Combat sports in the context of "Mixed martial arts"

A strike is a directed, forceful physical attack with either a part of the human body or with a handheld object (such as a melee weapon), intended to cause blunt or penetrating trauma upon an opponent.

There are many different varieties of strikes. A strike with the hand closed into a fist is known as a punch, a strike with a fingertip is known as a jab, a strike with the leg or foot is known as a kick, and a strike with the head is known as a headbutt. There are also other variations employed in martial arts and combat sports.

Sparring is a form of training common to many combat sports. It can encompass a range of activities and techniques such as punching, kicking, grappling, throwing, wrestling or submission work dependent on style. Although the precise form varies, it is essentially relatively 'free-form' fighting, with enough rules, customs, or agreements to minimize injuries. By extension, argumentative debate is sometimes called sparring.

A chokehold, choke, stranglehold or, in Judo, shime-waza (Japanese: 絞技, lit. 'constriction technique') is a general term for a grappling hold that critically reduces or prevents either air (choking) or blood (strangling) from passing through the neck of an opponent. The restriction may be of one or both and depends on the hold used and the reaction of the victim. While the time it takes for the choke to render an opponent unconscious varies depending on the type of choke, the average across all has been recorded as 9 seconds.

The lack of blood or air often leads to unconsciousness or even death if the hold is maintained. Chokeholds are used in martial arts, combat sports, self-defense, law enforcement and in military hand to hand combat applications. They are considered superior to brute-force manual strangling, which generally requires a large disparity in physical strength to be effective. Rather than using the fingers or arms to attempt to crush the neck, chokeholds effectively use leverage such as figure-four holds or collar holds that use the clothes to assist in the constriction.

A submission, also called a "tap out" is a combat sports term for yielding to the opponent, resulting in an immediate defeat. A submission is often performed by visibly tapping the floor or opponent with the hand or foot, or by verbalizing to the opponent or referee of the competition. In combative sports where the fighter has cornermen, the cornerman can also stop the fight by "throwing in the towel" (either by literally throwing in a towel or by verbalizing to the official), which may count as a submission.

To force a submission a fighter must do a submission hold, of which there are two categories. The first is a joint lock, which can include armlocks, americanas, anklelocks, kneebars, etc. These submissions damage the joints by hyperextending and threatening to break them. Secondly there are chokeholds. These include the rear naked choke, guillotine choke, triangle choke, etc. These prevent air flow to the lungs or blood flow to the brain, risking the fighter to go unconscious.

Bare-knuckle boxing (also known as bare-knuckle or bare-knuckle fighting) is a full-contact combat sport based on punching without any form of padding on the hands. The sport, as it is known today, originated in 17th-century England and, although similar, it differs from street fighting as it follows an accepted set of rules.

The rules that provided the foundation for bare-knuckle boxing for much of the 18th and 19th centuries were the London Prize Ring Rules. By the late 19th century, professional boxing moved from bare-knuckle to using boxing gloves. The last major world heavyweight championship held under bare-knuckle boxing rules happened in 1889 and was held by John L. Sullivan. The American National Police Gazette magazine was recognized as sanctioning the world championship titles.

A normal wargame is a strategy game in which two or more players command opposing armed forces in a simulation of an armed conflict. Wargaming may be played for recreation, to train military officers in the art of strategic thinking, or to study the nature of potential conflicts. Many wargames re-create specific historic battles, and can cover either whole wars, or any campaigns, battles, or lower-level engagements within them. Many simulate land combat, but there are wargames for naval, air combat, and cyber conflicts, as well as many that combine various domains.

There is ambiguity as to whether or not activities where participants physically perform mock combat actions (e.g. friendly warships firing dummy rounds at each other) are considered wargames. It is common terminology for a military's field training exercises to be referred to as "live wargames", but certain institutions such as the US Navy do not accept this. Likewise, activities like paintball and airsoft are often classified as combat sports. In contrast however the War Olympics also calls itself "the international army games" and often is referred to as wargaming colloquially.