Each art, has a different idea of what "pressure testing" is and what the successful outcome of that test should be. For BJJ that pressure is trying to submit a fully resisting guy in a ground fight, that may have started as a standing grapple. For Aikido, that pressure is trying to remain relaxed and fluid as you blend with multiple attackers. For TKD it is kicking the other guy who is trying to kick you. For Judo, it is throwing the other guy who is trying to throw you. For a Karate Kata contest, it is performing your Kata for the judges, in front of the audience trying to execute the perfect technique, better than the other competitors. These are all different kinds of pressure, and the success for each is defined differently. These produce different results. So, it depends on your goals as a student.
Nah, most of what you're describing is a matter of "what" is being pressure tested, not a definition of what pressure testing is.
Pressure testing is just a matter of trying to make your technique work against someone who is trying to make your technique not work. (Whether that's ground grappling, punches to the face, or kicks to the groin.)
Aikido "randori" against multiple attackers would absolutely be pressure testing if the multiple attackers are actually trying to make the defender fail at defending. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Aikido dojos don't train that way, but a few do.
Is your question more along the lines of: If we are really pressure testing, why don't we smash immediately every time we roll, until she figures out how to handle it?
Basically, yes. It's challenging the idea that we're pressure testing as much as we think we are.
I think the argument (or at least mine) is more: People state that they know their art works and these moves work because they pressure test them.
But if the person they went against was only going at 50% (and particularly if they don't tell you that directly/you don't realize it), you as an individual have no proof that what you learn would work, even if you think it does. You can trust the process, and trust that the person teaching you has pressure tested it, but your own pressure testing does not validate the system/techniques itself.
Kinda like those videos of people trying out ridiculous grab escapes, that seem to work against the instructor, then they go home and try it out on their friend and aren't able to do it. Because it only works if the person you're going against goes easy on you.
This is exactly the point I'm trying to make.
Using the example from before, if I'm going 20% and she's going 100% and she thinks it works, does that give her the same false sense of security that people claim TMAs give?
Every technique and every practitioner will fail under sufficient pressure. The purpose of pressure testing is to find out where that failure point is (and hopefully learn enough about the circumstances of failure so that we can improve and extend the threshold before failure.
Whether I'm testing my ability to punch someone in the face, keep someone else from punching me in the face, take someone down, get up from being taken down, choke someone out or keep them from choking me out, I want to know when it will not reliably work.
Is it an opponent with skills above a certain level?
Is it an opponent with size or athletic attributes above a certain level?
Is it an opponent with a certain style of movement or fighting?
Is it a particular set of circumstances?
Is it my own condition in the moment (distracted, sick, sleep deprived, intimidated, angry, etc)?
Is it a specific technical counter that I don't know how to deal with?
None of this requires that my opponent go 100% all the time. If I sparred with Gordon Ryan, he could probably beat me easily while putting out less than 10% of his maximum effort. I'd still learn a bunch of failure points in my capabilities.
For that matter I can still learn from rolling with a 6-month white belt who I'm beating easily. There will be moments when I'm trying to make one thing happen and the white belt will defend well enough that I have to switch gears and execute a different technique. That's still a failure point that I can study.
Using the example of the white belt who manages to make something work when she's going 100% and you're going 20%: she's only going to get a false sense of security if she thinks that you're going 100%. Even if she makes that mistake, she should be getting enough feedback from rolls with other students to correct the confusion.
In general, the pressure level should be sufficient so the practitioner encounters regular failure, but light enough so they also encounter at least some success. (Success doesn't have to mean winning a round or scoring a point. It might just be escaping a bad position.)
I remember conversations back when I was mainly a TKD/HKD guy, that centered on the idea that I don't know what I'm talking about because these arts don't pressure test in the same way as combat sports. That BJJ is a far superior martial art because you can go 100% in training without much increase in risk.
What I've found is that (in addition to there being more risk in BJJ than in TKD sparring):
- Upper belts take it easy on me. Nowadays I can give the brown and fresh black belts a run for their money, but more experienced black belts still have their kids gloves on.
- Often when something DOES legitimately work on an upper belt, it's because you caught them sleeping or they're working on their B-game.
- Bigger folks take it easy on me. Even white belts are sometimes holding back their strength or don't want to put their full pressure on me.
- Most folks take it easy on women, especially at my gym where most of the women are white belts.
- There is competition...but you're matched based on age, size, skill, and gender. So it's pressure tested in a very controlled environment.
I'd say for the vast majority of my training, I'd consider my skills "pressure formed", but not necessarily "pressure tested".
You can get closer to 100% in ground grappling than in stand up striking with less risk. There are hardcore BJJ competitors who will do high-intensity sparring 2 hours per day, 6 days per week. In contrast, a boxer who spars 100%, 2 hours per day, 6 days per week, is likely to suffer serious concussions and possible brain damage before he ever gets to a real match. (Which is why most boxers don't do that.) That's an advantage for technical development of ground grappling, but it doesn't mean BJJ is better than boxing. If you are going to deal with punches in a fight, you're going to have to deal with the safety limitations of training with hard punches, no matter what art you're coming from.
