Training Progress

[Mike Brewer]

It's better than some of the names they call you when you're not looking, Michael!

[Tant01]

Originally Posted by Michael Wright

We've had this conversation before Tant, you know my views on titles and authority, you're trying to get a rise out of me!

....but hey, best not argue with a Moderator eh?

LOL I use "Mr." a lot. Not only with you. It's simply my way.

From here on you're just MW... How's that?

Respectfully,

~R

[Ghost]

Originally Posted by Michael Wright

Just three quick thoughts:

1. Establish an athletic base. Even if someone’s sole interest is self-protection, teach them how to move, hit, and endure from day one. Taking someone with an athletic base and adding the concepts of self-protection is an easy job.

2. Functionality from day one. A base level of skill does not have to be taught or established by using drills that serve no end goal. The basics can be taught in an alive way that will benefit the student in combat.

3. Tailor your instruction to the individual in front of you, don’t sheep dip them with routines that they clearly don’t need or benefit from. Understand the person’s needs and their environment - the way you teach a window cleaner should be very different to the way you teach a soldier. If it isn’t, you shouldn’t be teaching.

Just to also offer my thoughts on G-Bells notion of learning as many arts as possible, so you will be better prepared. I don’t necessarily think that is true. All arts have a common thread, choose an art or a small number of arts that cover the common thread effectively. I would rather spend 10 years of my life in Muay Thai, than six months each in 20 other arts.

Agree 100% with every, dull hey...but id add that in particular i feel that no1 is the most lacking in most martial artists. usually only found in those that compete in full contact sports systems. THis is because when actually faced with combat the reality of the need for athletic ability sinks in. So there is no reason for it to be any different for non sporting martial arts.

I think its highly underrated by many and i expect a fair few otherwise reasonable martial artists could get their asses handed to them by completely unexperienced fighters with no training that were just fit as f*** and strong with it.

There is a high degree of mental and physical toughness that is brought about by training in a way that brings high levels of both strength and stamina. This may be through grueling running and weight training or whatever. It teaches the mind to keep going when it gets tough and it teaches the body to deal with these situations.

[Tant01]

Originally Posted by Ghost

Agree 100% with every, dull hey...but id add that in particular i feel that no1 is the most lacking in most martial artists. usually only found in those that compete in full contact sports systems. THis is because when actually faced with combat the reality of the need for athletic ability sinks in. So there is no reason for it to be any different for non sporting martial arts.

I think its highly underrated by many and i expect a fair few otherwise reasonable martial artists could get their asses handed to them by completely unexperienced fighters with no training that were just fit as f*** and strong with it.

There is a high degree of mental and physical toughness that is brought about by training in a way that brings high levels of both strength and stamina. This may be through grueling running and weight training or whatever. It teaches the mind to keep going when it gets tough and it teaches the body to deal with these situations.

Not to argue your point, I think fitness is a lifestyle choice. The folks that wish to excell against other trained athletes need every ounce of it they can get from body and mind. I see athletes as exceptional in ability, not necessarily "normal". Should martial atrists be athletes? Maybe so.

What of women or elderly, the frail, infirm and afraid? Can one be fearful of the hazards of his environment and still prevail? If he/ she is obese or petite. Can the small stand up to the big bad man and expect to survive?

I say they can. I don't need to chase him and I can't realistically run away... What do I do? (I'm afraid) The solution is obvious to me.

There really is a standard that is higher for athletes and competitors than normal folks. Skill, smarts and firepower come in all shapes and sizes...

Just look at Bob Munden...

[treelizard]

This is one of the best posts I've read and part of why I left my last gym!

After training at Straight Blast and Sportslab in Portland on my spring break, seeing what a healthy functional gym looked like...

I have a hard time in many gyms because I am almost purely a kinesthetic learner. I know most of the coaches at SBGi and Sportslab don't have education backgrounds and yet I saw them practicing what we call scaffolding or the zone of proximal development. In a nutshell, teachers apply aids to support learning and then gradually remove them once the subject is mastered. Using prompts, suggestions, checklists, modeling, feedback, cognitive structures and questioning and other scaffolding techniques, 8-year
olds can answer questions designed for 12-year olds. It's just like
the i-method at Straight Blst. There is a four-component model that includes 1) modeling the desired academic (or physical as the case may be) behavior, 2) creating a dialogue which includes an exchange of questions, ideas, explanations and feedback, 3) practice and 4), confirmation. It seems so obvious and intuitive and is research based, and yet how many martial arts schools actually use it?

Research also shows that students excel if there is a clear idea of what is expected, a time frame, details on what they're going to do and learn, and of course if expectations are high. Again it seems obvious, but I can't count on both hands the number of gyms I've been to where I could tell right away that I wasn't really welcome and that people didn't expect much from me at all. So I think part of it is going to a gym where you are welcome or as a coach, don't pretend you're open to training all ages sizes and genders if you really only want to train competitive athletes...

I agree with Mike on working on what you suck at and often it takes someone who is truly skilled and a true coach to find holes in you rgame and also to make sure you demonstrate mastery of a technique that will help eliminate them.

(Um, I guess mastery is an extreme word; I suppose I mean "basic mastery" if there are different levels of it—as in, you are doing it correctly)

I run across gym after gym where there is no teaching (or very limited teaching). The last MMA gym I was at there was no slow rolling-- we just do a couple warmups and then roll. I'm all about realistic but there needs to be PROGRESSIVE resistance; being a 135# female and fairly new to the game in a roomful of tough guys didn't really helped my game-- especially when they are super spastic and have limited skill and no fundamentals down, or the ones who resort to joint manipulation if they are having a bad day...

Anyway, I went and trained with an old friend after spending way too long at this awful gym and found myself pausing and helping my training partners who were newer with some basic fundamentals--something I would never do with newbies at my old gym...

The "Art of the Tap" article I posted a link to is appropriate.

http://www.grapplearts.com/2008/03/art-of-tap.htm

I'm sure I'm off topic but just my $.02.

I guess I disagree about athleticism--I absolutely think it is essential.

Originally Posted by eXcessiveForce

One of the most important things in the training process is the willingness to share information readily.

What I mean by this is, if I'm picking my sparring partner apart, I need to let him try to figure it out, but after a time of him not adapting I need to tell him how I'm doing it. I need to tell him what his tells are, his preparatory moves, the patterns I'm reading.

I need to tell him the defenses to my attacks, And at times I even need to share my weaknesses, holes, or strategy.

In so doing, I strengthen my partner and take way my edge, this forces me to adapt and to improve.

I need to share everything I've got, even when it means that my training partners or even students may surpass my ability.

Having had an instructor who once told me "I'll always be better because I'm not going to show you everything I know" this path leads to a dead end. Full of stagnation and ego.


The second things is EGO has no place in training. It is destructive and keeps people from sharing and improving their training as a whole.

Third, the mistake of discounting techniques because they fail inside your training group. Techniques get tossed so quickly because they lose effectiveness when you train with the same people every day. Eventually it may become so hard to pull off a technique that it is discarded completely even though it still works well outside of the training group

[Ghost]

Originally Posted by Tant01

Not to argue your point, I think fitness is a lifestyle choice. The folks that wish to excell against other trained athletes need every ounce of it they can get from body and mind. I see athletes as exceptional in ability, not necessarily "normal". Should martial atrists be athletes? Maybe so.

What of women or elderly, the frail, infirm and afraid? Can one be fearful of the hazards of his environment and still prevail? If he/ she is obese or petite. Can the small stand up to the big bad man and expect to survive?

I say they can. I don't need to chase him and I can't realistically run away... What do I do? (I'm afraid) The solution is obvious to me.

There really is a standard that is higher for athletes and competitors than normal folks. Skill, smarts and firepower come in all shapes and sizes...

Just look at Bob Munden...

The fact is that the fitter you are the better your chances are at point of contact.
My point is that if you are trying to maximize your abilities then you should try to improve your fitness as far as possible. It just does make a huge difference.
Martial artists too often overlook physical fitness.

[Michael Wright]

A very good point, and something I have tried to touch on in other posts. There is the overwhelming mentality that MMA is the answer, I think it may be for athletes in their teens, twenties, thirties and forties – but what about the people you mention?

Establish an athletic base is still relevant, but not to be judged on the end result (i.e. could this person get in a ring) but to be judged on the improvement from where they started. For example I used to have a student, who will remain nameless, that from the minute he walked in the door his age, physique and lifestyle meant he would never reach any form of athletic fitness. However the difference in his movement and endurance from when he started was, to his credit, immense. I think building this foundation is still important, even if the end result doesn’t look like much to us, to that person it may be a huge leap in their ability and confidence.

However on the whole I agree Tant that teaching the kinds of people he mentions very much falls into my point 3, which is tailoring the instruction to the needs of the individual. To use another example, I had a lady in her late 50’s come to me with a genuine need for self-protection due to some trouble she was getting in her family. I wasn’t going to waste this person’s time getting her to kick Thai pads for six months, we worked with what he could and got to the essence of the problem. In the end, the solution was that I taught her knife, something I very rarely if ever teach (functional wise) to a civilian. For whatever reason, she just took to it, and I ended up giving her a 3.5 inch folder (legal) for her to work with and carry. Let me stress once again, I never endorse the carrying or use of blades, but in this instance I trusted this lady and her motives, it was a serious answer to a serious problem.

I will agree with Ghost though that this should be an exception, not a rule, and far too many people who call themselves martial artists hide behind the notion of knives, sticks and “street” techniques. The reason I know this is because I used to be one of them. I went through the whole “street” thing in my early 20’s, hiding behind an eye poke and a knee kick, carrying blades and scoffing at sports and rules. The bottom line is its all about insecurity, I wasn’t a fighter or an athlete and deep down I knew it, I used martial arts as a shield to hide behind. I had certificates and t-shirts that said I was a bad ass, but to be honest I probably would have been eaten alive by a Judo greenbelt. So instead of sitting on the sidelines making excuses about rules, I got in the game, and have never looked back.

Mr Lee had it bang on when he said that regardless of styles or systems, fighting is the expression of the human body. I don’t care whether you have gloves on your hands, a knife in your hand, a finger jab, a throat chop or a five-point exploding heart palm technique. Its one human body against the other, and if yours is in the best shape it can be, that’s the best head start you can have.

[seany85]

Good thread.

[Mike Brewer]

I think the trick is to develop physical attributes to the highest degree you can, but also to recognize that those things will fade and change with age. There will come a point in your life when you just can't be faster or stronger than the other guy. At that point, experience, treachery, and other attributes have to be there to tip the scales in your direction. Trouble is - like Michael said - too many people think those are enough all by themselves and they overlook the physical.

But as long as the topic has shifted in this direction, let's get some input. We almost never think of 50 and 60 year-olds getting into brawls, but eventually all of us are going to be there. We'll probably all still be training, and we'll probably all consider self-protection at least one of the reasons we do it. So what's different about training when you hit your 60's? Are you still out running sprints and doing clean-and-presses with your current max? Or is it important to find something more sustainable and less stressful on the body? Look at Guro Dan, for example. He's in his mid seventies and going strong. I'm sure he's not doing the same kinds of things he did when he was younger to stay fit - but he DOES stay fit. He's unlikely to be the "big guy" in the fight, so his attributes have to stay high to compensate. How are you going to train when you're his age? How would you recommend someone at his age train at your school?

[treelizard]

I thought the point of training MMA or BJJ or whatever is that it would work against someone bigger, younger, etc. at least theoretically... I haven't been able to accomplish that in practice (yet), but I have been able to get enough of the basics down that I can at least minimize damage... This isn't really due to athletic ability, but having the same level of endurance as my training partner or opponent definitely doesn't hurt.

I think part of the point of athleticism is preventing injury during training as well... Stay in shape, don't overtrain, use varying levels of resistance,

In any case, maybe some styles of MA are better for strong young athletes, but it's not like there's some secret deadly art that is better for little weaklings. If you can't make a punch or a takedown or an armlock work, you're not going to be able to make a hand trap work... Also, if some huge competitive athlete can't make something work, how is a 125-lb 60-year old going to?

[Mike Brewer]

I would agree about BJJ, but certainly not MMA. There's a reason there are weight classes, after all.

I also agree entirely that the point of athleticism is to remain healthy and fit, to keep injuries down, and to keep recovery times faster. Still, I think a lot of people mis-read that and think that by advocating athleticism, we're talking about going out and killing yourself to become a world-class boxer-wrestler. I think a lot of people see the guys and girls on BowFlex commericals and EAS advertisements. While that's a fair goal to have, fitness and athleticism are - like all else we do - tools to be used properly. Training around injuries is a classic example. You have to train smart and know when it's best just to take a couple of days off or work some other part/skill while you heal. I very nearly ruined my ankle for life because I didn't take that advice.

Athleticism and fitness are (as many have already said) the most overlooked aspects of most people's training. They are also some of the very most important. They're the foundation for almost everything else we do. Even when people start talking about firearms, there's nothing about shooting that doesn't get better and easier when you're fit. Better strength means more control over the gun and less time to recover from recoil. Better lung capacity means you're not as tired or out of breath and can stay more even and level when firing. Flexibility means you can get down behind awkward cover and fire from tight spots. Fitness is universal, and it will always help someone more than it hurts them, no matter what combative endeavor one is talking about.

The real question is, how do we train that - or better, how do we teach it - when the student is a 60 or 70 year old as opposed to a 20 or 30 year old?

I am personally not okay with the "How do you expect it to ever work?" line of thinking, because to me that's just a small step away from saying "Give up. There's just no hope." I think we can see by looking at people like Guro Dan, Ajarn Chai, etc., that there's a formula that works just fine. I'm just wondering if any of us youngsters know what it is!

[eXcessiveForce]

I think as you age your training is going to need to skew towards equalizers. the types of altercations change as you get older and as physical ability and health wanes there needs to be more emphasis on not getting injured due to healing times increasing and such.

stretching becomes very important as flexibility reduces injuries from falls.
working deception also become important, as often younger people already tend to underestimate the old.

[treelizard]

I'm saying if something doesn't work when you're young and fit, it's not going to work when you're old and/or out of shape. The moves that are most functional remain the same; you don't need to resort to some "other" thing. And if the "other" thing won't work when you ar eyoung and fit, it's silly to expect it to work if you're not.

[Tant01]

Young and fit....

You all have valid points and again, I'M NOT ARGUING about the importance of fitness. I think it's a life style choice. I don't have a goal of beating Cung Le in the arena. It's not my job to apprehend or restrain dangerous felons. Do I need to bench press 300 pounds or run 3 miles a day to slam some idiot on the deck and stomp him???

My youngest daughter is nine years old. We're working on O goshi. She's big enough to load me now and can't wait to slam daddy on the deck.

Techniques work because you learn the proper timing and kuzushi to execute them skillfully. It doesn't necessarily require great speed or agility or strength.

My daughter is also getting familiar with knives. She cut a bruise off her apple the other day and told me with some pride how easily she cut the circular hole with a sharp blade...

[Mike Brewer]

I'm saying if something doesn't work when you're young and fit, it's not going to work when you're old and/or out of shape.

Right. I agree. But isn't that to some degree where the debate stems between people who view MMA as the "real deal" and people who mistakenly believe a streetfight is about death touches and pressure points? I mean, MMA athletes - by virtue of the fact that they are athletes - are not training the kinds of things they'll be able to do when they're older. In other words, they're getting really good at perishable skills that have expiration dates on them. In terms of "reality based training," is it better to play that game and rely on your strengths, only changing the game when you have to? Or is it better to focus early on the kinds of things you can do forever? There are some things (like firearms for example) that have a very high "workability" rating no matter how young or old a combatant might be. But as you said, there are a lot of things that, if you're overmatched, you're just overmatched.

Since this is not in the MMA section, I wanted to focus on training for reality. You all know that MMA to me is a great supplement for reality-based training, as is boxing, wrestling, BJJ, and any other competitive combat sport. But there is some creedence to those critics who say that the rules of any sport limit not only what you will perceive as useful, but what you'll even bother to familiarize yourself with. Now that the thread is wandering a little, I think it might be beneficial to talk about that aspect of a training progression. I know from personal experience, when I was training with Vunak, all I ever thought to do was rake people's eyeballs, headbutt, groin slap, elbow, arm wrench, knee, etc. My mind was preoccupied with the more treacherous fighting solutions like cracking a chair over someone's biscuit head. As I moved more and more toward boxing, my "first instinct" changed, and I more often thought about drilling a potential attacker in the upper lip-divot with a good hard cross. In other words, what you train is what you'll use. So if you spend all your time training for a ring fight, you do run the risk of dulling (though I wouldn't say extinguishing) those "purely combative" instincts. The real question is...what's the balance?