Doc
Senior Master
mj-hi-yah said:Doc,
This is a great story! It seems that most martial arts schools don't take environment into consideration when training. At our school we train on nice flat mats and in very good lighting. There are no extra background noises or other distractions. To me there is no reality here. In a real fight the terrain will most likely be uneven, and there will be lots of obstacles to get around...cars, trees, furniture, maybe other people etc., and lots of background noises and other distractions.
Do you train students in your school under different environmental conditions? Do you think this is important, and if so do you have any suggestions for how to bring more environmental reality to training?
MJ :asian:
Absolutely. One of the best distractions you can use is verbal. Once a student has reached a point where a particular physical movement is learned, then the sequence and action must be subjected to an "adrenal dump" to harden the muscle memory and synaptic pathways. "Soft muscle memory" causes the body to "stutter" under stress even though a student may mentally know what to do. So a good place to start is to induce stress while a student is attempting a technique or manuever. Also once we reach a certain level the attack is "real" at some point. If the attack is a right punch, than your student partner is trying to hit you with it and you know and assume responsibility for not being hit. This raises the level of stress to beyond reality. On the street your only concern is survival. In the classrooom you are subject to teacher and peer revue and you don't want to look bad. More stressful than a real confrontation I've found. Those that can't handle the "stress" are dismissed to continue to "re-learn" the material until they perform successfully unphased by external induced stress. After all, if you can't do it in class, how are you going to do on the street? If you want to run with the big dogs, you better be able to bite.
- Go Lakers