Book of Five Rings Examination, Part 4

The Mountain-Sea Change
“The mountain-sea spirit means that it is bad to repeat the same thing several times when fighting the enemy. There may be no help but to do something twice, but do not try it a third time. If you once make an attack and fail, there is little chance of success if you use the same approach again. If you attempt a technique which you have previously tried unsuccessfully and fail yet again, then you must change your attacking method.
If the enemy thinks of the mountains, attack like the sea; and if he thinks of the sea, attack like the mountains. You must research this deeply.”

This writing comes from the Fire book and is something that must be clearly understood by all martial artists.

The obvious way of interpreting this and especially in MMA is if you are either a grappler of a striker. The early UFC’s proved that just knowing how to strike is not enough in real combat. If you have no experience of grappling you shall be easily dominated by all grapplers regardless of style. However fighters like Mirko Cro Cop, Chuck Liddel, and Anderson Silva have proved that striking is definitely something that is needed also. A blend of striking and grappling knowledge is necessary in MMA so as you can be a complete fighter. By constantly fighting one way, will easily show youre opponent your weaknesses and he/she can use this to there advantage.

“There may be no help but to do something twice, but do not try it a third time. If you once make an attack and fail, there is little chance of success if you use the same approach again”. Imagine you are trying to close the gap in a fight in order to take the fight to the floor. You decide to throw a low kick and quickly rush in to your opponent when his attention turns towards the kick. Anticipating your strategy, your opponent side steps the first and second time you try this. He then waits for you to try the same thing but instead of side stepping, lands a perfect hook punch just after you kick and move in. The punch knocks you out and you lose the fight.

By using the same strategy over and over you become obvious in your approach and your opponent can use this to his advantage. You must know that if you have tried something a couple of times and have failed with it, that you must try something different. Always keep your opponent guessing as to what you are going to try next. This is the best way to fight, and because there are many ways of attacking in MMA this is something that should be thought about and studied well.

Marks

Introduction
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7

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