From drill to martial skill - Wim Demeere

[** Serge **]

http://www.wimsblog.com/2010/05/from-drill-to-martial-skill/

In yesterday’s class, I worked on a bunch of basic counters with my students. Then I turned them into drills so they could go back and forth non-stop and get lots of reps in. I like drills, always have.  It all began when I discovered Bob Orlando’s kilap hand drills about 15 years ago.  The drills  he showed just clicked for me, even though I know many people think they’re useless.  I think they’re missing the point.

Drills are never meant to be used as such in a combat situation. Sure, it could happen exactly like in the drill but you’re better off not hoping for that to happen.  What they do teach you is skill. Skill in performing techniques, timing, distancing, body mechanics and tons more. What they do not teach is applying those things directly on your training partner. If that were allowed, it wouldn’t be a drill anymore but an application of the techniques in it.

That’s the key point most critics miss: You’re not supposed to be training applications, you’re supposed to do a drill, an exercise. But ever since the advent of RBSD and the UFC, traditional drills have gotten a bad rep. People point to “real fights” in or outside the Octagon and say that’s what you’re supposed to be doing. Well, maybe, maybe not but that’s still fighting and not training. Like Bob Orlando said (paraphrasing):

    “Accept that all training is nothing but simulation.”

In other words, it’s not “real”, it’s a simulation and simulations allow you to prepare for the real thing, try out different solutions, etc. Inherently, this means you leave out some elements. Because if you don’t, then it’s no longer a simulation but the real thing again…

And then we come full circle: the critics say drills are useless because they’re not exactly like a real fight. But they don’t realize that making drills exactly like the real thing defeats the purpose of doing a drill in the first place. Which is skill acquisition. Skills you then try to transpose to your performance in the real thing.

Another aspect is the way a good teaching structure is built: it’s supposed to be one step at a time with each one building on what you learn in the previous. Giving a student too much (make him spar full on from his first lesson) is just as counterproductive as giving him too little (never letting him spar or make contact at all.) A good curriculum takes these different steps into account and helps the student go through them quickly. Drills are a perfect tool for that. By taking away one critical component, for instance the fear of getting hit, the student can focus on learning all those things that will make sure that fear doesn’t materialize. Once he gets to that level, you gradually re-introduce that component into the training.

What always makes me laugh is how the critics of drills make such a big deal about it but never question the use of drills in other sports. Take a look at this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_qJEV7tHUo&feature=player_embedded

Why aren’t football players and coaches shouting “There are no padded iron constructions on the field so training with one is useless.” or “A human player is not the same thing as a big orange ball so it can’t work.” Maybe, just maybe, they get it that drills have their time and place…

Me, I do drills in all the arts I practice and teach: push hands in my tai chi chuan, kilap hand drills in kuntao and the drills I make up for my sanshou class. Invariably, the students who do well in the drills are the better fighters.

Wim Demeere - 2010 - ©

[** Serge **]

http://chirontraining.blogspot.com/2010/05/two-little-things.html

A student is/has three things.

1) Attributes. People differ in size and strength and speed. But they also differ mentally and emotionally. Aggressiveness and fear, tolerance for uncertainty, ability or inability to see things as they are. Many ways to be different.
2) Training. At some level everyone has been taught things. Even if they have no formal training, each student has an idea of what fighting is.
Ideally, the training would be based on the student's attributes. Knife fighting is a bad choice for a gentle soul who can't abide messiness and liquid spills.
3) Experience. Maybe a lot, maybe a little... and many take training as experience. It's not the same. Training falsely interpreted as experience can be a deadly trap.

In the end, I'm only trying to offer two things:
1) An analysis of the problem. This gets broad very quickly. Violence dynamics, how bad things really happen, is crucial. Knowing "how to defend yourself" if you have no idea what you are defending yourself from doesn't make any sense at all.
But there's more. Often, maybe usually, the battle isn't lost physically but mentally. The glitches and freezes and fears and the emotional and social context are just as important to making yourself act as what the threat does. The physical part is often simple. Making yourself do the simple thing in a frozen fog of doubt... that's less simple.
2) A way to evaluate yourself. Does this work? Is it set up to be applied to the real problem? Can it be more efficient? What about myself? What makes me hesitate? What could I not live with? Will this send me to prison? Am I okay with that? Under what circumstances? What is the price of admission on this ride?

So I have nothing to replace a martial system. Most systems work just fine if they are trained with respect to the real problem and the attributes of the students anyway. The body mechanics usually work better than the explanations some instructors come up with. There are some styles that work way better with real assaults than they will ever work with sparring, which shouldn't surprise anybody, since that's where they came from.

Rory Miller - 2010 - ©