I can see it now: Rocky travels to Russia to face Ivan Drago. He’s agreed to fight there because Drago killed his best friend and once rival Apollo Creed.
It’s beautiful. The perfect match between old school Rocky from the neighborhood and a modern trained athlete like Drago.
The movie makes a big deal out of portraying the modern training as evil, almost like cheating, and rocky’s old school methods as benevolent and the right way of doing things.
While I believe that some old training methods are still the best way of developing certain skills, modern training has become the standard everywhere.
There’s a reason for that. It work. Modern training methods have been designed with the accumulated scientific knowledge of the times. They are meant to create a superior athlete.
In the martial arts, of course, a lot of emphasis has always been placed on the origins of the technique and whether it is authentic or not. But just because a technique is old it doesn’t really make it good. That sometimes is hard to understand.
In the martial arts we associate old and traditional with good. But we have to remember that those techniques were revolutionary at some point. Now we have new ones.
We’ve learned a lot about the human body since then. We can train smarter. Become faster and stronger in a shorter period of time. This is good.
Of course, there are certain things that old school techniques teach us that modern training has yet to duplicate.
My old kung fu teacher used to say that going to the gym was good but it was shallow. Traditional martial arts training is deep. It trains your brain and your body in ways that just going to the gym can’t. Plus traditional training methods are excellent for absorbing the flavor of a martial art and its pattern of movement into your body.
So a combination of new and old is really the way to go. Plus it adds variety to your training. It will help you stay focused and engaged.
What do you prefer? Old school or modern? Let us know on our Facebook page.
