Technical–tactical analysis of small combat games in male kickboxers: effects of varied number of opponents and area size

Background To handle the competition demands, sparring drills are used for specific technical–tactical training as well as physical–physiological conditioning in combat sports. While the effects of different area sizes and number of within-round sparring partners on physiological and perceptive responses in combats sports were examined in previous studies, technical and tactical aspects were not investigated. This study investigated the effect of different within-round sparring partners number (i.e., at a time; 1 vs. 1, 1 vs. 2, and 1 vs. 4) and area sizes (2 m × 2 m, 4 m × 4 m, and 6 m × 6 m) variation on the technical–tactical aspects of small combat games in kickboxing. Method Twenty male kickboxers (mean ± standard deviation, age: 20.3 ± 0.9 years), regularly competing in regional and national events randomly performed nine different kickboxing combats, lasting 2 min each. All combats were video recorded and analyzed using the software Dartfish. Results Results showed that the total number of punches was significantly higher in 1 versus 4 compared with 1 versus 1 (p = 0.011, d = 0.83). Further, the total number of kicks was significantly higher in 1 versus 4 compared with 1 versus 1 and 1 versus 2 (p < 0.001; d = 0.99 and d = 0.83, respectively). Moreover, the total number of kick combinations was significantly higher in 1 versus 4 compared with 1 versus 1 and 1 versus 2 (p < 0.001; d = 1.05 and d = 0.95, respectively). The same outcome was significantly lower in 2 m × 2 m compared with 4 m × 4 m and 6 m × 6 m areas (p = 0.010 and d = − 0.45; p < 0.001 and d = − 0.6, respectively). The number of block-and-parry was significantly higher in 1 versus 4 compared with 1 versus 1 (p < 0.001, d = 1.45) and 1 versus 2 (p = 0.046, d = 0.61) and in 2 m × 2 m compared with 4 m × 4 m and 6 × 6 m areas (p < 0.001; d = 0.47 and d = 0.66, respectively). Backwards lean actions occurred more often in 2 m × 2 m compared with 4 m × 4 m (p = 0.009, d = 0.53) and 6 m × 6 m (p = 0.003, d = 0.60). However, the number of foot defenses was significantly lower in 2 m × 2 m compared with 6 m × 6 m (p < 0.001, d = 1.04) and 4 m × 4 m (p = 0.004, d = 0.63). Additionally, the number of clinches was significantly higher in 1 versus 1 compared with 1 versus 2 (p = 0.002, d = 0.7) and 1 versus 4 (p = 0.034, d = 0.45). Conclusions This study provides practical insights into how to manipulate within-round sparring partners' number and/or area size to train specific kickboxing technical–tactical fundamentals. Trial registration This study does not report results related to health care interventions using human participants and therefore it was not prospectively registered.

Research on Dynamic Evolution Model and Method of Communication Network Based on Real War Game

Based on the data in real combat games, the combat System-of-Systems is usually composed of a large number of armed equipment platforms (or systems) and a reasonable communication network to connect mutually independent weapons and equipment platforms to achieve tasks such as information collection, sharing, and collaborative processing. However, the generation algorithm of the combat system in the existing research is too simple and not suitable for reality. To overcome this problem, this paper proposes a communication network generation algorithm by adopting the joint distribution strategy of power law distribution and Poisson distribution to model the communication network. The simulation method is used to study the operation under continuous attack on communication nodes. The comprehensive experimental results of the dynamic evolution of the combat network in the battle scene verify the rationality and effectiveness of the communication network construction.

Behavioral Escalation: Video Games as a Tool of Hybrid War

Gaming industry in its short span of around forty years has evolved from a hobby to a huge economic industry. However, undeniably, incredible advancement in video game graphics has allowed this virtual world to manipulate and escalate its consumer's behavior. Violent video games, according to Professor Robert Sparrow, have long been used for political contestation and social unrest. The study serves to analyze behavioral escalation through video games. This study has used Ian Bogust's Procedural Rhetoric as a methodology to analyze video games. The results showed that video games are persuasive interactive medium that escalate behavior and have great potential to be used as a tool of Hybrid war. Louis Jones stated that propaganda and unconventional warfare is not a new thing, it dates back to Greeks when they left wooden horse at Troy. Colin Gray, military strategist, described the future warfare as similar to the historical one but with modern means of technology. The new virtual means of warfare have not altered the nature of warfare but have developed its new ways. Combat games are more realistic in sense of its enhanced graphics and presentation. This study points towards the great potential in video games to work as a tool for Hybrid war.

Optimising martial arts training by using gymnastics exercises

Engaging in high-performance competitions (World Combat Games, World Championships, European and/or Balkan Championships) has made it necessary for the martial technique to have the benefit of knowledge from other sports disciplines as well, particularly gymnastics, acrobatic and artistic gymnastics, in order to give greater weight to competition artistic programmes which, throughout the world, reach degrees of complexity that had not been encountered until a few years ago. The research objectives from our study aims to are to elaborate a concise and efficient material on the factors that have led to the achievement of the performance presented in the preamble of the paper. We believe that the judicious combination of Ju-jitsu technical elements and artistic and rhythmic gymnastics elements may decisively contribute to achieving exceptional performances and consolidating motor skills and competences. We shall thus venture to say that the differences between the two groups rise from the implementation of superior Ju-jitsu techniques and acrobatic and artistic gymnastics elements.The training period, the development and completion of the experimental programme, have allowed us to confirm the elaborated hypothesis and achieve remarkable performances. Finally, we are convinced that our study will be useful to the vast majority of martial arts specialists who approach the Duo Show system and not only, thus leading to the increase of sports performance and diversification of training methods.

Capoeira: From Slave Combat Game to Global Martial Art

Capoeira is a martial art that developed from combat games enslaved Africans brought to Brazil. It is systematically documented since the beginning of the 19th century in Rio de Janeiro and later in other port cities. During the 19th century capoeira was increasingly practiced by the poor free people, black and of mixed ancestry, and also by white immigrants. Capoeira gangs controlled their territories against intruders and allied with political parties until the Republican purge of 1890. Capoeira survived best in Bahia, where it remained more associated with other forms of Afro-Brazilian culture and acquired many of its features still extant in present-day capoeira. From the 1930s onward, capoeira masters such as Bimba and Pastinha modernized capoeira, leading to the emergence of the Regional and Angola styles. Bahian capoeiristas migrated to Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo in search of better opportunities during the 1950–1970s. There they and their students developed what later became known as “Contemporary capoeira” (Capoeira Contemporânea) which is the most practiced style today. Capoeira was and is practiced in various ways: as a friendly game or as a fight, as a combat sport, or as an Afro-Brazilian cultural activity. Since the 1980s, capoeira has undergone a process of globalization and is now practiced in many countries around the world. Capoeira is the only martial art of the African Diaspora that is known and practiced worldwide. Writing on Capoeira has rapidly grown in a number of disciplines, leading to the constitution of its own interdisciplinary field of study.

The Age of Dwindling American Empire: Soldiers, Gaming, and Affective Labor in Warzones

This essay examines the global logics of neoliberalism, and the biopolitical and affective modes of experience that neoliberalism generates. American soldiers, playing games and fighting wars, are living embodiments of the Military Industrial Media Entertainment Network, where boundaries are blurred, information flow is rapid, and cyber imagery prevails. But this is not merely a postmodern space of hybridity; neoliberalism is a biased, so-called laissez-faire re-organization of material and capital flows, designed to glorify the capacities of the market to rule space, consumption, and government without any regard for democratic citizenship. Playing with virtual fields of violence literally as they execute the violent technologies of war, to advance the neoliberal projects of American neoconservative ideologues, soldiers claim that these combat games help them to escape the emotional trials of war. These gamers and their games teach us that neoliberalism is more than privatization of capital, but that it is a way of organizing experience through habits of bodily movement and affect.