Style — a fighter's habits, observed

A fighter's style is their default. Put them out of range and they will do something — close, wait, feint — before they have thought about it. Put them in the clinch and they will have a habit there too. The Style records those defaults for the eight situations a fight moves through.

It is not a plan and it is not a wish. It is what happens. That is why the coach writes it: the coach can see it, and the fighter mostly cannot.

The matrix

Style is captured as a matrix: eight situations across the top, four questions down the side. The situations run from furthest apart to the ground — Out of range, Kicking range, Boxing range, Clinch, Takedown, Standing grapple, Top position, Bottom position. The four questions are the same everywhere; the answers on offer change to whatever is valid in that situation.

Fill it in one column at a time, top to bottom, left to right. The app rings the next empty cell so the order is never in doubt.

Intent leads somewhere

The first question in every column is Intent: what does the fighter try to make happen here? Each intent carries a consequence — Pressure at Out of range leads to Kicking range; Exit at Boxing range leads back to Kicking range; Neutralise in the Clinch keeps you there. String the eight intents together and you have drawn the route the fighter prefers to take through a fight.

That route is the fighter's story, and the app reads it back in words: a range fighter who closes to kick, leaves the pocket, stalls the clinch and stands straight back up; or a pressure grappler who walks through every range to the mat. See The story readout.

What the Style is for

• Making a fighter's tendencies visible to the fighter — the blind-spot light.
• Giving coach and fighter one shared picture to agree on before planning.
• Being the base a Strategy is written relative to: 'you tend to stall the clinch; against this opponent, break instead'.
• Feeding the app's suggestions: the plan and the tactics it drafts start from the Style.