Fitness and Martial Arts
While no martial artist will deny that fitness is a very important factor in martial arts, there are many people who practice martial arts that do not know how important this element is to their survival when it comes to facing real violence. There are many martial artists who believe that simply owning their techniques is enough. Practicing technique is very important;... however it is not the main key to surviving a violent situation. In fact I feel that a good athlete who competes at a high level in a hard contact sport such as hockey or football will be able to out fight a lot of black belts who practice technique but do not work on fitness.
This may seem like a harsh reality to many martial artists, but I have seen it many times when I trained at the Abbotsford Muay Thai Club. Many experienced martial artists came in and were simply embarrassed in the ring because their fitness was lacking even when sparring fighters with less than a years experience. This was an eye opener for me as I was still enthralled by the “mystique of the black belt”. 
I have also heard the stories over the years about the black belt expert having his ass handed to him by the hockey player, football player, logger, construction worker etc…. You can fill in the blank with whatever contact sport/physical job you want but you get the point. The important thing to remember is that these stories are based in reality and that the rigors of contact sports and many hard jobs and lifestyles prepare you better than many martial arts curriculums for real violence. 
You should train in such a way that you do not simply go over technique but you also do endurance and strength training. Sport specific training such as using a heavy bag and hitting pads combined with practical strength training is probably best. This is one of the reasons boxers, kick boxers, MMA fighters and other sport fighter are so successful when it comes to dealing with real violence. The other factor that they have working for them is that they also deal with sparring partners who are actually trying to punch, kick and grapple them. They spar lots and spar like they mean it. 
The one thing I hear many martial artists say is that a street fight should only last a couple of seconds. That may or may not be true. However they need to factor in the “X” factor. What is the X factor; that is all the variables that exist in a real situation and are hard to replicate in the gym. One of these variables is the adrenal dump caused by fear of injury, mutilation and death putting you in a state that is the equivalent of having just sprinted 100 meters. Another part of this adrenal dump is all your blood moves into your extremities and into your body to better prepare the body to fight. What this means is higher brain function is impaired, you are now working with your little lizard brain. Most of your techniques that were never tested under pressure can be tossed out the window. You are now working under pure instinct and only gross motor skills and those motions that are so practiced that they are instinctive will be available. Most finite skills even highly practiced will not work. The other major X factor is that plans go wrong, things often don’t work the way you want them to. There is a good chance that what you practiced in the gym will not go exactly the way you want. With all this going against you ask yourself if you can truly be sure you can finish off an attacker in a “couple of seconds”. 
I don’t want to disillusion martial artists but if you do not have the strength and endurance to be in the “scrum” of your life, then you may not really be prepared for meeting violence. If your body is not strong enough to deal with shock and trauma then you may not be prepared. If you are serious about being a survival based martial artist then you need to make your body stronger and by doing so your mind and spirit will also grow. The harder you push yourself the more prepared you will be to deal with the X factor inherent in real violence. Train hard, be prepared

Guro Joel Huncar