belief, and adopt flexibility. I’m proud to say I’ve done all that.

I’ll keep doing all that. And I think what I need to do more of is

• Takedowns and sweeps
• Escaping from bad situations
• More leg defences and attacks
• Sparring in striking — I’m nearly at the point where I want to do that.

I still am no good at submissions, even when I have someone in a vulnerable position. But I don’t care, for some reason. I’d rather pin them.

I also enjoy a bit of weightlifting when I can. The problem is finding the time — I train two hours a day already.

But mostly, I’m going to keep doing the same thing. I am in love.