My last blog post addressed the benefits of training in the martial arts with people who are your own size or smaller, today I’d like to explore the counter point, the benefits of training with bigger, stronger people. Personally, I think the benefits are much more obvious in this scenario, but worth discussing as sometimes people will stick to working with people their own size because it’s easier and more comfortable, or because they are focused on a competitive arena in which they’ll only be fighting in their own weight class. The fact of the matter is, if you only ever train with people your own size, you aren’t stretching your abilities, and are missing out on the opportunity to train for more realistic self-defense scenarios.

Here are a few benefits of training with bigger, stronger partners in the martial arts:

1. It develops technical ability. When you train with a bigger and/or stronger partner, you have to compensate by using better structure and by being faster, more agile, and by being one step ahead of your opponent. Fighting using strength against someone who is bigger and/or stronger than you or has a longer reach is a losing proposition, so it gives you good reason to adapt the way you move to compensate.

2. It increases strength. Even if you don’t manage to apply techniques effectively and are dominated by a bigger, stronger opponent, you’ll at the very least end up using more strength to protect yourself and resist their dominating weight and force. This is particularly true when grappling. It is one of the best forms of resistance training I know and it works the entire body too.

3. It gives the opportunity to train greater commitment to techniques. When you work with someone bigger or stronger than you, usually you can/have to commit more to the technique you’re applying to have it work. On a smaller person, you may have to exercise more control so as to not injure them accidentally in the application, whether it’s a joint lock or a throw. Of course, this varies from person to person and sometimes a larger person may not be very flexible and may feel a joint lock harder than you might expect. You should fairly familiar and communicative with your training partner rather than making assumptions.

4. It offers more realistic training scenarios for self-defense. When it comes to a real attack, you’re a lot more likely to be facing a larger attacker than someone close to your size. People tend to pick fights that they think they’ll win and people generally assume that if they’re bigger than you they’ll have the advantage. And if you’re a woman, you’re much more likely to face a male attacker, which is more likely going to be bigger and stronger. As a result, it is vital to work with larger training partners so you get used to making up for size and strength disadvantages. Of course, if you’re a bigger person as it is, you may have more trouble finding “realistic attackers”, so the best you can do emulate this is by making a point of training with the biggest people at your dojo when you have the chance.

This covers the main advantages, but I’m sure there are others beyond these points. Please feel free to share from your experience the benefits you receive from training with people who are bigger/stronger than you in the comments. 🙂

Tags: training with people bigger than you