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I’ve been around for a while, trained with Dutch legends like Peter Aerts and Ramon Dekker. I was an ok muay thai fighter in the 90’s but never became good at jiu jitsu so my mma career is nothing to be proud of. Never the less I was involved in Dutch martial arts in the early days and a lot of Dutch fighters have shared their “secrets” with me. Important disclaimer: I am not saying these are effective, but these were methods we used to prepare for fights. Most of them are probably bullshit, but this was pre internet, where people still believed you could die by pushing a pressure point or whatever.
Jab straight lowkick
Not a real weird one to start with, but this combination (jab, straight, left lowkick) used to be the base of all dutch classic muay thai. About one fourth of training was spend just practicing this combination. Also it was advised to end EVERY combination with a lowkick if possible. That is where the famous Dutch lowkick comes from, we used to be obsessed with this combo.
Speed / amphetamine
It seems crazy now, but a LOT of Dutch fighters used to sniff some speed (pep) before their fights. There were no drug regulations, no testing and in some occasions no rules to fighting at all. The speed made them more aggressive and feel less pain. In the 90’s speed used to be a common drug because of the Dutch gabber culture (speed to gabber was like weed to reggae). After some fighters collapsed after their fight because of dehydration en exhaustion this method was used less and less often.
Drinking whisky
This was more of a mind game than a training method. It was only used against foreign fighters since most Dutch fighters knew this trick. Right before a weigh in or right before a fight we used to take a sip of whisky and held it in our mouth as long as possible. That way our opponent would think we were drunk. Not really sure how it affected the fights, but is was seen as a funny tradition. Bas Rutten used to do this all the time (and also talked about in on his Joe Rogan podcast). Drinking alcohol in general was also common, even with the top fighters.
Horse meat
It is no secret Dutch fighters eat a lot of horsemeat (Alistair being famous for it, but he is not the only one at all). In those days horse meat was thought to have some magical powers. Now we know the nutritional value is not that different from other meat, but the tradition still exists. Dutch people eat a lot of horsemeat in general, hence the tradition to eat horsemeat hamburgers with salmon on Saturday (long story, has something to do with a battle hundreds of years ago where the dutch army ate the horses of the enemy).
Draai om je oren
A draai om je oren means something like getting hit in the face. To train difficult moments during a fight, before the training the trainer would hit everyone REALLY hard, sometimes to the point of a KO so the whole training became one big blur. There was not much knowledge about concussions (most people probably didn’t even know a KO was a concussion), so it was just seen as hardening the mind.
Scraping the shin
It also was common to end every training with scheenschrapen (shin scraping). There we would perform a deadlift with the lightest possible weight (50 kg, about 100 lbs) and let the bar (including the grip part) scrape the shin until it was bleeding. Then we took one week off and did the same thing again. The theory was it would give the legs callus en therefore made it tougher. Most older Dutch fighters (Aerts and Hoost come to mind) have these visible scars on their legs.
It was also common to roll over the shin with a wooden or iron stick or even kick lightpoles just to "kill the nerves".
Breaking the nose
It might sound crazy at this time, but most professional fighters would intentionally break their nose and then let a doctor remove the largest part of their nosebone. That way it could not break again and hinder them in a fight. Since doctors were not allowed to intentionally break someone’s nose most fighters did it to themselves or let a teammate do it. If you look at a picture of Ernesto Hoost you can clearly see he has no nosebone left.
Hoopje (pile)
Mid 90’s MMA became more and more important so a lot of fighters wanted to learn the ground game. The problem was, at that time being so close to another man was considered “gay”, not a good thing in a world of alpha males. In Holland we have no wrestling tradition or any sport where this kind of contact is normal. To “train” fighters in this a part of training used to be a “hoopje” (a pile), where all fighters would just jump on each other and lay there for a few minutes. Then the fighters who lay on top would lay under and vice versa. It was not uncommon for the trainer to make gay jokes during this, just to harden the mind and getting used to this. It may seem really weird now, but those were crazy times without a lot of knowledge.
(This picture shows what a hoopje looks like, it is now common to do for fun in Holland)
As always, English is not my native language. Sorry for any grammatical errors.
Jab straight lowkick
Not a real weird one to start with, but this combination (jab, straight, left lowkick) used to be the base of all dutch classic muay thai. About one fourth of training was spend just practicing this combination. Also it was advised to end EVERY combination with a lowkick if possible. That is where the famous Dutch lowkick comes from, we used to be obsessed with this combo.
Speed / amphetamine
It seems crazy now, but a LOT of Dutch fighters used to sniff some speed (pep) before their fights. There were no drug regulations, no testing and in some occasions no rules to fighting at all. The speed made them more aggressive and feel less pain. In the 90’s speed used to be a common drug because of the Dutch gabber culture (speed to gabber was like weed to reggae). After some fighters collapsed after their fight because of dehydration en exhaustion this method was used less and less often.
Drinking whisky
This was more of a mind game than a training method. It was only used against foreign fighters since most Dutch fighters knew this trick. Right before a weigh in or right before a fight we used to take a sip of whisky and held it in our mouth as long as possible. That way our opponent would think we were drunk. Not really sure how it affected the fights, but is was seen as a funny tradition. Bas Rutten used to do this all the time (and also talked about in on his Joe Rogan podcast). Drinking alcohol in general was also common, even with the top fighters.
Horse meat
It is no secret Dutch fighters eat a lot of horsemeat (Alistair being famous for it, but he is not the only one at all). In those days horse meat was thought to have some magical powers. Now we know the nutritional value is not that different from other meat, but the tradition still exists. Dutch people eat a lot of horsemeat in general, hence the tradition to eat horsemeat hamburgers with salmon on Saturday (long story, has something to do with a battle hundreds of years ago where the dutch army ate the horses of the enemy).
Draai om je oren
A draai om je oren means something like getting hit in the face. To train difficult moments during a fight, before the training the trainer would hit everyone REALLY hard, sometimes to the point of a KO so the whole training became one big blur. There was not much knowledge about concussions (most people probably didn’t even know a KO was a concussion), so it was just seen as hardening the mind.
Scraping the shin
It also was common to end every training with scheenschrapen (shin scraping). There we would perform a deadlift with the lightest possible weight (50 kg, about 100 lbs) and let the bar (including the grip part) scrape the shin until it was bleeding. Then we took one week off and did the same thing again. The theory was it would give the legs callus en therefore made it tougher. Most older Dutch fighters (Aerts and Hoost come to mind) have these visible scars on their legs.
It was also common to roll over the shin with a wooden or iron stick or even kick lightpoles just to "kill the nerves".
Breaking the nose
It might sound crazy at this time, but most professional fighters would intentionally break their nose and then let a doctor remove the largest part of their nosebone. That way it could not break again and hinder them in a fight. Since doctors were not allowed to intentionally break someone’s nose most fighters did it to themselves or let a teammate do it. If you look at a picture of Ernesto Hoost you can clearly see he has no nosebone left.
Hoopje (pile)
Mid 90’s MMA became more and more important so a lot of fighters wanted to learn the ground game. The problem was, at that time being so close to another man was considered “gay”, not a good thing in a world of alpha males. In Holland we have no wrestling tradition or any sport where this kind of contact is normal. To “train” fighters in this a part of training used to be a “hoopje” (a pile), where all fighters would just jump on each other and lay there for a few minutes. Then the fighters who lay on top would lay under and vice versa. It was not uncommon for the trainer to make gay jokes during this, just to harden the mind and getting used to this. It may seem really weird now, but those were crazy times without a lot of knowledge.
(This picture shows what a hoopje looks like, it is now common to do for fun in Holland)
As always, English is not my native language. Sorry for any grammatical errors.
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