scholarly journals Perceived and actual fighting ability: determinants of success by decision, knockout or submission in human combat sports

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (10) ◽  
pp. 20200443
Author(s):  
Sarah M. Lane ◽  
Mark Briffa
Keyword(s):  
Martial Arts ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Accurate Information ◽  
Combat Sports ◽  
Resource Holding Potential ◽  
Contest Theory ◽  
Fighting Ability ◽  
Animal Contest ◽  
Performance Traits

Animal contest theory assumes individuals to possess accurate information about their own fighting ability or resource-holding potential (RHP) and, under some models, that of their opponent. However, owing to the difficulty of disentangling perceived and actual RHP in animals, how accurately individuals are able to assess RHP remains relatively unknown. Furthermore, it is not just individuals within a fight that evaluate RHP. Third-party observers evaluate the fight performance of conspecifics in order to make behavioural decisions. In human combat sports, when fights remain unresolved at the end of the allotted time, bystanders take a more active role, with judges assigning victory based on their assessment of each fighter's performance. Here, we use fight data from mixed martial arts in order to investigate whether perceived fighting performance (judges' decisions) and actual fighting success (fights ending in knockout or submission) are based on the same performance traits, specifically striking skill and vigour. Our results indicate that both performance traits are important for victory, but that vigour is more important for fights resolved via decision, even though the effect of vigour is enhanced by skill. These results suggest that while similar traits are important for fighting success across the board, vigour is overvalued in judges' perceptions of RHP.

Human third-party observers accurately track fighting skill and vigour along their unique paths to victory

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Robert Caton ◽  
Barnaby Dixson
Keyword(s):  
Biological Sciences ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Contest Competition ◽  
Contest Theory ◽  
Fighting Ability ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
Holding Power ◽  
Animal Contest ◽  
Resource Holding Power ◽  
Unique Path

Sexual selection via male-male contest competition has shaped the evolution of agonistic displays, weaponry, and fighting styles, and is further argued to have shaped human psychological mechanisms to detect, process, and respond appropriately to cues of fighting ability. Drawing on the largest fight-specific dataset to date across the sports and biological sciences (N = 2,765), we examined how different indicators of fighting ability in humans reflect unique paths to victory and indicate different forms of perceived and actual resource-holding power (RHP). Overall, we discovered that: (1) both striking skill and vigour, and grappling skill and vigour, individually and collectively predict RHP; (2) different RHP indicators are distinguished by a unique path to victory (e.g., striking skill is a knockout-typical strategy, whereas grappling vigour is a submission-typical strategy); and (3) third-party observers accurately track fighting skill and vigour along their unique paths to victory. Our argument that different measures of RHP are associated with unique paths to victory, and third-party observers accurately track fighting vigour and skill along their unique paths to victory, advance our understanding not only of human contest competition, but animal contest theory more broadly.

scholarly journals Report on the 7th International Congress of IMACSSS and the 4th World Scientific Congress of Sports and Martial Arts

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 172 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Arthur Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Martial Arts ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
International Congress ◽  
Combat Sports ◽  
World Scientific ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
Scientific Congress ◽  
Constructive Criticism ◽  
October 17

<p>This report outlines the 7<sup>th</sup> International Congress of the International Martial Arts and Combat Sports Scientific Society (IMACSSS) and the 4<sup>th</sup> World Scientific Congress of Sports and Martial Arts (Rzeszow, Poland, October 17-19, 2018) to provide constructive criticism for future conferences. The conference drew numerous scholars from four continents and showcased research on both well-known martial arts and combat sports (e.g., Judo and Taekwondo), while providing a spotlight for less-researched arts (e.g., Malaysia’s Silat and various Polish art forms) as well. Presentations were on qualitative and quantitative research and spanned several academic disciplines. While the three-day conference was organized well and expertly run, slight changes to the schedule could maximize participants’ overall experience at future IMACSSS events.</p>

scholarly journals Comparative Study on the Implementation of Combat Sports – Martial Arts – in the Physical Training of Military Students

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-30
Author(s):  
Fabiana Martinescu-Bădălan
Keyword(s):  
Physical Training ◽  
Martial Arts ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Mental Condition ◽  
Military Students ◽  
Combat Sports ◽  
Current Context ◽  
General Physical ◽  
The Military ◽  
Harsh Conditions

AbstractIn the current context, martial arts continue to evolve and constantly develop, capturing the attention and the interest of the population of the entire world, the branch of these being diversified, offering individuals the possibility to be practiced, even by those with physical or mental disabilities. Nowadays, the large categories of armed forces of the world use martial arts as part of general physical training, with the purpose of self-defence against the enemy, discipline, improved physical and mental condition, improvement of the ability of the military to adapt to harsh conditions, as well as fighting without using weapons.

From Linear History to Discursive Constellation

2020 ◽  
pp. 99-128
Author(s):  
Paul Bowman
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Martial Arts ◽  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Children's Television ◽  
First Century ◽  
Combat Sports ◽  
Ultimate Fighting Championship ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Twenty First Century

This chapter argues that any attempt to construct a linear history of martial arts in media and popular culture as it exploded after the 1970s cannot but fail. The sheer proliferation of martial arts images, themes, texts, and practices precludes easy linear narrativization. Accordingly, Chapter 5 argues for the need to move ‘From Linear History to Discursive Constellation’ in our approach to martial arts in media and popular culture. The chapter attempts to establish the main discursive contours that appeared and developed through the 1980s—a decade in which ninjas and Shaolin monks explode onto the cultural landscape. This is followed by attention to the 1990s, in which three major events took place in the same year: the first Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), the Wu-Tang Clan’s release of their enormously popular album, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), and the appearance on children’s television screens around the world of ‘The Power Rangers’—all of which took place in 1993. The chapter then attempts to track the major discursive tendencies and contours of martial arts aesthetics through the first decade of the twenty-first century, up to the mainstreaming of combat sports in more recent years.

Quality of Life of Martial Arts and Combat Sports Practitioners

2014 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 464
Author(s):  
Juliano Schwartz ◽  
Monica Takito ◽  
Fabricio Del Vecchio ◽  
Sandro Napoli ◽  
Emerson Franchini
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Martial Arts ◽  
Combat Sports

scholarly journals Cybernetic combatants support the importance of duels in the evolution of extreme weapons

2020 ◽  
Vol 287 (1928) ◽  
pp. 20200254
Author(s):  
Murray P. Fea ◽  
Romain P. Boisseau ◽  
Douglas J. Emlen ◽  
Gregory I. Holwell
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Arms Races ◽  
Contest Theory ◽  
Evolutionary Hypothesis ◽  
Animal Contest ◽  
Interstate Conflicts ◽  
One To One ◽  
A Current

A current evolutionary hypothesis predicts that the most extreme forms of animal weaponry arise in systems where combatants fight each other one-to-one, in duels. It has also been suggested that arms races in human interstate conflicts are more likely to escalate in cases where there are only two opponents. However, directly testing whether duels matter for weapon investment is difficult in animals and impossible in interstate conflicts. Here, we test whether superior combatants experience a disproportionate advantage in duels, as compared with multi-combatant skirmishes, in a system analogous to both animal and military contests: the battles fought by artificial intelligence agents in a computer war game. We found that combatants with experimentally improved fighting power had a large advantage in duels, but that this advantage deteriorated as the complexity of the battlefield was increased by the addition of further combatants. This pattern remained under the two different forms of the advantage granted to our focal artificial intelligence (AI) combatants, and became reversed when we switched the roles to feature a weak focal AI among strong opponents. Our results suggest that one-on-one combat may trigger arms races in diverse systems. These results corroborate the outcomes of studies of both animal and interstate contests, and suggest that elements of animal contest theory may be widely applicable to arms races generally.

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