Bloody Elbow's Connor Ruebusch breaks down initiative in fighting, and the momentum swings that make great fights great.
Initiative is . . . well, it's one of those things. There's nothing more important to success in martial arts and combat sports, yet the concept remains difficult to explain in concrete terms. The question of how initiative is gained, maintained, or lost is a complicated one, but understanding it means understanding the fight in its purest form.
In order to untangle this subject, we're going to look back at a couple of sequences from last Sunday's UFC Saskatoon, the main card of which was rife with excellent examples.