What makes a martial art effective. This is from Scott Sonnen a Sambo practitioner.
• Sustainability: In order for a training method to be useful, it must be non-destructive to the practitioner. If you cannot sustain the ability to practice it because it destroys your body, it will not be of any use when you need it.
• Evolution: One needs to experience the unexpected and unfamiliar in order to foster continued evolution. Although sound mechanics are universal, training methods must be allowed to evolve as all approaches are relative to the time, culture and event in which they were born. Any means necessary to accomplish the task. Any potentially valuable method should be weighed and tested on its own merit regardless of origin or association.
• Aliveness: One needs fully alive resistance to become mentally tough and emotionally controlled. Only through actual uncooperative competitive opposition does one truly own knowledge.
• Transferability: Good mechanics are universal (context-free), so studying them will allow you adaptability to whatever circumstances you encounter. Regardless of what format, so long as ideas are considered and tested, the adaptation is always organic, never in isolation.