OP
Gaucho
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- Thread Starter
- #41
Arnisador...attack, counterattack, offense, defense, its all in the flow...simultaneous.
Cathevangelist...yeah, working outdoors on varying terrain is really fun as well as being critical training. Snow, ice, sand, in the woods, in an alley, on stairs, every type of terrain changes the fight a bit. The more you have experienced in training, the more comfortable you are should the ***** hit the fan, right?
And you are right, it is challenge, especially for new students to this type of work, to stick with it. We do use the principle of progressive resistence. That is, when a more experienced fighter is paired up with a less experienced fighter, the better fighter subtlely makes the drill hard but not impossible for his partner- i.e, he doesn't just completely destroy his lesser opponent. The diffficulty is then ratched up over time as the new student skills develop. It is still difficult work, however, and some people just can't hang with the program. The good news is that you, as an instructor, can feel confident that those who do keep coming back have the right martial spirit to become warriors.
Oh, FYI, just so some of you don't get the wrong idea, our '30 sec drill' is just what we do at the beginning of every class. It is only one tiny but useful piece of the puzzle. Once we are done with it, we move on to sparring one on one where any pair can attack another pair at anytime. I usually break out at some point and watch each pair and give tips on whatever they're doing- if need be. I will randomly attack one of a pair as well. All this keeps our fighters from overfocusing on one opponent at a time.
Once we are all warmed up well through several rounds of various types of sparring we move on to the real work of the class- scenario work, sensitivity training, movement work, whatever.
Once we are all fried from that, we finish by clustering in groups of three or four and discussing what we learned in class and asking any leftover questions. Again, as throughout the class, at any point someone in a group can attack another and the others in that group then also instantly gang up on the attackee. The fight goes on until the attackee gains dominance, escapes, or fails. If failure, then attacks are worked backwards from failure through slow sparring in order to discover the various ways and timeframes in which success could have occured.
We do the same during scenario training- i.e., if someone fails a scenario, we play it out again slow sparring, going backwards from failure first, then forwards from the beginning, until the fighter feels comfortable with their ability to deal with that particular attack sequence.
Slow sparring is a tremendous learning tool. I cannot emphasize that enough. It allows students to see what they might miss in realtime, and the lessons learned translate perfectly to realtime.
Anyhow, that's some of what we do routinely. It makes for a fun and challenging time and keeps things more 'real'. Try it for yourselves and see what you think.
Respectfully,
Mario
Cathevangelist...yeah, working outdoors on varying terrain is really fun as well as being critical training. Snow, ice, sand, in the woods, in an alley, on stairs, every type of terrain changes the fight a bit. The more you have experienced in training, the more comfortable you are should the ***** hit the fan, right?
And you are right, it is challenge, especially for new students to this type of work, to stick with it. We do use the principle of progressive resistence. That is, when a more experienced fighter is paired up with a less experienced fighter, the better fighter subtlely makes the drill hard but not impossible for his partner- i.e, he doesn't just completely destroy his lesser opponent. The diffficulty is then ratched up over time as the new student skills develop. It is still difficult work, however, and some people just can't hang with the program. The good news is that you, as an instructor, can feel confident that those who do keep coming back have the right martial spirit to become warriors.
Oh, FYI, just so some of you don't get the wrong idea, our '30 sec drill' is just what we do at the beginning of every class. It is only one tiny but useful piece of the puzzle. Once we are done with it, we move on to sparring one on one where any pair can attack another pair at anytime. I usually break out at some point and watch each pair and give tips on whatever they're doing- if need be. I will randomly attack one of a pair as well. All this keeps our fighters from overfocusing on one opponent at a time.
Once we are all warmed up well through several rounds of various types of sparring we move on to the real work of the class- scenario work, sensitivity training, movement work, whatever.
Once we are all fried from that, we finish by clustering in groups of three or four and discussing what we learned in class and asking any leftover questions. Again, as throughout the class, at any point someone in a group can attack another and the others in that group then also instantly gang up on the attackee. The fight goes on until the attackee gains dominance, escapes, or fails. If failure, then attacks are worked backwards from failure through slow sparring in order to discover the various ways and timeframes in which success could have occured.
We do the same during scenario training- i.e., if someone fails a scenario, we play it out again slow sparring, going backwards from failure first, then forwards from the beginning, until the fighter feels comfortable with their ability to deal with that particular attack sequence.
Slow sparring is a tremendous learning tool. I cannot emphasize that enough. It allows students to see what they might miss in realtime, and the lessons learned translate perfectly to realtime.
Anyhow, that's some of what we do routinely. It makes for a fun and challenging time and keeps things more 'real'. Try it for yourselves and see what you think.
Respectfully,
Mario
