Failure, expertise and time

"The one thing that all expertise theorists agree on is that it takes enormous effort to build" the expert mind, either in the realm of chess or in another discipline, Ross states. 

In the process, "motivation appears to be a more important factor than
innate ability.... The preponderance of psychological evidence indicates" that professionals with outstanding skills, in short, "are made, not born."

Research indicates that the key "is not experience per se but 'effortful study,'" according to Ross. Such study involves learning and practice that entail "continually tackling challenges that lie just beyond one's competence." 
In other words, Lewinski explains, as you gain in ability, "the bar is constantly moved higher so that your skill level must keep stretching and improving to reach it."

The brief goes to say later:
"Instead of departmental policies and priorities that encourage mediocrity, we need a training philosophy that encourages, nurtures and guides the development of expertise. It's what the community expects and deserves."

If you have the burning drive of a 5%er, determined to maximize your Skills regardless of obstacles, understand that "in the early stages, effortful study is very difficult," Lewinski says. 

"Pushing your limits inevitably involves a lot of failure. When you fail, you need to back off a bit, learn to correct your weaknesses, and build your way back up."

"To get really, really good takes time. Be patient with yourself, because you need that time for your training and experience to evolve into mastery."

Natural and Normal

These terms often get used in teaching or learning WMA or martial arts in general.
They are often used in a confusing way, as if they mean the same thing. Though in common usage they do get used interchangeably, there is however an important difference, all be it at times a subtle one.

Much is made of moving naturally and normally, that how one moves should be based upon what you would do naturally or normally. They do sound similar but do they really mean the same thing? Of course we should all be aiming to make certain natural movements and behaviours normal, though this is often hard in a combative environment, which is after all neither natural or normal for most people most of the time.

If one understands the significant differences between Normal and Natural, it can help improve both how ideas and actions are conveyed in training and how the activity is experienced. By addressing each in an appropriate way, we can eventually make what we do both Natural and Normal.

Now I should make clear my definition of the terms. I use Natural to refer to how you and your body have evolved to function and/or how it can be used and operates most efficiently and appropriately. On the physical level, its what we in the Guild define as Body Mechanics.
Normal here refers to individuals habitual behaviour and movement patterns. Those ways that one moves and behaves on a daily basis and of which we generally have little or no awareness or conscious control.

Of course nothing is completely black or white. Not all Natural behaviours are appropriate, and in many cases things we do Normally, we are also doing Naturally, and appropriately.


OK try this. Fold your arms, quite normal and natural? Now fold your arms the other way. Does it Feel strange?! Probably. One might say that it does not feel “Natural” to fold your arms the other way. However in the context of this discussion that’s not true, there is no Natural reason that you can’t fold your arms either way, baring injury. So what you are really experiencing is it doesn’t feel Normal. Why? Because most of us have developed the habit of folding our arms only one way and it has become such a strong habit that to do anything else feels strange. Now does it really matter that you only fold your arms one way and that to do it differently feels strange enough that you'll choose not to do it? Well not really, it does however serve as an illustration of how deep habits can become rooted and how what we do is dictated in large part by habits. Of course not all habits are negative one can have good habits as well as bad. However one has to recognise that they are patterns of behaviour or movement of which we have little or no awareness, that happen automatically and consistently. As such we have also become so accustomed and conditioned to these habits that should we be asked or need to do anything else it does not feel “right”. There is a danger that under pressure we will only do something that feels “right” even if it is not appropriate, we will fall back on to doing what we do normally. Ask yourself do you want to be the Master of your habits or let your habits master you?

In teaching and training problems can arise when someone dismisses, rejects or refuses to do something, using the argument “it doesn’t feel natural”, when what they actually mean is “it feels different to what I normally do”.

Someone new to WMA with no other experience or terms of reference for Body Feel, may initially find it harder to tell the difference between Natural or Appropriate and Normal. Or someone who has trained in particular systems which have different ways of handling body mechanics and the Principles in general, may now have developed Normal movement and behaviour patterns, which will make the new training, Feel very different. Here of course the instructor has a vital role insuring that the scholar feels the difference in definition between the Normal and Natural/Appropriate.

Let me be clear that Feeling or Body Feel is vital to understanding, learning and doing. If you think you have done a movement correctly, make sure that you are Feeling it. If it does not Feel comfortable, then it probably is not right. Think and Feel are another two words that need to be clearly defined and considered in teaching and learning. Thinking is what we imagine something to be. Feeling is the experience of what it is. One could reword “I think therefore I am”, to “I feel, therefore I am”. However, to get back on track for this post, proper Body Feel, interpreting the difference if any, between Normal and Natural, is vital.

By feeling the actions and the movements, you are gaining experience of them and it is only through experience that you can truly gain understanding. Its another problem I encounter when people are learning, they want to understand before they do it or try it, where as real understanding may only be achieved by doing. Another problem can be they have heard an explanation of what they should do and because they Think they have followed those instructions, that they have done it Right, where as when you ask them to actually Feel what they are doing they realise what is different. However that’s another topic and post.

Habits and patterns can be made and they can be changed. Awareness can be improved and developed by using patterns so that habits are appropriate to the situation. Eventually you should be able to operate naturally, normally and perhaps most important, appropriately to the situation you are in.

Jonathan

To armour or not to armour

This is an involved and complicated subject. My primary goal is to briefly look at the use of armour/protection in training historical arts in the modern. However I will first briefly look at the use of armour in the combative environment.

-Armour in real combat – Protection versus Mobility plus other considerations
The decision to wear armour and what forms that armour may take has always been dictated by a number of factors. Of course the armour offers protection against attacks, However this advantage has to be weighed against other considerations. Firstly by wearing protection, ones mobility will be reduced, both in the range of movements possible and the speed at which movement can be carried out. The distribution of the weight of the armour will affect balance. The weight of the armour will increase exertion and its coverage of the body will also have detrimental effects on the bodies’ ability to loose heat contributing to the speed at which one will become fatigued.
Weather and environment factors will increase and exacerbate all the detrimental effects already mentioned.
The cost of armour, either in monetary terms or in the time taken to manufacture it contributes to restrict the use of and types of armour. These factors are linked to considerations of status. Armour re-enforces the distinction between the warrior and the civilian. The quality and craftsmanship of the armour, serves to help separate the high status warrior from the low. Such display of status could lead to individual being singled out in combat by enemies. However if you happened to be on the loosing side in the aftermath of an engagement, the display of your high status may lead you to being taken prisoner for ransom while your lower status followers are shown no mercy.
The likelihood of being hit and what you might actually be hit by and the effectiveness of the armour against those attacks has also to be considered.

Despite the negative aspects when we look through history, armour of one form or another is a reoccurring constant within in the context of combat. Someone wearing armour will be generally far more prepared and willing to aggressively engage the enemy than an unarmoured person will. This effect on the perception of risk can have both positive and negative affects in real combat and in training

-Not getting hit versus reducing the damage taken when you are when you are
A point that needs to be made is that armour is generally worn to protect the areas of the body, which are deemed most vulnerable, or those that will cause the greatest damage if hit. Generally the most vulnerable targets will be given priority when armour is chosen or issued. The Armour worn may redirect the impact or reduce damage taken from a hit, though no armour makes you completely safe. There is the paradox that as one wears more armour the potential for being hit increases as it reduces mobility.

Here I am defining Mobility, as the ability to move as freely as possible with the intention of not getting hit, versus protection, reducing the effects once hit has happened.
The less armour you wear the more of your mobility you maintain, arguably making it harder for you to be hit in the first place. Of course if hit, less armour will mean that you take proportionately more damage.
One has to strike a balance between mobility and protection. While arguably mobility is more important, In certain situations ones ability to move may be restricted by other factors, for example in a tightly packed formation on a battlefield, in which case protection, becomes more desirable.

Finding the right balance may be a personal choice, such as a 15th Century man at arms choosing between and Italian armour for its protection or a Gothic harness with its mobility. Or the decision may be imposed on you by someone else, for example the armour issued to a Roman legionary or modern soldier in Afghanistan.

-Armour in training - Replicating reality or reducing pain/injury
Armour in training follows two basic types. Firstly armour that replicates the armour that will be used in real combat. Secondly is armour that is used solely in training, it is used to reduce pain or injury.

If you are replicating armoured combat, then you should wear facsimile armour of the type worn in the combat you are recreating on a regular basis. While this may not be possible or even necessary all the time appropriate armour should be worn when possible and when training out of the armour, how the armour affects the movements and techniques must not be forgotten. In Japan a number of the oldest Bujutsu Ryu, regularly train their armoured combat techniques out of armour. In Europe it seems we see a similar situation in some of the manuals. The un-armoured half-swording and pollaxe techniques illustrated in Talhoffer for example, show what would generally be considered armoured fighting styles being practised in normal clothes. Fiore’s dagger plays are also illustrated with combatants in civilian clothes, a not uncommon situation when illustrating dagger. However text states that certain techniques would be better done in armour, while others work both in and out of armour.

What must be remembered is that when training for fighting against an armoured opponent the objective is to defeat or neutralise the armour worn. When attacking an armoured opponent one does not primarily attacked the armour. One has to learn to attack targets where there is less or no armour, or by making use of the opponents’ armour to help defeat them. The goal is to utilise and maximise the advantages offered by ones own armour, while reducing the advantages and to use and to do the opposite to your opponent.

Amongst those who favour sparing and freeplay as training methods, in the modern reconstruction of un-armoured historical combat, protective armour of some form is used as matter of course as a way to reduce the inherent risks. However many people who train in a more formal and structured way also use varying amounts of protective gear.

In this context the form protective armour takes and the function it really serves is an important consideration. In much the same way that a soldier needs to balance protection and mobility, a modern practitioner wearing protective gear needs to balance the desire to reduce injury with how that will affect ones mindset as well as the way the movements are carried out. Serious consideration should be made of what constitutes appropriate armour and when or if it should be used at all. It should be remembered that these effects on training would be both positive and negative, conscious and unconscious.

As mentioned above, for real combat the most vulnerable targets generally are armoured first. The same is seen in the protective equipment worn for unarmoured combat training. However this cause the problem, that by doing so, one has transformed unarmoured fighting in to armoured and this risks counter intuitive responses being conditioned in both attack and defence.

-Not getting hit and reducing the damage once you are
The rational of not getting hit at all, as opposed to reducing the damage once you are hit applies equally to training as it does to real combat. Arguably it is more important in training, as how you perform in reality will be dictated by how you have trained.

Two theories come in to play here Operant conditioning and Risk Compensation. By the rules of operant conditioning, learning takes place through positive and negative re-enforcement. In this context positive means that something is added and negative means something is taken away. As a basic illustration, a child learns that fire burns by touching the candle flame, it hurts and is unpleasant and positively re-enforces the parents warning not to stick ones hand in the flame. In terms of operant conditioning the gloves negatively reward me for getting hit by taking away the pain. In the terms of risk compensation the gloves make me feel safer which can encourage me to take greater risks.
The danger of this is that rather than training me to not get hit it is actually encouraging and rewards getting hit.

If not wearing armour one can not afford to be hit and one learns to deal with the opponents attacks by avoiding them through movement and/or by controlling them with your available tools, in this context being your offensive/defensive weapons.

By feeling exposed to the threat posed by your opponent an appreciation of why it is better to not get hit is encouraged stimulates the desire to perfect ways of not getting hit.

We should not forget that even if your armour does take the hit, the armour is not infallible and might fail. Energy can still be transferred through the armour into you, and damaging you anyway. The hit might disrupt or take your balance, which will already be affected by the armour. Or it may damage your armour, further reducing your mobility. All of which allows your opponent to keep attacking and hitting you and this will increase the likelihood of you taking more damage and in the long run, loosing.

-Increased safety increases risk taking
I mentioned above the theory of Risk Compensation. It stems originally from research in to road and traffic safety. Basically the theory states that in general people will take risks based upon their perception of danger or upon their perceived ability to deal with that danger. This has shown that the improvement in anti locking brakes and seat belts as has actually increased the risks that drivers take when driving and not improved road safety. It has also be found that where stretches of road have been made “safer” by improving visibility etc., that it has actually increased dangerous driving.

In a training context there is an important other side to the equation, the more protection my partner wears the less awareness of their danger I have. It can encourage poor control, “if i hit too hard or my targeting is a bit sloppy it doesn’t matter because my partners gloves etc. will take care of it”. Not only are we encouraging poor training for and application of the skill, we are also increasing the likelihood of having an accident.

Research found increasing numbers of cyclists wearing cycle helmets and other protective gear has not improved cyclist safety, partly because the cyclists take more risks because they feel safer but also because car drivers drive more aggressively around cyclists who wear protective gear.

A combative analogy is boxing. Here, hand and wrist injuries occur despite or arguably more often, because of hand and wrist strapping and the design, size and weight of boxing gloves which has lead to an altering of punching technique away from what is practical or effective with an un-gloved hand. This is also a reason why quite often when boxers get in to fights not wearing their gloves, they often do more damage to their hands than those who are less skilled. Bigger and heavier gloves is also the likeliest cause of brain damage in boxers, largely due to the fact that the gloves encourage hitting the head, while their weight and size turns hits into heavy concussive pushes rather than snappy punches.

-Awareness of danger increases safety
Understanding your own vulnerability and that of your opponent and by avoiding protective equipment you increase truer intuitive awareness, this ultimately increases safety in a far more sustainable way. However this requires a different approach to training, different parameters than training with protection does. Having more appreciation for the danger develops more control of your actions, position and distance. Your safety becomes your responsibility, not that of your armour.

-If you are worried about getting hit or have been, look at how you are training rather than adding more protection.
I have seen a tendency that people who fear getting hit or injured or who have been hit or injured in training jump to the decision to start wearing more protective gear. However it should be considered what may be wrong with the actual training methods employed or how and why certain techniques are carried out that could lead to the accident happening.

Misunderstood or poor training methods and/or poorly applied principles generally lie at the heart of almost all accidents. Adding protective gear does not address the core issue behind the accident, all it does is reduce the pain etc. once it has already gone wrong. If anything adding protective equipment, as we have seen with Risk Compensation, will actually increase the chances of accidents happening in the first place

However there may be times when wearing some protection is helpful. A strike delivered to target with force may help both attacker and receiver understand the dynamics of an action better. In such a case protection would be needed.
For example in some of the older Bujutsu use is made of padded protective gear to allow strikes to specific targets in certain kata. Others make use of armour and weapons similar to that used in modern Kendo so they can incorporate aspects of freeplay in their training. It should be noted however that this is by no means a universal practice. Though carried out by some classical Ryu, they are ones that trace their lineage to the peaceful period of the Tokugawa shogunate, many of the oldest Ryu make no use of protective equipment at all but rather rely on the physical aspects of training to minimise risk in training

-Conclusion
Armour and protection are by their nature designed to alter how those engaged in combat can operate. There are pros and cons to it use and combatants throughout the ages have taken these in to consideration.

If one decides to use training methods that require the use of armour and protection then one should take time to consider the implications of its use. The effects of the protection, Operant conditioning and Risk Compensation will have on what and how you train and in the long term how it will affect your ability to actually practice the skills you have been training. It may actually increase risk taking and therefore not improve safety. Protection can be used, but such use should be context specific and appropriate to the situation being trained.

None of this is to say that those organisations that wear protective equipment while training are wrong. Rather it covers some of the reasons why the Guild does not use protective equipment in regular training.

Always remember that the best way to avoid pain and injury is by not getting hit. One should achieve this either through movement, by dealing with the opponent’s attack with your own weapons or through a combination of both.

Jonathan

Unbroken and unchanged

Having followed a few discussions lately on styles that may go back to the "past", mention was made of whether these might have an unbroken lineage of teaching going back to time "X".

This started me thinking. When we talk about unbroken traditions what do we really mean? Even if a tradition or style has survived with an unbroken line of teachers, generation to generation, perhaps what is more important is whether it is unaltered or unchanged.

Looking at any system that has been survived and been passed down over the years, it will have changed even if only superficially as the people, or rather the mindset, context and goals of those that practice the art change. Once something changes beyond a certain point it is arguably no longer what it was and therefore is something new and different having broken away from the original. At this point is the line broken, changed or both?

In Japan the oldest Bujutsu Ryu have survived many generations in unbroken lines going back to the 15th and 16th Centuries. However some have changed a great deal in that time, things have been added and other thing removed. While others have changed very little or what changes have taken place have not altered the Principles of the whole. In the same time other Ryu have died out.

Any system or method, is primarily a way of passing on information to the next generation. They are a way to gain understanding of the Principles of combat that were viewed as important by the founder of that system. Once the balance of the system shifts to different Principles or goals then the system is changed and flow of the original teaching is broken, even if the actual lineage of teacher to teacher continues.

What does all this mean? That one should consider the way that one asses different sources of information.

Looking at Talhoffer for example we see the images unchanged as they were when first drawn, though of course our interpretation of what they mean is what really matters. Of course interpretation is key in learning any skill, that is as true today as in the past. Of course most of the manuals were record of systems meant for those already initiated in methods of that system, or else were advertisement brochures intended to obtain patronage. However the information we see is itself unaltered.

I could also have a teacher who instructs me in Talhoffer methods who come from an unbroken line of teachers going back 500 years, but how much has the teaching changed in that time? The previously made point, that information changes as it is passed on intentionally or not; rather like in a game of Chinese whispers, comes into play. In this hypothetical situation, we can’t say for sure how much of what is being passed on to me by my teacher is true to what Talhoffer taught.

It should not be forgotten that people like the idea of things that go back a long way into the past. It adds weight and credibility. Of course this is a valid point. However there is also a temptation to misuse it. Consider how many Asian martial arts claim or at least imply lineage going back hundreds of years, even when the actual evidence is only traceable back a century or even less. Or that certain techniques or methods can be traced back to some distant time in the past to give them credibility. Someone I knew who was practising a Chinese art that practised high kicks of various types. They told me that while they recognised that doing these high kicks was not a good idea in a modern context, that they were practised in that system because they had been developed hundreds of years ago; to use against mounted opponents! There are many points this raises which lie outside of this current piece, though it serves as an illustration

None of this is intended to be an answer or suggest what is right and wrong, rather to remember to keep an open and honest mind.

Consider that even where the lineage is real, that does not of itself mean that the system has more worth than something "newer".

Jonathan Waller

Do Western Martial arts need a Uniform?

There have been suggestions and discussions about a more formalised uniform for Historical European Martial arts training and what that unifrom should be.

A number of groups’ wear clothing more or less closely based upon that worn by fencers. Others wear clothing loosely replicating 14th/15th century clothing and footwear. Others who concentrate on wrestling and grappling wear uniforms based on what surviving traditional systems wear. All suit the needs of the groups that use them or at least they are adequate, otherwise why wear them.

In the Guild we have a uniform of loose black trousers, (I wear heavy-duty martial arts trousers) and a T-shirt of the Chapter colour fitted with the Guild badge. This was a decision based upon the fact it needed to allow movement, be relatively easy to wear, purchase and clean. Also as a group studying more than one period and style the uniform needed to be adaptable. We also suggest that members wear flat soled, un-cushioned shoes with good grips, as these more closely replicate period footwear than modern super sports shoes.


Clothing or uniform needs to be considered in several ways and should address certain points, which I shall address below

How it affects the movements one can carry out. If one works in the clothing of a period, and this includes the appropriate footwear, one understands the how and why of the movements and footwork better, it can also lead provide insight to why certain movements are done in what may seem illogical wearing a different type of clothing

How it affects the technique, this is obviously relates to the above but also specifically certain techniques, in grappling for example, where the clothing is used to secure holds etc. Only by wearing the appropriate clothing will you understand the action, it may also be that you can only properly apply the technique when wearing the right clothing

How practical is it? The clothing should not be another expense that burdens the students unnecessarily. It also needs to be hard wearing enough to put up with the rigours of training with out the need to repair or replace it.

However if we are striving for accuracy or authenticity then there are other things we should insure as well.

One should train in realistic environments, outside, on uneven terrain, or if inside then on surfaces that replicate those of the period understudy. After all the historical techniques were not designed to be used in a modern gym.

The clothes need to reproduce the originals as accurately as possible. If what you are wearing is not fitted or cut like the originals then you aren’t going to get the insight, you are just going to be training in fancy dress. However do you risk slipping in period footwear and injuring yourself or those you train with. Of course if you wear period footwear all the time you will become accustomed to it and should be no less likely to slip than anyone else. However if you only wear the clothes and shoes when training what are you really learning? After all our ancestors wore the clothes all time.

There are the secondary reasons for wearing a uniform. It helps to develop a group identity for the Chapter/organisation. A uniform contributes to develop a more disciplined approach and mind set, in that when you take of your normal clothes and put on your uniform, you are also entering in to a training mind set. It looks better, everyone is uniform and certainly when attending a multi-group event it can help to identify different groups and schools Ultimately these are considerations of less importance than those mentioned above

In conclusion, when possible any scholar should try to work when they can in a good approximation of the clothing and/or armour of the periods they are studying. This should include correct footwear and training while wearing these things outside on appropriate surfaces.
However it is the training that is most important, the clothes, footwear and environment when worn can give insight and understanding to certain things, but they have to be appropriate, otherwise one can end up just training in “funny” clothes.

Jonathan Waller

Ways to train and understanding that they have in built flaws

Continuing my examination of how to approach the study of Historical Martial arts. Once we have made decisions about our reasons for training we should consider the ways to achieve that goal. I am going to look briefly at how we can go about training and developing our skills.

It is not my goal to dismiss any form of training. Rather my aim is to take a look at various approaches to training and understand why thy are flawed.

From the standpoint of the Guild as a whole and from a personal preference I will look at training with the goal of recreating/understanding the combative systems of the past.

While doing this one strives to respect the past, that we should be safe, improve our understanding and continue to enjoy the process.

If we are training combative skills we should remember that the main goal is to neutralise the opponent as efficiently as possible while preserving ourselves. As such we are developing skills that are designed to injure, cripple or kill other people. Unfortunately there is no way to accurately replicate cutting, stabbing or breaking people without actually doing so. Therefore the training will have to be modified in some way if we do not want to keep finding new training partners because we hospitalise them and we don’t ourselves want to spend large amounts of time out of training while we have to recover from injuries.

It should be noted that while martial artists of the past were arguably not so concerned with safety issues, minimising the risk of injury through training was important. No training program for warriors could tolerate a continued high rate of injury from training. An injured warrior that can not train or fight is not fulfilling their role

However any modification to the effectiveness of the technique is training a flaw, in effect training the technique to fail.

This paradox has challenged martial artists in all eras and cultures. The need to address it is the search to find, to quote modern combatives instructor Tony Blauer, "the best fake stuff out there".

Unless we recognise these flaws and understand how to compensate for them, we are training ourselves to fail under pressure when things become real. Even if our goal is research, the modifications and the flaws can lead us to draw false conclusions from what we do. We have to be careful that the flaw does not become the "right" way of doing it, if it does the conclusions and solution it will be more and more false.



The important elements that make a technique effective are,

The Target attacked

The Timing/Speed

The Power

The Distance

Therefore at least one of these core elements will have to be modified or changed for the sake of safety in training.

Training can be divided into the following broad categories;

Solo Drills
Repetitive co-operative drills
Scripted co-operative drills
Competitive drills

Solo drilling
Solo drills are as the name implies those that are carried out with out interacting with a partner. Solo guard drills, progressions, moving or cutting from one position to another, carrying out solo forms or striking against a pel or punch bag, or test cutting all fall under this type of training.

Here there is no partner to be kept safe, so there is no need for modification of the technique and as such allows the actions to be carried out with proper Power, Speed and Intention. Also by removing the opponent, it allows the scholar to focus only on the technique they are carrying out.

Training this way can also allow for live weapons to be used, which would be too dangerous to use when working with a partner

When correctly trained Solo exercises are very good way to pick up the fundamentals of movements of combat. Because you can attack with proper Power Speed and Intention these drills, unlike others, should do not inherently create bad habits, provided the instructor knows what they are teaching.

The flaws come from what is missing, It is hard to learn proper targeting when attacking thin air. Also hitting something feels very different to hitting nothing. While striking a pel, punch bag or test cutting gives an approximation of hitting an opponent, it is not the same as hitting an active body. The dynamics encouraged when hitting a static test cutting target are different than a dynamic and active human opponent, who is trying to hit you at the same time. To quote Bruce Lee "boards don’t hit back"

It is also hard, especially for less experienced students, to understand what the moves would actually be doing in reality, this is especially true if the student is not balancing the solo training with other partner drills.

A well-executed sequence of solo movements will almost never work the same way against a live opponent. Hitting and being hit by someone, even if you interfere with their strike feels completely different, and things that feel completely different lead to freezing.

Cooperative drills

These drills involve 2 or more scholars, training within a predetermined structure of movement, attack or defence etc. The goal is training through the exercise, it is not about winning in any way you can.

I would further divided this type of training in to the following;

Drilling and Sequences/Plays.

Drilling is the repetition of specific techniques or simple attack and defence or flow type drills.

Sequences/Plays are scripted patterns of actions, dealing with specific tactical type situations.

The advantages are that you have an opponent/s so you are dealing with a real moving target and real attacks coming at you. However as you are working with another person there will need to be some modification for the sake of safety and so an in-built flaw is being trained

Other flaws that can develop with a set drill, is that "knowing" the drill can lead to the scholars pre-empting and anticipating the next move and not committing to the action they are doing now. Or the scholar wants to win and so cheats because they "know" what the other person is going to do.

Often techniques start or are carried out at too great a distance to simulate a real sudden assault. This is often the case when dealing with grappling or dagger techniques. This is often done to substitute Distance for Time, by starting further away the defender has more time to make the reaction work. This is often why many of the techniques seen in the manuals don’t work in free-play. Free play is more like duelling, where as what we generally see in the manuals is dealing with a sudden unexpected assault. Different contexts call for different techniques.

Another problem one often sees in cooperative drills is people getting fixated or carried away on all the things that they can do after they intercept the attack. They block the dagger arms, and then get carried away with the locks, disarming and the other cool stuff they can do then. What has been forgotten or ignored is that the attacker allowed the block to work, by modifying one of the core elements, usually Distance and/or Power.

A common flaw that one sees is in Timing, the attacker makes the attack badly to allow the reactor to succeed. The attacker does not properly keep their weapon between them and the target, and thereby makes it easy to pull off the reaction. This not normally done consciously, rather it happens because the goal has become to make the defenders technique "work". It also happens when scholars make the attack against a teacher or more senior scholar. The more junior does not want to make the teacher fail, so they subconsciously make their own attack badly! Worse still is when the teacher subtly encourages this attitude in the scholar. The problem is that this becomes the way the technique should be done, in this case the technique will fail against someone who does not play by these unwritten rules.

Probably the best way to make Cooperative drills safe while minimizing the flaws is to do them with slow speed, not unnaturally slow, but so that the scholars can maintain proper power generation and delivery while maintaining enough control to keep the action safe. The actual speed used can vary and can increase as the skill level of the practitioners’ increases. In this way the same attention to detail can be applied while keeping it safe. However one has to be careful when the scholar starts to cheat and exploits the fact that their training partner is going slowly by speeding up or doing things that would not work against a full speed attack, like deflecting a staff strike with their forearm



Competitive drills

These include sparring and free play. They have a random or free element in that those involved may choose what techniques they use. This can vary from having two or three choices up to a full no hold bared (with certain restrictions) free play assault.

The danger here is that free-play and sparing are dynamic and we know that combat is dynamic and as such, sparring or free play becomes a reality test of what we have learnt. However it MUST be remembered that free play or sparring is nothing like a real fight for your life.

Also free-play is active, dynamic and fun and therefore habits that are developed in free-play will go deeper and last longer than skills from other less engaging forms of training. Also free-play looks more like what most people expect a "real" fight to look like, most of which expectations are based on fantasy and entertainment, not reality and so will reinforce those untruths and misconceptions

To quote Combative Instructor, practitioner and author Rory Miller "Almost twenty-five years ago, I asked my Karate sensei why we practiced kihon (basics) and kata when the techniques we used in sparring looked nothing like kata. He didn't have a good answer, just some vague nonsense about discipline and muscle development. Twenty years ago, after my first ugly brawl in the casino, I remember sucking wind, shaking, and thinking, "Shit, that wasn't anything like sparring.""

Most of us will not get in to "an ugly brawl" and there is even less likelihood of us using the weapons based elements of our training. So for most people Free-play WILL be as real as it gets. Also free-play is fun. However it must not be forgotten that free-play, sparring, or competition is nothing like real combat.

Free play can become a very sophisticated strategic game, which is a flaw in and of itself. For example people do not attack with a knife the way they spar with one. The reality is fast, close, staccato and overwhelming. The sparring is often a chess match of distance timing and rhythm. The skills are not the same and they don’t transfer.

Wear Protection or modify the weapon?

As Targeting, Timing/Speed, Power, Distance are integral to real combat, one or more of these will have to be messed with to make the training safe. To reduce the need to modify the core elements one can wear armour to allow the better use of power and targeting. Another option is to modify the weapon to make it safer, often a combination of both is done.

Wearing protective armour to allow the replication of un-armoured combat allows people to hit each other in a better approximation of "reality". This can be OK when practising specific techniques or situations However in free play the protection that people wear invariably makes them braver than they would be if they were not wearing the armour and then takes the situation further away from reality again.

If the armour is being worn to replicate armoured combat then the weapons and techniques would change to defeat the protection worn. After all armour is worn to protect the wearer, so defeat it would require more aggressive and therefore more dangers techniques to defeat it. Because of this increased danger it will mean modification in targeting, speed, power or distance or the types of technique used.

For example almost all-combative grappling techniques are by their very nature extremely dangerous and therefore can not be done properly in free-play or competition, so they are either banned or have to be modified to make them safer

If the weapon is made safer then it can reduce the need for armour and allow different level of freedom. However one now has the problem that the less threat/danger the weapon poses the braver the scholars become, and can start to do things that they would not if it were real. Also being hit by a "safe" weapon will produce a very difference result than being hit by a real weapon. Again this is less of a problem in set training than it is in free-play. Also modifying the weapons generally stops it from handling like the real thing and this will also change the way the technique works and lead to false assumptions and conclusions.

Conclusion

So what is the answer? What is the right way to train? Well there isn’t one. As said at the beginning there is no way to replicate real violence without injuring and damaging people. However you train it will be fake in some way. One has to recognise what the deliberate flaws are in the training that you are doing. Minimise those flaws as much as possible to make sure that the skills you are developing are not based upon false assumptions or untruths. If you can, counter act the flaw by adding another type of training to your program where that flaw is not present, just remember that the new drill or exercise will also have a flaw in it!


Jonathan Waller

Guild Secretary