Quality rather than quantity

One difference between a lower belt fighter and a black belt fighter is the number of techniques executed. This is one reason many fighters run out of energy, they execute too many ineffective techniques, especially energy sapping kicks.

It is not how many kicks or punches you thrown, it is how well each technique is thrown and whether it was thrown to an unguarded target. After a color belt spars a black belt, the color belt is exhausted and has a low score despite having thrown a hundred techniques. The black belt is fresh and has a high score. Why? The black belt only threw techniques that had a chance of scoring.

It is the quality, not the quantity, of the attacks that count. You win by points, not by the number of techniques. Manage you energy. Do not burn out early doing energy sapping jump kicks.

Qualities of good fighters

Good fighters are able to:

• Read opponent's thought of action.
• Anticipate movements of the opponent.
• Deceive opponent or conceal own intentions.
• Mislead opponent (feints).
• Stay focused to the moment.
• Control emotions.
• Be self-assured.
• Use both side of body equally.
• Overcome fears and seize the moment.
  

Can you be too good a fighter?

Yes! Good poker players know they can beat other good poker players because they know what to expect from them. However, bad players are unpredictable and difficult to figure out. They sometimes do unexpected or even stupid things. If you are a much better fighter than your opponent, you may beat yourself by:

• Being too quick. You may block before the attack get to you and then it slips by. You may fire a second or third attack before the opponent has had a chance to pull his or her block back from the first attack, so they all get blocked.
• Counter kicking too quickly so that your kick goes over the incoming kick allowing it to hit you low.
• Reacting to perceived attacks that turn out to be just random movements by an inexperienced fighter.
• Not getting the expected reaction to your attack

To fight some opponents, you may need to lower the quality of your techniques.