• Archive through August 25, 2012 August 25 - 01:12 am [20]

Craig,
The most important thing to do is first understand what the art is trying to do.

I couldn't do the work I am doing today if I hadn't made the realization that Aikido is about armed situations involving multiple attackers. I tried early on to "spar with Aikido" it didn't work. Every time I would try, I would end up using other stuff I learned in other systems. I wasn't until I found what Aikido was good at, that I could start designing "sparring" practices to test, and discover more about Aikido.

It's important to understand that different martial art systems have different contexts. It took me a long time to understand this. For example. There is the martial art system of driving tanks, there is also the martial art system of shooting a bow and arrow. Neither of these systems is very good at competitive cage fighting. But they have a context that they work beautifully in. If Anderson Silva found himself in a fight with Oh Jin Hyek (Olympic gold medalist Archery) and they both had bows in their hands, at 100 yards, guess who's going to win the fight... If Oh Jin Hyek found himself in the Octagon with Silva, the reverse is true. It's important to understand context.

I still believe it's a good idea to constantly change the way you do your alive training. Some times having more of a sparring or dueling nature to it, sometimes focusing on surprise elements, new weapons, or whatever may challenge your understanding of the system or martial arts as a whole.

So step one, understand the context of the system. Then you can create dynamic (alive) ways of training the system. Then you can really learn how to "use" the system.

And be careful making a 1=1 correlation with self defense. This typically does not exist within current martial practice; nothing wrong at all with delving into how a battlefield system may have been done on a battlefield with period weapons, and nothing wrong with combat sport for combat sport's sake;

Too often folks want there to be a direct crossover to self defense/defensive tactics/military combatives, what have you. Since even those things can be widely different from one another, it demonstrates how people wanting their art to be a battlefield system, a modern self defense art, a military combatives method, AND a combat sport can be off the mark.

Thing is, lots of things have some crossover, but often in different ways: sparring/sport competition teach many things and offer critical attributes, but strategically and tactically they are about the last place you want to be in an actual combative engagement. Its in HOW you apply the attributes gleaned from the other things.

Thanks for the explanations. It's all great food for thought.

It's interesting, my school is based on combat sports martial arts. I view myself as a coach, and my students as combat sport athletes for the most part. We are not commandos, ninjas, samurai or black ops. Just athletes.

Over the last 15 years, about a dozen or so of my students have been involved in actual altercations on the street. All of my students have managed to beat down their attackers in dominating fashion. Fortunately, in most (all but two) of the fights the opponents were unarmed.

Really the only thing I do differently from many modern BJJ and MMA academies is talk often about the differences in strategy between ring and sport fighting, and we practice a lot of situational preemptive hitting and takedowns. I believe this type of understanding and training is vital, but otherwise, regular combat sport based training is the norm.

In my experience, at least for the average (non-LEO/soldier) student, fundamental and well rounded sport combat based training is the most efficient and practical for acquiring realistic fighting skills that apply to the street, provided there is some emphasis on strategy and capitalizing on the element of surprise. And lots of real contact.

Chris, I think the clips are great and I like what you're doing.

For Craig and any others who might benefit I'd like to offer my realization/predicament regarding "martial training" and learning to use it with non-cooperative sparring.

I studied Baguazhang with Tim for around 8 years-and learned a lot. There was a bit of Hsing Yi Zhuang, Yi Chuan and BJJ in there too, some of it mind-blowing... but primarily I stuck to the Bagua classes.

I learned the forms, alignments, drills, basics, and warm-ups well. So well, in fact, that I would sometimes fill in for Tim if he was unable to teach or out of town. Which to me is the coolest privilege I've ever had.

Unlike many of my school buddies, I never got into heavy sparring. Randori and push hands were my thing. If I can clinch with someone (except for Tim, Meynard... and Matt) I can throw them. I became excellent at neutralizing and countering throws. But when it came to getting hit and kicked- I just didn't like it.

As a result, most of those classmates, many of whom joined the academy long after me, were very quickly much better fighters than I. They are able to navigate through a barage of incoming punches and kicks and apply techniques exactly as Tim said those techniques should work. From the clinch- I can apply throws- but setting things up from a distance and with strikes is an utter mystery to me. Despite 8 years of drilling those techniques and watching those sparring sessions. They are martial artists who can apply the art. I am a martial hobbyist who can teach well... but have never proven to myself I can apply the art which I can teach.

Having done a bit of soul searching (and a handful of therapy sessions during my current midlife crisis) I'd come to realize that there was a simple fear which held me back from participating in these sparring sessions, which generally took place after every class.

That fear : that I'd lose control of my emotions: Which would mean- breaking down and crying like a little bitch the way I did when at 5 years old I was pushed into a boxing match with a 6 year old girl, who, with our older brothers watching, beat me relentlessly while I cried.

That's an old memory (I'm 45 now) but it affected me profoundly and I've always worried about finding myself in that state of mind again. Had it been a 6 year old boy I may have fought harder. I don't know. I hope some of my reluctance was chivalry but the idea of folding up and crying like a banshee again is mortifying to me. Especially in front of anyone I'd have to see again.

Here's my predicament. I firmly believe a martial arts teacher should be a martial artist (able to effectively use said martial art).
Am I a sham to call myself a teacher?

I tell perspective students that I'm not a fighter but a rather a hobbyist. I can teach them the forms, exercises, drills, basics and alignments... but I can't teach them how to fight.
(I'm not business savy enough to do the "I can't spar with you because you can't take it" .....but I am smart enough NOT to tell them its because I'm afraid I'll cry.)

My point is: the ONLY way to KNOW a martial art (any style) is to USE it in non-cooperative, sometimes intense, situations. with lots of real contact.

Whatever art you study- find a way to practice it with varying levels of non-cooperation with someone so that sooner or later you are CERTAIN you can apply some of your favorite techniques under full blown pressure.



Later,
Shane

PS- I do know that I could throw and dominate a large percentage of other teachers I've seen... but still... in a full blown fight I'm not CERTAIN I could pull of my techniques because I've never allowed myself to face that type of pressure.

Honest stuff Shane! Being and staying honest has to be the hardest think any martial arts teacher can do. None of us are super heros, but admitting that to people who are willing to believe you are a super hero is incredibly hard.

The truth is, no one really knows how they'll do in a serious altercation. It could be that you've won a hundred bare knuckles street fights, but the first time you see a pistol or an angry dog, you'll curl up into a fetal position and cry, you don't know until you've faced it. No martial art system can give you that assurance. I think over the years I've lost most of my "tough guy, superhero bullshit" that I was carrying around. These days I just want to understand my own system, and what I teach. I'd also like to give those that I do teach the ability see and feel for themselves what our system does.

One of the great things about training with Tim, is that he's willing to explore lots of things. I remember playing Sumo at Tim's, playing with knives and swords, competing in BJJ and all kinds of other things. These different experiences help give you different tools, and show you how you may react when something doesn't go as expected. As Tim said experiencing real contact, often, can tell you lot's about yourself. Most football players would do way better in a fight then most 20 year martial artists, simply because they know how to take abuse and keep going.

Most people will never get in any kind of physical altercation (not reasonable people anyways). If you do find yourself in a fight, on the "street" it's most likely going to be over nothing of great importance; your pride, some money, or something not really all that important. Nothing you would want to lose your life over, something that could be settled with some punches, or no physical contact at all.

This doesn't mean that training in a marital art isn't important. It also doesn't mean that training so that you could "use" your system isn't important either. It doesn't matter if you're training in an antiquated spear fighting system, or sport martial arts, or the most modern (insert Military/LEO acronym here) weapon system there is. All good martial arts will give you the same thing; honestly and strength. I train to make myself a better person. I become a better person by honestly facing my fears everyday, and trying desperately to understand technically how what I'm doing was meant to work. Doing this makes the rest of my life easy. I willingly face hard things all the time. That is what training in the martial arts is about for me.

To me the whole point of training is for when things go wrong, not when they are going ideally. Most non-contact martial arts have exactly reversed that paradigm. The practitioner always "wins."

That is why combat sport is more honest, and for the most part, for the average altercation, is more than enough. Its why increasingly combat sport is being used a baseline upon which to build more focussed self protection/combative techniques, tactics and procedures.

The latter are a study in themselves...multiple assailants, armed assailants, multiple armed assailants, deception, surprise, the presence of family members that you must protect, contact management tactics and verbal interaction/de-escalation, decision making - when and how much force can I use? Is this guy actually trying to jack me, or is he legitimately just asking for some change? Is it a good idea to go to the ground? Should I clinch and tani-otoshi or double leg and follow him to the ground and mount? Should I retain mobility? If I am carrying a weapon what is my threshhold for deploying it?

Though some techniques may "work" just fine, it takes a higher level of analysis to determine whether they were in fact a good idea - in LE there is a strong tendency for things to be glossed with "well, it all turned out okay in the end."

That is a very low tactical standard. Its like saying because you tooled a white belt you are the ••••....

These things are outside the purview of most "martial arts," because the problem is defined as a one on one, empty hand, hand to hand combat problem typically starting with the sucker punch. For most martial artists that is exactly what they will face. But sometimes the tactics for handling that are exactly NOT what you want to do in other, more dangerous situations.

Remember Alex Gong? Or the MMA fighter who got cut intervening in the domestic violence situation (name escapes me right now...)? Ryan Hall? There we have problems in tactical decision making and in how their - superlative to be sure - physical skills were applied, or whether they applied at all, and whether overconfidence in physical skills played a role in that decision making.

All in all, self defense/combatives are an entirely different animal - really the discussion moves outside what Chris is doing, so apologize for the thread drift.

And frankly I do not believe that all martial arts will give honesty and strength. Many are practiced in a way that is patently dishonest, and give a tremendous false sense of security.

"And frankly I do not believe that all martial arts will give honesty and strength. Many are practiced in a way that is patently dishonest, and give a tremendous false sense of security."

This is the crux of most of the problems with "martial arts" training in general I believe.

Many teachers with no real experience at anything will sell whatever they do as whatever the prospective student wants.

Students need to be clear on what they want to learn, and teachers need to be honest about what they really teach.

The honesty and strength comes from the person training in the martial arts, not the teacher or the system. If you don't feel what you are doing "works" and you're honest, you'll have to figure it out. Admitting that you don't know how it "works" and that you might get beat up by anyone who ways 30lbs more then you, and doing something about it takes strength.

Really undertaking the study of the martial arts requires these things. There is no magic pill, or secret technique, just hard work.

I guess I shouldn't have said "gives honesty and strength" but instead "provides the opportunity to develop honesty and strength."

A lot of very useful info that's very logical.

I think that there is a significant amount of students that begin martial arts due to some form of fear, and many believe that learning techniques alone will take that fear away and gain a false sense of confidence. I remember a martial arts teacher once going as far as saying, giving a student the confidence that they can fight even when they can't is better than the student knowing they can't fight... Of course, they only practised slow and compliant "sparring". That kind of advise could get someone into a lot of danger.

Shane, the honesty and experience is much appreciated. I remember the first time I ever competed in a Judo competition, I lost both my matches. At first I believed it to be due to my opponents being bigger, stronger, more experienced (they were both wrestlers)... But in retrospect I think a large part of it was that I just shut down due to fear. They essentially won the minute I stepped on the mat. I was already use to throwing people in Randori in class, but faced with people I didn't know I siked myself out. I felt like I accomplished something by showing up and competiing, but it later on made me realise that I had a lot more of my own fear to overcome. I felt that it was more of my fear holding myself back as oppose to my technique or my opponents ability. it made me think about how quickly a superficial tough exterior of confidence can be crushed when faced with real conflict.

I think that in schools that don't train against resistance a lot of time is spent on learning the technical aspects without consideration for developing a "fighting spirit", and I've come to believe that students who get attracted to martial arts to overcome some kind of fear and develop functional ability, would do a lot better with spending more time developing their "fighting spirt", than merely technique upon technique. For me, I feel like this is where the "spiritual" aspects of martial arts come into play (as oppose to sitting in meditation for hours on end), because you get put into situations where you not only have to face an opponent, but have to face yourself and your fears. Maybe it sounds cheesy, but that's my interpretation. The more I spar or compete, the more I can appreciate how hard it is to develop a strong "fighting spirit".