Re: Another example of how martial arts training and competitive fighting doesn’t = self defense.

[Damian (Instructor)]

[James Goolsby] you hit the nail on the head my man.

DRILLS is what’s the key.

Martial arts and self defense typically use the “show up and throw up” method of teaching. They just give you a bunch of techniques or moves – one right after another.

Then you go off with your partner and fumble through it at first then both of you learn your parts and it looks like you know it.

After that it’s off to the next move.

But that’s not how we really train.

Sports, boxing and even sparring in the dojo take on a different method of teaching.

You learn the basic skills and then practice them on targets, training dummies and even partners. You develop muscle memory regarding the foundation techniques and them you can adapt them to the fluid situation like competition.

As you train you discover what works best for you and what doesn’t. One of the mistakes martial arts makes is that it implies that you need to MASTER or be a master of every technique you know.

This is leads to unrealistic expectations.

Personally I may know hundreds of techniques, but there are only a handful that I go to. I just know 1,000 ways to get you into a position where I can use them.