On soft training in martial arts: Part 4

A series of posts on the subject of softness and soft training in martial arts, wouldn't be in any way complete without the taiji (tai chi) perspective. In this fourth, and last, installment of the series, my good friend Glenn Gossling, Chen Taijiquan practitioner and instructor, offers his insight on the subject, viewing soft work as tool that allows for development without injury and accelerated recovery. A very big thank you to Glenn and the other three contributors to this collective post, Grigoris A. Miliaresis (who wrote about the Ju No Kata of Judo), Mark Lajhner (who wrote about soft training in MMA and combat sports), and Thong Nguyen (who wrote about the use of soft work as a tool to sharpen awareness of movement). I would also like to thank the readers of the Dynamo blog, whose enthusiastic response to this series of posts exceeded my expectations by far!
 

FEAR INOCULATION OR, LISTENING TO A SLIGHTLY SCARY STORY AGAIN AND AGAIN

Everyone knows that taijiquan is based around the principles of yin and yang, hard and soft. Still, it is comparatively rare to see taijiquan used as a martial art, or to see its hard side. Chen style taijiquan preserves both, but even when working with the ‘hard’ it is still important to maintain the principles of good posture, relaxation, and coordination between breath and movement.

My experience of taijiquan and other martial arts has shown me that achieving a balance between stress and relaxation is essential to all good martial arts training, both hard and soft. Taijiquan begins by teaching and emphasizing the soft, but it still leads to the hard. The methodology is that soft slow movements can be used to teach clear and precise principles and techniques while gradually conditioning the body. A similar principle is used in systema where the slow squat and the slow press up are core to body conditioning.

My approach to teaching is to focus on relaxation, or to put it another way, non-tension, as rather like Saussure’s structural linguistics, taiji is - from a philosophical point of view - a system of difference without positive terms. There are two aspects to non-tension, the physical and the mental.

Before doing ‘hard work’ the person has to be physically capable of doing it. A degree of physical conditioning is essential. It sounds obvious, but most of us have been gung ho enough at some stage or other to injure ourselves by trying to do something we weren’t ready for (remember the one arm hand stand push up craze? or is that next year?).

In simple physical terms, this means working within our capabilities, but at a sufficient level to challenge ourselves. How do we know what that level is? Tension is the indicator - for example, if someone goes rigid with tension and falls over while doing a pistol (a form of one legged squat), then to develop they should do an easier exercise – simple squats or negative pistols (ie just a controlled descent). Moving them to a harder exercise such as pistols with kettlebells may not be beneficial to them at this basic stage.

Digression 1 - Stress is a comparatively new concept first outlined by the Slovakian/Hungarian scientist Hans Selye in 1936 as a short hand for what he called General Adaptation Syndrome. The English word ‘stress’ is actually a bit misnomer as in mechanical terms the concept is closer to that of strain. A simple mechanical example may help explain what explain what Selye meant – if you apply a sufficient external force to a piece of steel, the steel will temporarily deform, but it will pop back into shape when released from that force with no great harm done. If a much too large force is applied the piece of steel will be permanently deformed. Similarly, if a repeated force is applied to the steel, microscopic stress fractures may occur that could lead to an eventual catastrophic failure. Biological entities such as humans are slightly different to a piece of steel in that they are able to adapt. If you apply an external stress to a bone it will flex or break. If you repeatedly stress a bone without breaking it the bone will adapt, build in density and be able to take greater degrees of stress. Selye’s work found an underlying pattern to stress which is illustrated in his 'human function curve'.

(image from www.stress.org)

There are a number of key considerations here:

• Stress isn’t all bad
• Stress can help you develop
• Work at a level that is below the ‘breaking point’
• Allow sufficient time for recovery

The human function curve can be used to explain two of the ways that soft and hard work interrelate. First, soft work allows you to build incrementally towards hard work allowing development to occur without injury. Secondly, soft work can be used to accelerate recovery.

For example in Chen taijiquan we have a ‘hard’ form called the Pao Choi (‘Cannon Fist’). This form uses a lot of stamping and ‘fajin’ (‘explosive power’). It has been known to cause splits in the shin bones and strains to the tendons if progressed to too soon. The softer ‘Yilu’ form that you do first allows bone density to gradually develop by applying lesser stresses. It is important to be able to do the harder form without excess tension as if you do it while tense or in poor posture you are much more likely to injure yourself. Even when you know the Pao Choi it is still important to do the soft form as the prolonged interlinking of breathing and movement encourages a relaxed state that promotes recovery. As a rule of thumb it takes between three and five years to get to the Pao Choi.

Master Ren Guan Yi performing a shortened version of the Pao Choi form - his power generation is tremendous!

Humans, however, don’t only operate on a physical level. They are also subject to mental or psychological stress – and in particular fear. Again, as with physical stress, a degree of mental stress can lead to a positive adaptation, but excessive mental stress can lead to or reinforce negative adaptations. This is particularly the case when dealing with fear.

Digression 2 – The anatomy of fear: The amygdala, a small almond shaped part of the brain just above the brain stem, is the body’s alarm system. It is one of the oldest parts of the limbic system and as such is capable of emotionally ‘hijacking’ the brain. The amygdala monitors what is going on and decides on the body’s emotional response. The process by which it does this is profoundly unconscious and can happen very quickly. Sensory information from the eyes or ears goes to the thalamus, where the information is split. The main part of it goes to the neo-cortex for detailed analysis, and a smaller portion goes to the amygdala and hippocampus. If the hippocampus - using a quick but inaccurate memory system - recognizes the sight or sound as a threat, the amygdala prepares the body for action while waiting for more accurate confirmation from the neo-cortex to see if it really should be frightened. The amygdala sends impulses to the hypothalamus for activation of the sympathetic nervous system (which controls the fight or flight reaction). The metabolic rate rises and a variety of hormones are released: dopamine (for concentration) and noradrenaline (aka norepinephrine), adrenaline (aka epinephrine), CRF (the main stress hormone of the body) and endorphins (to dampen pain). If the neo-cortex agrees that there is something to be frightened of the body can then proceed to a full state of fear. It is around this moment that you may become aware of it. You may notice the increased heart and respiration rate, you may feel a tightening in the stomach, tunnel vision, tension around the throat and neck, trembling. This will all have occurred in under a second and most of it will have happened completely unconsciously. If on the other hand, the neo-cortex decides that there is nothing to fear the amygdala relaxes its responses. However, a number of hormones such as cortisol will already be in your system and can remain there for some hours. This can be problematic as a number of small stresses can have a cumulative effect. (for more info on the anatomy of fear see: www.absolutetaichi.co.uk/articles/an-anatomy-of-fear)

Again the concept of the stress curve is useful. A small amount of fear is good. It focuses the attention and encourages development. Larger amounts cause an emotional hijacking by the amygdala, which stops you using your cortex – the thinking part of the brain. Chances are you’ll already have experienced this at some point in your life (if you have ever done an exam where you read the test paper and could not remember what you read by the time get to the end of the first sentence, gone blank in an interview, or been at a loss for words in an argument with a loved one). You can monitor other people’s or your own stress levels during training from breathing patterns. Fast breathing correlates strongly with fast heart rates. Most people’s performance begins to break down at heart rates of between 115 and 145 beats per minute, with a severe breakdown of performance at above 175 bpm. There is an important difference between people breathing hard because they are working hard and breathing hard from stress – exercise makes you redden, fear makes you pale.

An emotional hijacking can happen during a fight or training, often just momentarily, but that can be enough. Your brain responds with shock at someone throwing a punch. You inhale sharply, hold your breath, tense up. One of the downsides of this is that being tense, when being hit, makes it hurt more. Another downside is that if you are tense you will move poorly making you easier to hit. Yet another down side is that your reactions may become exaggerated (bigger than necessary), easier to read, avoid and counter. And finally, if your cortex isn’t involved you will not be able to judge the situation or response accurately.

This is bad enough in a fight, but during training it is worse, because not only will you not be learning appropriate responses, but you may very well be ingraining poor ones. I regularly see this in people who have trained ‘hard styles’. You present a relatively soft or slow punch to them and you get a fear reaction from them – typified by big jumpy moves and large blocks – the problem with this is that the stress state becomes a habitual response that is easier and easier to slip into.

The point here is that if someone is physically capable of hard training, they can start it, but you may find that their stress levels can quite quickly stop them getting any benefit from it. If all that is happening is that they are getting hit, getting hurt and learning to be frightened of being hit this isn’t training.

What is required is to build up to hard training with soft training so that bit by bit the mind can mentally adjust and realize that it is something that it can deal with. This is a process known to psychologists as ‘fear inoculation’. The repetition of set forms allows the brain to understand that there is a set story and that it has predictable and understandable patterns. This is why children like to hear the same slightly scary fairy tale over and over. So, the brain is programmed with a set of responses to being hit softly, how to move, avoid and deal with it. It has reference points. Then you can ramp it up, but it is important to try to work within limits that can be dealt with, moving in and out of the comfort zone. Bit by bit the limits increase and as the fear diminishes you can find that actually you can take a good hit. (for postmodern martial artists – an understanding of these narrative structures also is useful because then you can see how to disrupt them in unexpected ways)

It is necessary to understand that the cortex has no direct way to control the amygdala. The rational part of the brain has no direct means to tell the amygdala, a primal and unconscious part of the brain, to stop being frightened. What you have to do is work with your breathing. Your breathing connects to an even older part of the brain, the medulla oblongata in the brain stem. The medulla is the brain’s interface with the autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system comprises the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) and the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest). By slowing the breathing you can directly engage the sympathetic nervous system to encourage relaxation.

If you understand this from the outset you can train yourself to co-ordinate movements and breathing so that all your basic training works to create a state of relaxation. Thus when you start hard training, the body already has some ‘slack’ and it will take a bit longer to create stress reactions. Similarly, as the patterns are ingrained they become easier to use to recover from stress. By linking movement with breath it means that you can use movements to encourage good breathing patterns when it is difficult to breathe (such as when you are winded) This is another advantage of using set forms in training. Finally interlinking breathing and movement is demonstrably effective for power production (for more on this see: www.absolutetaichi.co.uk/articles/breathing).
However, even when you do all this, you will still occasionally come across something new, that takes you by surprise and you may still get that moment of panic where you inhale sharply and hold your breath, but from working through this many times in the past, hopefully you will have conditioned some good reactions to this response.

Thus, when looking at hard training overall, you can say that if the body is ready to do it the mind should be as well, but throughout the training attention should be paid to stress and excitement levels to keep the metabolism at a level where you can still work and learn through conscious engagement. Yes it is good to push. As students develop they may even come to quite like getting a good hit, after all it teaches you something about yourself. You learn exactly where you hold your fear and tension and so just as the soft work prepares you for hard work, the hard work deepens the soft work.

Glenn Gossling

Glenn Gossling has been studying taijiquan since 1988 and since 1996 has been a student with Grandmaster Chen Xiao Wang, 19th Generation Lineage holder and current Chen family inheritor. He is a registered grade A instructor with the Tai Chi Union of Great Britain. He has also been an instructor of Dayan Qigong, Changquan kung fu and Stav, as well as having studied Systema, Muay Thai and kickboxing. For more information visit: www.absolutetaichi.co.uk

On soft training in martial arts: Part 3

In the third part of this series of guest posts on the value of softness and soft training in martial arts, Thong Nguyen a veteran martial arts instructor and teacher of dance offers his own unique perspective on the subject: soft work as an essential component of developing body awareness and perfecting movement BEFORE proceeding to dynamic application. For those of you that haven't read the previous installments of the series, here is Grigoris A. Miliaresis' post on the Ju No Kata of Judo and Mark Lajhner's post of incorporating soft work in combat sports. What I personally find most interesting in this series, is that each of the contributors approaches the subject from a rather different viewpoint, continuously offering additional insight. Enjoy the post!

SOFT WORK: DETECTING SUBTLE NUANCES OR, 'THE FLY LANDING ON A FEATHER'

As a lifelong teacher of dance and martial arts I find soft work and kata an invaluable tool for learning any skill. Kata can range from the stationary exercises found in Qi Gong to Judo's slow moving Ju No Kata, to Kung Fu's dynamic forms. They serve to develop and educate a understanding of the body on a somatic level with minimal brain intrusion.

I consider kata to be the body's ultimate muscle-body-memory trainer. It helps students in evaluating their internal, physical and mental processes. The kata itself is but a part of the benefit. The greater benefit is in how the students learns to find and remove their debilitating barriers/habits in attempting new and unfamiliar tasks. A self-imposed learning curve if you will, stemming from a lack of confidence and connection to their own bodies. The slower the kata the better it permits the students to pick up on subtleties in order to correct them. Imagine trying to detect the weight of a fly that has landed on a kettlebell you're holding, as compared to one that has landed on the tip of a feather in your hand. Slow work enables your whole body to move and feel like that feather. You'll better detect nuances and variances in movement. When a student finally "sees" his body and its idiosyncrasies it is like the first time he heard a recording of his voice - he can't believe it isn't the sexy voice he always thought he had.

At my dance studio, the first thing a beginner is taught are foot patterns: where to go directionally, on which foot to step and where. Then, they're introduced to the foot work; how the foot first contacts the floor- heel, ball, flat, toes, inside edge of toes etc. Then, styling: how the upper body accompanies the lower body during the weight shifts. Next comes rhythm, timing and synchronicity to music. Only after these are reasonably executed is a partner added. The recipe is methodical and by the numbers, which begs the question: "How would that translate in application on a crowded dance floor?" The following video shows me dancing with a girl I'd only just met that night. Once ALL knowledge, coordination, mobility, timing, rhythm and consistent results are addressed and resolved, the "hard work" phase comes naturally with regular exposure, practice and experience. This is the method I use in teaching martial arts. Without it, "free-play" is a messy blur. With it, things come into focus and start to make sense.

There are no shortcuts or panaceas for building lasting skills, only a clear understanding of what to do, how to do it, when to do it and the determination to do it. Real learning can't be rushed. Katas provide a way to groove and polish the essential basics. Learn the techniques (soft work) in order to throw them out (application of hard work). Professionals know if they can't perform under a controlled scenario, they will never last a real one.

Enjoy your Path,

Thong Nguyen

Thong Nguyen was born into a martial arts family. His uncles were masters of various Asian arts and his father was a Judo champion. This provoked a curiosity and an openness at an early age. He holds Dan grades and teaching certificates in Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Filipino, Vietnamese and Russian martial arts. He has been teaching dance along with martial arts for over 38 years based in Washington, DC. He developed KaizenTao (www.kaizentao.com) 24 years ago as an amalgamation of his primary expertise in Dance, Chinese and Japanese arts and professional sports. His students are renown for being a fun and respectful group of people spanning a wide spectrum from professionals at the forefront of local and national security to dedicated martial artists to those with no experience in combative forms. He also worked as a fashion photographer in Paris, Milan, NY, LA, and DC.

On soft training in martial arts: Part 2

Softness and soft training in martial arts: what is it, is it really necessary, how do we practice for it, how much, how often? After last week's first part of this series, a guest post by Grigoris A. Miliaresis on the Ju No Kata (“form of gentleness”) of Judo, today Mark Lajhner, a former Judo competitor, MMA competitor, and currently MMA coach, shares his own perspective on how we can benefit from soft work and most interestingly, by 'investing in loss'. I found this post most fascinating - I hope you enjoy it!
 

SOFT WORK IN MARTIAL ARTS - SHOULD WE DO IT?
There has been a lot of debate whether soft work should be included in martial arts training. Before we start to do that let us define what soft work is. According to my friend Spyro Katsigiannis (who asked me to write this article) we could describe it as follows: "In Soft work we practice using real force and energy but in a slowed down time framing, so that the startle reflex is minimized - there is no fear response, because there are no fast threats leading to spastic reactions". To me, this description brings to mind the Ju-No-Kata from Judo as well as the absorption drills often used in Systema.

The goal of soft work is to "prime" the martial artist to react in the most biomechanically efficient way in a stressful situation.  It can be done in a free manner, just "playing" with forces our partner is giving us, or while exploring a specific technique, like in nage komi in motion in Judo (throwing exercise without partner resistance).

Systema absorption drills are an example of non-technical soft work training. When people first try them, they usually find them weird and not quite credible as a training method, because they are missing the point of the drill, which is priming the body in generic movement patterns. But in order to develop fight worthy skills we need to go past priming and into the specific technical realm. 

Although priming drills can be effective as a supporting tool, I don't think they are necessary. We can benefit from soft work if we do it in a context of the martial art we are practicing. Here are the examples of soft work that I often give my athletes:

• Nage komi (throwing practice) in Judo or wrestling
• Slow motion grappling sparring
• Grappling & ground and pound flow drill (it can be both slow or faster, but I recommend it being slower)
• Striking flow drill: we use only 50 % of speed and 5-10 % of power
• MMA  flow drill using the same principles as in striking flow drill

Slow motion grappling sparring is a form of soft work training and can lead to a significant increase in skill development.

All of these methods give us time to think and execute our techniques with precision, limit the startle reflex and are actually quite enjoyable, since full-on sparring is demanding, not just physically but also psychologically. They eliminate (or minimize) competitiveness in training, which can sometimes limit our learning. Many of my athletes report a significant increase in skill development from just one of these sessions. 

Numerous fighting moves come to us quite naturally (headlock, trips, the double leg takedown, elbow cover, fading), but at the same time, there are a lot that don't (slips, bobs and weaves, most throwing techniques), so how do we practice those until we become proficient? The answer is pretty simple: slowly and deliberately. In order to explain this, an analogy from computer lingo might be helpful: if we imagine the reflexes and instincts that evolution has equipped us with as a BIOS (Basic Input/Output System), we need to ‘progress to Windows 7’ by enhancing some of our instincts and completely overriding others.

Except the above mentioned drills, there are other "soft components" of training we can include in out sessions. Back in my days as a Judo competitor, I made a terrible mistake by always training with "balls to the wall" intensity. I thought that if I always gave 100% of my effort and fought until there was no glycogen left in my body, trying my hardest to never be thrown, I would eventually become a champion. This is a mistake that cost me dearly:  I was only able to place 3rd in the nationals, and I became a real live encyclopedia of trauma (many injuries and surgeries). Don't get me wrong, I'm all for intensity, but it has it's time and place. This is a very broad theme and we don't have time to go into detail in this article but I will give you an example of this principle: there was this young guy in my Judo club that became national senior champion at the age of 18 in my weight class - very talented, with gymnast-like moves, great physical attributes and impeccable technique. During Judo practice, he was repeatedly ‘destroyed’ – he was getting thrown many times by many people. At one time, I manhandled him so badly in sparring, that he stopped midway through our randori, calling me a savage and asking me "what kind of Judo is this" because I was relying on my strength to "bend him down" instead of trying to throw him. While I would never stop a randori for any reason other than injury, and was mad at him for doing so, I eventually got to learn a lot from watching him train. He might have "lost" a lot of randoris, but he devastated his opponents in competition in spectacular fashion and became one of the youngest champions in Serbia. At the same time, I was struggling to also become a champion but it simply never happened.

So what was the secret of his success? When I did randori practice, I wanted to throw people for sure, but I mostly wanted to dominate them. He, on the other hand, wanted to practice technique and often put himself in dangerous situations, even if it meant that he would get thrown. For example, he deliberately let people try uchi mata on him so he could redirect the force and counter. Does he get thrown many times in training? You bet! But his matches usually end with him performing a spectacular ippon (an equivalent of knockout in boxing) on his opponent because he takes risks in training and learns from them. In my mind this is also soft work. Why? By giving yourself the permission to fail, you are not struggling against your opponent's forces at that moment, and there is no psychological pressure.

The point of this example was not for me to tell you what a ‘stud’ I am for dominating my teammate in training, but to explain that his training principle was far superior to mine.

I might have trained wrong during my Judo career, but it all changed when I switched to MMA and it paid dividends. I just wish I had done it sooner. As humans, we all have limitations, both physical and mental, and by training sub-optimally, we can hit those limitations earlier than necessary. That usually leads to injury, lack of motivation and often, quitting training altogether. 

By including the softer components, we can make our training more efficient, more to the point and a lot more fun.

Mark Lajhner

Mark Lajhner is the founder and chief instructor of the Kaizen MMA Academy, in Belgrade, Serbia (www.kaizenmma.com). A distinguished Judo competitor and national team member, he made his debut in MMA in 2005 and retired undefeated in 2008 as the best Serbian MMA fighter in the 85 kg category. He has studied MMA and Submission Wrestling with August Wallen, one of the world’s most renowned MMA experts. He has also competed in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Submission Wrestling (Grappling) and Freestyle Wrestling winning numerous medals in these sports. Mark is a Judo black belt and a purple belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. He is a certified MMA, Thai Boxing, Submission Wrestling (Grappling) and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu instructor.

On soft training in martial arts: Part 1

The text that follows is the first in a series of guest posts on the subject of softness and soft training in martial arts. The starting point for this series was the Ju No Kata (“form of gentleness”) of Judo – a rather cryptic set of prearranged techniques that was developed by the founder of Judo, Jigoro Kano, around 1887, that supposedly epitomizes the principles of the art, especially that of yielding, or gentleness. It is most interesting to add here that Professor Kano came up with this particular method of practice when the number of people studying Judo had increased to the point where he could no longer personally advise everyone during free practice [1]. I personally consider Professor Kano the most important martial arts innovator of the 20th century and a genius of an educator, but my training in Judo has been limited to a couple of years and included almost exclusively hard training methods, so I can’t say I understand the knowledge which is ‘encoded’ in the Ju No Kata. What I decided to do then, is turn to my friends for a little help: I asked a number of martial arts instructors from different disciplines to watch the Ju No Kata on video,  and ponder upon the use of soft training methods in order to distill principles and increase martial skill in the style they are practicing.

The first contributor in this collective post is my good friend Grigoris A. Miliaresis, the closest person I have met to what I would call a ‘scholar of Japanese martial arts’ that also happens to be a seasoned journalist. I am sure that you will enjoy his post as much as I did!

JU NO KATA: ILLUSTRATING JUDO’S MARROW
I’ll always cherish the memory: the main mat of the Kodokan Institute in Tokyo filled with tens of hardened judoka from all over the world, with ages varying from early 20s to late 70s and ranks from 2nd to 10th dan, many of them high-level competitors, sitting quietly, mesmerized by two Japanese “obachan” (lit. “aunties”) performing the Ju no Kata, probably judo’s most misunderstood form and the one that judo founder, Kano Jigoro thought as the container of the quintessence of his system. Apparently all those people seemed to share Kano’s idea; either that or the sight of the two middle-aged diminutive women performing it with a precision that would bring tears to the eyes of a USMC drill sergeant and a grace that would put to shame his niece, the ballerina, really got their attention.

It’s hard to grasp what the Ju no Kata is all about. The techniques are almost unrecognizable for those who only know competition judo and, worst of all they are performed at a glacial pace that defies any idea of effectiveness or practical application. “The throws aren’t even completed”, I usually hear the critics of Japanese martial arts cry in despair. “What is this? And how can this embody the essence of judo? This is not even training”. Well, it is training. And it does embody the essence of judo, provided the viewer is conversant with, well, judo, as well as with the way the Japanese do and, especially, teach things. Some knowledge of body mechanics wouldn’t hurt either –I don’t have it but Spyros does and I’m sure he can discern the theory behind my empirical ramblings.

To understand the Ju no Kata, first of all we need to establish the framework: it is a kata, that is a set of stylized moves created to (a) put order in the chaos of things (the Japanese do that all the time; kata are present in all expressions of their culture), (b) teach the body, including the nervous system, the basic functions that the system (in this case, judo) considers essential. Even if we dismiss (a) as redundant since we are not Japanese, we have to seriously consider that (b) has indeed some merit; if it didn’t, Japan wouldn’t be able to continue producing Olympic medalists for almost half a century (last count: 65 in toto) under this training regimen.

Second of all, we need to understand what is considered “essential” in judo –yes, I know it sounds like tiptoeing between psychoanalysis and over-theorizing but this won’t take long. According to its creator, judo’s first and foremost quality, its cornerstone, so to speak, is flexibility (it’s even in the name: this is what “ju” or “柔” in “judo” means): flexibility of the mind (i.e. knowing when to use excessive force and when to yield, creating openings where there aren’t any) and flexibility of the body (i.e. being able to twist and contort your body parts so you can put them where they can exploit the openings and use the leverages and the timing needed to complete a technique).

Does the Ju no Kata teach the judo student this essence? If you ask me, definitely –and this is precisely the reason everything is done in slow motion: so that the student has enough time to put his body in exactly the perfect position for the perfect leveraging and for the perfect timing. By taking away speed and momentum (present in almost all other judo kata), Kano’s students were able to remove unwanted tensions in their body and focus on the precision of the technique with optimum biomechanics (also part of judo’s “manifesto”: seiryoku zenyou/精力善用or “maximum efficiency with minimum effort”).

I haven’t been taught the Ju no Kata –and the loss is all mine- so my first hand knowledge is limited. But there is one more thing that I remember from that day in the Kodokan: when the obachan finished their presentation and started teaching, most of the non-Japanese judoka had serious learning difficulties; apparently their bodies were too tense to adapt to doing things slowly and with precision. The worst part was that the middle-aged ladies (who, after the initial demonstration seemed to have cloned themselves and filled the whole mat) were going from one pair of participants to the other, playfully tossing them around while complaining about their poor backs.
Grigoris A. Miliaresis

Grigoris A. Miliaresis started training in the Japanese martial arts in 1986. He holds dan grades in judo, aikido and iaido and has also trained in Shotokan karate, kendo and modern naginata. Since 2007 he has been studying the classical naginata school Toda-ha Buko Ryu under licensed instructors Ellis Amdur (in Athens) and Kent Sorensen (in Tokyo). Besides training, he has written extensively about the martial arts in the Greek magazine “Monopati gia tis Polemikes Technes”, was managing editor to the Greek edition of “Journal of Asian Martial Arts”, has translated more than 25 books on the subject and runs a related blog (in Greek and, occasionally, in English - http://budobabble.blogspot.com/). He currently lives in Japan.

References 

 [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ju-no-kata#cite_note-1 (retrieved Jan 2012)

Systematizing My Systema, Part 3d: Mental Toughness Training

In Part 3a of the Systematizing my Systema series of articles, we discussed the general idea of athletic training vs. sports training and we also argued that training for self defense is definitely an athletic endeavor, rather similar to training for combat sports in terms of motor qualities (strength, speed, power, mobility), physiological/metabolic qualities (aerobic, anaerobic endurance) and basic movement skills, although quite different in terms of the strategies and tactics explored. We also claimed that a person involved in any type of athletic activity, in order to maximize performance, needs attributes, skills and mental toughness. Attributes were discussed in detail in Systematizing My Systema Part 3b, while we addressed training for skills in Systematizing My Systema Part 3c. In this post we will discuss the third aspect of our training which is pressure testing for mental toughness. 

PRESSURE TESTING: WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH... 

First things first: "Why should we pressure test at all?” you might ask. The answer is rather simple: through drilling you do acquire skills, but under combat stress these skills tend to deteriorate - under pressure, a lot of the stuff you are good at in a martial arts training session might go out the window! Now, pay close attention to this, because there's a lot of nonsense written online on this particular subject: we are not pressure testing whether our techniques function in conditions of combat friction - we are testing whether we ourselves can function under pressure! As long as our techniques do not ignore the laws of physics, they will work just fine – paraphrasing a good friend of mine who’s into Japanese martial arts, O Soto Gari does work in real combat, although my O Soto Gari might not. Rather than the techniques, it is our brain where the source of the problem lies, where emotions arise (mainly fear) that can make our tactical knowledge disappear and mess up with our physical skills.

The key-word here is emotional regulation. It is actually quite strange that although the role of deliberate practice (i.e. drilling for skills) in developing expert performance in sports has been exhaustively studied, the role of consistent exposure to competitive settings has not been studied nearly as much, if at all. Still, it is quite difficult to imagine someone who is capable of regulating his emotional responses to a stimulus that he has never been exposed to, right? Just to give you an example, imagine Larry Bird fooling around and shooting thousands of hoops from outside the three-point line – if he never practiced with a fellow teammate trying to defend against him in a dynamic environment, would he be able to score as much in a real game? I seriously doubt it.

Now, the most common argument against dynamic training in a self defense context is that the actions one might take against his opponent when in a life-threatening situation are way too dangerous to be practiced repeatedly without control. In addition to that, some people claim that the use of protective equipment in order to reduce this potential for injury, distorts the mechanics of techniques (for example, a glove allows people to hit much harder that they would bare-knuckled), so it could lead to bad technical habits. My answer to these arguments is: “YES, you would have a point… IF we used these methods to develop technique, but WE DON’T, so you are WRONG”. Let me repeat it once more: we drill for skills; we ‘compete’ to expand our capacity to regulate emotions. In this sense, our competitive training (against resisting opponents, that is) or pressure testing methods are a means to an end, not an end it their own.

Storm Fighting as practiced by athletes of the Russian All-Around Fighting system. Rounds last only twenty seconds, during which the athletes are only allowed to attack - no defense is allowed. The purpose of this drill is not for one to become good at Storm Fighting, since in real combat, retreating and defending might be necessary. The whole point is for practitioners to develop the mental toughness necessary to keep pushing forward while ignoring the pain and the fatigue that is building up over the rounds.

The idea behind the pressure testing we do at the Dynamo is very simple: yes, it would be dangerous for practitioners to closely simulate realistic self defense conditions in a training setting, just to trigger the emotional responses we want to explore. So instead of simulating the conditions, we try to trigger the emotional responses through other conditions, with a lower risk of injury! Although I can’t back this up with hard scientific evidence, my belief is that humans do not have a different fear reaction system for every situation they face – it is the same adrenaline that flushes through the system of a fighter in the ring, a doctor performing heart surgery, a member of an ambulance crew performing CPR to someone who suffered a heart attack, or a fireman trying to remove an old lady from inside a building which is being consumed by flames. Once emotional control can be achieved under one set of conditions, it’s easier to ‘transfer’ this capacity to a different context.

That is why the methods we use in the Dynamo to pressure test are non-context-specific and they basically fall under two categories. The first one is various forms of symmetrical competition: fist fighting, kick fighting, kick-boxing, wrestling, or stick fighting. YES, I know these are not "realistic self defense" practice fields, but the point of this type of work is not to become good at fist fighting, wrestling and so on; the point is to become good in solving combat-related motor problems under a certain degree of pressure and to explore the idea of recovering after making mistakes that bring you in disadvantageous positions. The participants in this type of drills are not trying to win over their partner in order to feed their ego – they are exploring, together with their partner the dynamics of the interaction – the benefit is not in victory but in reaching conclusions. The second type of pressure testing at the Dynamo includes asymmetrical limited-parameter drills (for example, only strikes with the fists are allowed) that are designed to induce panic to one of the participants, who is then asked to apply specific series of actions to limit the symptoms of stress and recover in order to survive. Increasing the pressure in this type of drills is done very gradually so the student can be aware of the exact moment when the fear reaction system kicks in and learn how to recognize the symptoms.

This was the sixth and final (seriously, I promise) article of the Systematizing my Systema series, the purpose of which was to present the training methodology at the Göteborg Dynamo Club of Russian Martial Art as a goal oriented process. This process includes the knowledge of a great variety of training methods and the effects each one of them produces, setting as specific a goal as possible, selecting those methods that when applied in combination will produce the desired result, scheduling those methods in a training program and applying it - as I wrote at the beginning of the first article of the series, it is the 'why' that will determine the 'how'. Blindly following the system a supposedly formidable martial arts master promotes and hoping that you will some day acquire that master's skills, makes as much sense as reading a champion athlete's conditioning program in a magazine and following it blindly with no regard to your level of physical condition, possible limitations and needs - it is more often than not a recipe for disaster or at best a waste of time. In our next blog post we will discuss what we do best at the Dynamo, that is, power generation training.

Systematizing My Systema, Part 3c: On Skills Training

In Part 3a of the Systematizing my Systema series of articles, we discussed the general idea of athletic training vs. sports training and we also argued that training for self defense is definitely an athletic endeavor, rather similar to training for combat sports in terms of motor qualities (strength, speed, power, mobility), physiological/metabolic qualities (aerobic, anaerobic endurance) and basic movement skills, although quite different in terms of the strategies and tactics explored. We also claimed that a person involved in any type of athletic activity, in order to maximize performance, needs attributes, skills and mental toughness. In this blog post we will discuss skills training.

SKILLS: NOW THAT WE FOUND POWER WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WITH IT ?

Once we have trained to generate power from a variety of positions and angles (if you have no idea of what I'm talking about, read part 3b of the Systematizing my Systema series of articles), it is time to apply it. The kinetic energy of a body in motion never truly becomes a force until it comes to contact with another body or object. This force is nothing more than a push or a pull, but in order to achieve the desired effect, the force must be applied to the right spot, with the appropriate part of your body, at the correct angle, at the right moment - whether you're applying the force on an opponent by pulling the lapel of his gi or you're pushing the floor with your foot in order to do a side step. So, to sum it up, the goal of training for skills is the development of a) the sensorimotor coordination needed to produce efficient and effective movement patterns, and b) the cognitive abilities needed in order to applly those patterns in the appropriate tactical context. 

WHAT SPECIFIC SKILLS DO WE FOCUS UPON?

OK, there's no way to put this simply, but let me try: none and all! We train what is essential, because it will affect all aspects of our practice. The following small story from The Analects of Confucius sums up what we aspire to do: "While travelling with his student, the Master asked: 'Ssu, do you take me for one who studies much and remembers it all?' The student replied, 'Yes, is that not so, Master?' The Master replied, 'No, I link all knowledge upon a single thread". In the context of Russian Martial Art, this 'single thread' consists of all concepts and principles related to: 

• maintaining or disrupting breathing
• integrating or breaking structure
• allowing or restricting movement

Everything we learn is built upon this framework, and all the specific skills we practice (fist fighting, kick fighting, stick fighting, wrestling, grappling, manipulating joints et al) are NOT different subjects as they are simply case studies of those same concepts and principles in an applied form. In this sense, boxing and wrestling are not two different 'martial arts'. They're just two of the multiple ways one can apply the power generation methods we study in our attributes training: "one human body, one set of movements, endless possible applications"!

HOW DO WE PRACTICE SKILLS?

At the Dynamo, after a significant amount of attributes training (our 'power generation training'), we graduate to skills work (we call this 'force application training'), which is a specific series of mostly open drills done with one or more partners. Unlike many schools of RMA that seem to value novelty quite a lot (as if their students suffer from ADD), resulting in training sessions that are never similar to one another, we use a rather small and carefully selected set of drills, that we practice until we become good at them. 

Some very high-level skill work on the focus mitts by Cuban professional boxer Yuriorkis Gamboa. His skill work is only made possible by his incredible attributes (strength, power, speed, agility, etc) and it is 'powered' by one basic set of movement skills - please pay attantion to his incredible footwork!

HOW DO WE SELECT THE DRILLS WE PRACTICE?

1. The drills we practice always have a specific goal, which is clearly stated at the beginning, so that the students know what they are training for. Just to avoid misunderstanding, let me state here that we mostly tell people WHAT to do, NOT HOW to do it, allowing this way for a great degree of initiative [1]. The only guidelines that must be followed are those of good biomechanics, in order for optimal power generation (for example, having bad posture when solving a motor problem is not creativity, it is just a limiting factor).

2. Every one of these drills must present the practitioners with a degree of challenge  - this challenge should always be a teeny tiny bit outside each student's comfort zone, if they are to grow as martial artists. On a 'macro level' we adjust this degree of challenge by following drill progressions designed according to the rule "from easier to harder and from simpler to more complex". On a 'micro level', this adjustment is made by each practitioner, who is responsible to always push his partner without overwhelming him. In this sense, at the Dynamo, it is more important for one to be a sensitive training partner than to be a good practitioner. When a drill ceases to present a challenge, we progress to a more demanding one, because the purpose of our training is not stroking our ego or looking good on Youtube clips.

3. Finally, the drills we practice can be performed at various degrees of intensity according to the practitioners' level of proficiency (soft work to hard work), but never with a competitive mindset, since that would interfere with the learning process. Of course, there is a place for competitive training in our training approach, but that only comes when skills have been stabilized.

In summary, the purpose of this post was to present a brief generic description of the skills acquisition process we use at the Göteborg Dynamo Club as a system of training means, i.e. a set of interacting or interdependent training-related ideas and practices, that are forming an integrated whole. In our next Systematizing My Systema blog post we'll be discussing pressure testing as a means of mental toughness training.

Notes:

[1] What should be taken into account here is that even though an instructor might allow students a significant degree of freedom in the execution of a particular task, demonstrations made by the instructor in class, or other resources (e.g. Youtube vidoes, instructional DVDs etc) may function as constraints on the student's perception of what is 'doable'. This is practically impossible to avoid.

Systematizing My Systema, Part 3b: On Attributes Training

In Part 3a of the Systematizing my Systema series of articles, we discussed the general idea of athletic training vs. sports training and we also argued that training for self defense is definitely an athletic endeavor, rather similar to training for combat sports in terms of motor qualities (strength, speed, power, mobility), physiological/metabolic qualities (aerobic, anaerobic endurance) and basic movement skills, although quite different in terms of the strategies and tactics explored. We also claimed that a person involved in any type of athletic activity, in order to maximize performance, needs attributes, skills and mental toughness. In this blog post we will discuss the necessity of attributes training.

MOBILITY, STRENGTH, POWER, SPEED, ENDURANCE: DO WE REALLY NEED THEM?

In a few words... yes. Even nowadays, quite a few people in martial arts cycles seem to think that most martial arts or combat systems include all the training tools one needs to become an adequate practitioner. This view used to be quite popular in sports too: "The reigning belief was—and in some circles still is—that strength, power and all other motor qualities in a sport can be quite adequately developed by means of the sport itself, since this approach ensures that the principle of specificity is exactly adhered to", wrote the late Dr Mel Siff, leading sport scientist, back in 2000 [1]. Sports science has disproved this view for quite some time now, and sports practice (combat sports included) too: athletes who do additional physical training besides playing their sport, run faster, jump higher, throw longer, play harder and for longer periods of time, plus they suffer less injuries. 

 

Now, if you need one extra argument to get convinced that attribute training is necessary for self defense training, how about this?  Your attributes may or may not permit you to apply your strategies and tactics, since "...Physiological and technical limitations constrain the strategic options available..." [2]. To make it simple, it is your attributes that determine whether you can perform the required movements, even for the simplest of actions. Just to give you an example from my personal experience, I have recently seen a number of Aikido beginners struggling with a technique as basic as ikkyo, simply because their core is weak, so when they're trying to apply force, they bend their spine on the frontal plane (sideways) instead of simply rotating, resulting in less than optimal power generation, that makes for inability to perform the technique. According to the old school view, all these students need to do is keep on practicing ikkyo, until their body gets strong enough to perform the technique correctly, whenever that happens, provided, of course, they don't get injured on the way. The more modern view would have these students do some core stability training for a couple of weeks, a month maximum, and THEN try the technique again, when the function of their body does not act as a constraint on their ability to learn. What is considered a 'technical problem' is actually nothing but a lack of the most basic strength, i.e. an attribute problem.

A member of the Göteborg Dynamo Club training for the Mustache of the Week Competition.

In the Göteborg Dynamo Club of Russian Martial Art, we call attributes development 'power generation training'. Before you start thinking of us as huge and most probably 'muscle-bound' power lifters, let me point out here that whether you're punching someone or taking him down, deflecting a strike, taking a swift step to move out of the way of force, skating on ice and trying to hit a puck with a stick, dribbling and passing a basketball, kicking a football or running to catch the bus, what you are using is power. This means that we use the word 'power' in its strict meaning in physics: that is, work, i.e energy, i.e. kinetic energy, over time. We train to generate as much kinetic energy as possible in the shortest amount of time, through mechanical and physiological efficiency, in order to apply this power in a variety of applications - martial or other. That is what we specialize in and that's what we do best at the Dynamo: making all types movement fluent, effortless and powerful, while at the same time empowering people through movement. 

In summary, the argument in this post is that training for martial (or any other type of) skills can commence only when the necessary attributes have been developed, otherwise practice will be inefficient and the practitioner will run significant danger of injuries - train generic movement first, specific movement second. We will have the opportunity to discuss the idea of power generation training in detail in the future. Our next Systematizing My Systema blog post will be on skills training.

References:
[1]  Siff M.C., Biomechanical Foundations of Strength and Power Training, from Zatsiorsky V.M., Biomechanics In Sport - Performance Enhancement and Injury Prevention. Blackwell Science, 2000. p. 103

[2] Janelle C.M. & Hillman C.H., Expert Performance in Sport: Current Perspectives and Critical Issues, from Starkes J.L. & Ericsson K.A., Expert Performance in Sports - Advances in Research on Sport Expertise. Human Kinetics, 2003. p. 23

Systematizing My Systema, Part 3a: What did Hercules train in? Self-defense or combat sports?

Before I try to describe the specific training methods and progressions we use at the Göteborg Dynamo Club of Russian Martial Art, it is of utmost importance to explain the context under which those methods and progressions are used, the "why" that leads to the various "whats" and "hows". The "Systematizing My Systema" series of articles serves this purpose exactly - the first part of the series was a comparison between conventional martial arts training and what we do at the Dynamo, while in the second part, I wanted to make clear where we stand in relation to military systems of hand-to-hand combat. In this third part, I will try to address similarities and differences between our training approach and the one used in combat sports.

Before we go any further, I would like to say that I hold all athletes, and especially combat athletes, in the highest regard for a number of reasons. The first of those is because they bring a whole different level of physical intensity to fight training. During my years as a martial arts practitioner, I have had the opportunity to spar or roll with an Olympian and amateur world silver medalist boxer, a professional kick boxer, judokas who were members of their country's Olympic team, a pan-american medalist in BJJ and a SAMBO Master of Sport. What I noticed in their work, is that they maintain sensitivity and control over their movement at levels of intensity that make "normal" people's skills rapidly deteriorate - their soft work is as intense as what your average martial arts practitioner considers as hard work. This is not because they rely exclusively on strength and speed, as we often hear said from people with little knowledge - athletes might indeed possess above average strength and speed, but they have also tempered their technique repeatedly under pressure, resulting in skills of extremely high level that cannot be acquired through always training within one's comfort zone. Could this intensity come handy in a self defense situation? Well, what do you think?

The second reason I admire athletes is because of their work ethic. They understand very well that you can't get something for nothing, that there is no magic pill. The relationship between time spent training and level of performance is obvious to them, so they make time to train instead of complaining that they do not have the time to train. It seems though that this mentality is pretty hard to come by, and that is why if I had a dime for every person I've met who "tried kick boxing (or Judo, or BJJ, or MMA, or wrestling or...) for a few months and was very good at it, but could not stick to training because of other obligations", I'd be a very rich man... And now that I think about it, I would probably be a much richer man if I took money from all these people who have contacted our club over the past years, asking to learn self defense skills but with as little training as possible, because they were "way too busy"...

Do you want another reason to hold athletes in high esteem? Well, they train to be resistant to failure. They know how to bounce back from making mistakes that bring them in positions of disadvantage. I see a lot of martial artists out there training in "total agreement" with their partners, being unfailingly successful: they fake strikes and their partners fake the reactions they expect, so they all look good and feel good about themselves. That's all fine, if all you're opting for is flow and beauty of movement  - but what if one is actually preparring for combat? I remember more than ten years ago, on a LeiTai in Hong Kong, when I hit my opponent with a solid (and beautiful) jab-cross-spinning backfist combination that made the crowd in the stands cheer - he barely shook his head and kept on going after me until he knocked me out in the next round. He could recover from getting hit hard, while I could not mentally recover from failing to stop him with my heaviest strikes. Do you believe this mental resilience is cultivated by training with cooperating partners? Well, allow me to respectfully disagree...

I won't deny it: at the Dynamo, we are firm believers in athletic training. Does this mean that we only train for sport and not for self-defense?

Well, let me put it this way: English speakers like to talk about "sports", but I (being Greek and all) prefer to use the word "athlimata", from the ancient Greek word "athlos" (άθλος), meaning "task", "feat", or "contest". Here's an example, in order to better understand the way the word is used: the twelve labours of the mythic hero Heracles (or Hercules, in the romanized version of the name) [1] are known in Greek as dodecathlon (δωδέκαθλον), which means "twelve athloi", twelve of those feats or tasks, if you will. In a few words, athlos is a feat requiring that you use both your physical and mental resources to a great extent, in order to successfully complete it. OK, now I want you to think about yourself being in a self-defense situation: don't you need to exert control over your mental state, so that your physical skills do not deteriorate, so that you can exert some type of control or another over your opponent or maybe de-escalate? If that doesn't qualify as an "athlos", I don't know what does! And if you want to train in order to become better at completing an athlos or two, well... you are an athlete, whether you want to or not. 

Then is training for a combat sport all one needs for self defense purposes?
No, absolutely not: the strategies and tactics that might lead an athlete to victory in the ring, might get him killed in a self defense setting. But the physical skills needed are pretty much the same, whether you're fighting in the street or in a ring. In the Göteborgs Dynamo, we do train like athletes because we need to enhance our performance potential in order to cultivate those physical skills needed for self defense. We do not just focus our training on the needs of a single combat sport - we train at quite a few of them, at the same time: fist fighting, kick boxing, wrestling, stick fighting and a few more, slightly more "exotic"! You might think this is not possible, but it is and we'll have the opportunity to discuss why and how in a future blog post. For the moment, what I want you to keep in mind is that every person involved in any athletic activity (including self-defense), in order to perform at a high level, needs three things: attributes, skills and mental toughness. Coming right up, we're going to discuss each one of those in detail, so just keep reading...

References

[1] Just in case you skipped the class on Greek mythology, check out this article on the labours of Heracles from Wikipedia.

Systematizing my Systema, Part 1: "Martial art? What martial art?"

So… what is it that we train at in the Dynamo?

A friend recently suggested that I write some technical articles focusing on the specific training methods and progressions we use at the Göteborg Dynamo Club of Russian Martial Art. Well, that is exactly what I am planning to do in the new Dynamo blog through a series of articles under the general title “Systematizing my Systema”. Since it is my firm belief that form always follows function, in order to explain the “how” of our training methods, it is of crucial importance to first explain the “why”, so starting today, I will first try to provide the readers with something of a training “manifesto”.  

Let’s start from the “Martial Art” part in our emblem – is it a specific martial art that we teach?

Well, most people think of a “martial art” as a set of answers to a finite number of combat-related questions (technical, tactical or strategic), plus a method that is used in order to teach those answers to groups of people. Martial arts are usually perceived as “crystallized”, closed systems. More often than not, people obsess about whether a style is “genuine”, or about the lineage of the instructor. If something new is added to them, martial arts usually become “watered-down”[1], so they have to go under a different name, or risk being discredited. In this sense, we are definitely not teaching a martial art: although the Göteborg Dynamo Club is associated to a number of instructors and schools of various styles of Russian Martial Art, the descriptor “Russian” in our emblem does not denote a historical of cultural connection, but rather an intellectual approach: the emphasis on universal concepts and principles of combat instead of particular techniques to facilitate learning, the use of biomechanics to analyze and enhance performance and the development of all-around dexterity and flow in movement. Come to think of it, I dare say that our style of Russian Martial Art is probably as much Soviet as it is Russian (here it is, I managed to utter the “S” word…). 

On the other side, what we do at the Dynamo does have some connection to martial arts practice as it is commonly understood: our goal is mastery. We practice deliberately in order to improve in something we consider important, but not necessarily utilitarian. In a way, our martial arts practice is not unlike playing a musical instrument – we do it not because we want to win some talent show or make it big in the music business, but because we find inherent value in music itself, so one could say that we are amateurs in the truest sense of the word. 

What we are trying to master though, is not a specific martial style (Systema, or other), it is just human movement as related to combat. By constantly sophisticating our movement skills we aspire to master our body and eventually, our self. For those of you who like to obsess with martial arts’ philosophy, herein lies the only teeny tiny shred of it that we offer to the Dynamo members: mastery only comes after practicing deliberately for a considerable amount of time, so if you don’t do the work, do not expect any results – mind you, this is actually science, not philosophy, but if it sounds like a gem of martial wisdom, why ruin it?

Notes

[1] Over the years I’ve been training in martial arts I’ve heard my fair share of absurd claims but none as nonsensical as “What? They’re using protective equipment and full-force fighting? Then they’re doing MMA, not Systema!!!”

Systematizing My Systema, Part 2: Men in Uniform? No thanks!

In an effort to provide the readers of this blog with something of a “training manifesto” for the Göteborg Dynamo Club of Russian Martial Art, in the first part of this series of articles I tried to pinpoint the similarities and differences between conventional training in martial arts, and the training we do at the Dynamo. Now, since Russian Martial Art is widely marketed (and often understood) as a combat system that has been developed used by units of the Russian military Special Forces, in this second part, I will attempt to clarify where we, at the Dynamo, stand in relation to this marketing identity. 

So… do you train at a system of combatives for “professionals” (military and law enforcement) at the Dynamo?

To put it simply: no, we do not. The reasons for this are multiple and I will try to explain them all in the following paragraphs. Ι must point out here that some of the explanations offered below are based on my personal experience and partly my political ideology.

1. Military combat systems are basic sets of combat techniques that are used as tools and can be taught within 50 hours of training, because military people, especially the ones deployed in combat zones, do not have the time to consistently train. Once you go through that type of training (based almost exclusively on the utilization of gross motor skills and aggression), all you need to do is go through a “refresher” course every couple of months and you’re good to go. When you hear or read about “military systems” in which you get to train for year after year, what you’re basically dealing with is martial arts marketed as military combatives, which means that their target group is civilians who get attracted by the military image. What do we think about the military image at the Dynamo? Well, let me just say that wearing cammo is NOT allowed in our training sessions. Plus, we train because we enjoy training and we find inherent value in it, not because we just want a set of tools.

The main difference between army combatives and the training at the Dynamo: we don't take ourselves too seriously.

2. Now, regarding the true military combatives, i.e. the 50 hours of training on fighting skills based exclusively on gross motor skills and aggression: I have practiced one such system, namely Paul Vunak’s Rapid Assault Tactics, about ten years ago, as a member of a Filipino Martial Arts training group. Although the system was extremely effective and pretty easy to learn, what I noticed after a couple of months of training was that I was getting very aggressive as a person, and my “violence trigger” was becoming extremely sensitive. Later, my good friend, JKD instructor Vagelis Zorbas (who is certified in Rapid Assault Tactics) and one of his students (who is an LEO, by the way) confirmed my findings. All in all, I strongly believe that for a soldier deployed in a war zone, hyper-vigilance and paranoia might be a small price to pay for survival, but the people I train with are civilians and I am not in the business of turning normal people into rabid pit-bulls. 

3. Strangely enough, the LEOs that have contacted me in the past inquiring about joining our classes (quite a few) described what they want, more or less, in the following words: “I want to learn the most effective techniques and be able to use them immediately, but I cannot train much, because my work does not allow for it”. I simply told them that we could not help them. Because, what we offer at the Dynamo is a training method based on the idea of perpetual sophistication of movement. Mastery is our ultimate goal and the only way one can achieve it is through endless hours of deliberate practice. To put it simply: no practice, no learning. 

4. The self defense needs of professionals are very different from those of civilians. A special forces operator might find an AK-74 disarm useful, while a police officer should be able to restrain and handcuff a suspect, but what civilians need the most is awareness of the dangers around them, so that they can stay out of harm’s way. Now, the Dynamo is not a club focusing in a niche market; we are just fine with both professionals AND civilians in our training sessions, and that includes forty-year-old-plus managers, twenty-something computer geeks or jocks who enjoy the occasional knuckle sandwich. In this sense, the skills we need to focus upon in our training are generic ones: power punching, evasive movement, absorbing force, engaging the ground safely, breaking structure, manipulating the joints, etc. These skills are of utmost importance and apply universally, whether you’re a professional or a civilian. If you understand the function of a joint and the ways you can manipulate it, it is fairly easy to learn how to disarm a knife or a firearm. The opposite is not true.

5. There is a view out there, quite popular in military and law enforcement circles (especially across the Atlantic), according to which the members of this society are either wolves (criminals), sheep (ordinary citizens), or sheepdogs (military personnel and LEOs) [1]. According to this view, the sheep are unable to protect themselves because of their diminished potential for violence, so sheepdogs are left the sole guardians of this society, the only ones with “real” self defense needs. I disagree with this view: I believe that it is our duty as citizens to be able if needed to protect ourselves, our loved ones, our property, and our country. As much as I admire the military and law enforcement people for what they offer to our society, I feel exactly the same for doctors, teachers, engineers and people who work at slaughterhouses or in garbage disposal. And, while our society will never require from an LEO to come up with a cure for cancer, a doctor might be forced by circumstances to defend him/herself.  When I recently found out about Dr Sergey Shvets’ Martial Art – Russian Style and visited their webpage [2], I was surprised by how much the system’s motto resonated with me: “Intelligent and kind people MUST know how to defend themselves”. It is simple as that. One last  thing: besides our duty as citizens, there is also our genetic inheritance as mammals. It is not just the “sheep dogs” – we ALL have a built-in self defense mechanism, honed through hundreds of thousands of years of evolution: it is called “the fear reaction system”. Now, in order for us to become more complete human beings (and less of “sheep”), we need to explore our fear reaction system, in order to familiarize ourselves with the violence that often accompanies its activation, and be able to control it. It is my firm belief that it is complete human beings that make for better citizens and ultimately, a more evolved society – not more, or better trained, or non-subject-to-the-same-laws-as-the-rest-of-us sheep dogs…

Let’s sum it up then: what we practice at the Göteborg Dynamo Club is not military combatives that will turn people into killing machines with minimum training. What we do practice is much closer to a geeky folk-style martial art: a scientifically structured series of exercises, drills and competitive games that provide ordinary people (military personnel and LEOs not excluded) with substantial combat skills and some of the mental toughness needed to apply them. 

In the next installment of the series, we will compare what we practice at the Dynamo with combat sports.

Notes:

[1] I first read about this view a few years ago in the book On Combat by Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman.

[2] http://www.mars-fighting.com/