The Archetypes of Fighting

1 year ago
130

Why is it that certain fighters gravitate toward specific fighting styles? How should YOU chose your fighting style? The answers may lie within the psychological phenomenon of Archetypes.

What is an Archetype?
The archetypes in this video are based on those presented by Carl Jung in his work: "The Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious." Jung described archetypes as images or themes (symbols) that derive from the collective unconscious and have universal meanings across cultures.

He likened archetypes to: instinctual patterns of behavior. Plato also described this phenomenon with his concept of the Idea: which was summarized in the Abstracts of the Collected Works of C.G. Jung as a "Primordial disposition that preforms and influences thoughts."

So in the context of fighting, an archetype is the manifestation of the all conscious and unconscious forces that guide a fighter, in and out of the ring. These forces include:

Their martial arts background and training styles.
Their personality and temperament.
Their purpose and values.
And literally any other subconscious motivation you can think of.

This video also introduces the eight different fighter archetypes from a philosophical perspective. Fighters in this video represent Muay Thai, Kickboxing, Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), Karate, Taekwondo, Judo, Sambo, and Boxing.

The Trickster - Saenchai, Lerdsila, Sean O'Malley, Michael Venom Page, Prince Naseem Hamed, Tyson Fury, etc.
The Brawler - Rodtang, Justin Gaethje, John Lineker, Michael Chandler, Roberto Duran, Joe Frazier, etc.
The Technician - Israel Adesanya, Giorgio Petrosyan, Alexander Volkanovski, Kamaru Usman, Islam Makhachev, Floyd Mayweather, etc.
The Artist - Yair Rodriguez, Lyoto Machida, Stephen "Wonderboy" Thompson, Dany Bill, Vasily Lomachenko, etc.
The Bully - Jon Jones, Colby Covington, Petr Yan, Conor McGregor, Mike Tyson, etc.
The Warrior - Forrest Griffin, Dustin Poirier, Daniel Cormier, Julio Cesar Chavez, Rocky Marciano, John Wayne Parr, etc.
The Crusader - Khabib Nurmagomedov, Muhammad Ali, Beneil Dariush, Yoel "The Soldier of God" Romero, etc.
The Monk - Jiri Prochazka, Zabit Magomedsharipov, Bruce Lee, Alex Caceres aka Bruce Leeroy, etc.

Which archetypes do you most closely relate with? What other fighters should I have included on these lists? Are there any other mma highlights, muay thai highlights, or boxing highlights that would have been a good fit? Is this video good training motivation? Let me know in the comments.

Loading comments...