IDO MOVEMENT FOR CULTURE

Martial arts and combat sports differ mainly in terms of the purpose of training. Therefore, professional competences and activities of coaches should take into consideration differences between them. When educating future coaches we already ought to bear in mind the specificity of the training process stemming from psychophysical, technical, tactical and social requirements of different types of hand-to-hand combat. The aim of the study was to get to know and compare the hierarchy of basic professional activities of a coach in three martial arts (capoeira, karate and taekwon-do) and one combat sport (mixed martial arts –MMA). A questionnaire was used to gather opinions of 250 coaches concerning the significance of 20 professional activities in their work. It turned out that the differences between the rank of professional activities of martial arts coaches (n=182) and MMA coaches (n=68) were statistically insignificant (p<0.05) and in the case of four activities the coaches expressed very similar opinions. Moreover, Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient had a high value (rsp=0.67-0.84; p<0.001). None of the coaches had identical views regarding the significance of basic professional activities (cv=14-54%). Managing technical preparation and managing physical preparation of an athlete were selected as the most important activities by coaches of capoeira, karate, MMA and taekwondo, while conducting research for scientific and methodological papers was marked as not important. It is not possible to distinguish clearly between martial arts and combat sports on the basis of a hierarchical structure of basic professional activities of a coach.