tallgeese

We were using controlled contact. Enough to feel it in the mornining. As for other equipment, we were using caged headgear so we could throw to the facial area with less worry. Any targets were on, save the groin. As such, I took a few to the quad, body, and the head. Again, the caged heargear really helped out here.

I'm just curious, are we talking about the stance used a bunch today? Feet relitively close togeter, bent knees, athletic posture? Hands up to cover the head, elbow tight to cover the body? The one where you can adopt MT defenses for lower cover? If it is, I don't see the impracticality or immobility to it. It's certainly far more mobile than training a transitionary posture as a stance. Success does breed imitation, I'll grant you. If that's the case, with the imitation going on, it must have some sembilance of success occuring in testing arenas everywhere. Even sd applications use variation on what we're talking about above as a "core posture" from which to train principle and mental positioning. Again, if I've read your post wrong I apoligize. I'm just curious on what you're basing the impracticality and immoblility argument.

today- 10 min of shrimping drills, rolls, leg overs, ect. 20 min of drilling finish to single leg and series from there 10 min drilling escape from mount 2, 2 min rounds of rolling for mount escape 3, 3 min rounds of free roll from knees 7, 3 min rounds of free roll from feet

today- 2 mile run modified crossfit: 10 rounds of- 10 pullups 10 dips

Never want to and will never happen are two entirely different things. Still, I agree, I'd probibly not initiate ground activity, but I'll never say I'd never do it. Too many variables. Still, it can and will happen. As you say, best to train rather than not. Look at lots of dashcam vids of cops getting hurt. Many happen because the officer is taken down by a rather lousy takedown. Then, is pummelled and/or his weapon taken. So, learning to work that aspect of a fight can and is paramount, and mma fighters tend to train it very efficiently for work in the street since striking is incorporated at the same time. It's just and example, I was referring more to the constant movement in drilling and the contact mma clubs usually work under.

I agree with bushido man's statment above, there probibly isn't much physical diffence in either. What's probilby more important is matching a weapon to a target and delevering damage. As to the thumb out, yeah, it's probibly better tucked. But, if it lands and serves it's purpose, then I don't have much of a problem with it. Just be aware that you're thumb's gonna hurt if it gets caught on something and be prepared to fight thru it. I think that's part of mindset training during training. Accepting that your weapons might get injured and you'll have to fight anyway. It's another good reason to spar with all the wepons you plan on using, because nothing will ding up hands and feet like free fighting. It will also teach you real quick what dings you're willing to put up with for the trade off of having them in you're arsenal, and which you're going to abandon due to the pain or injury cuased by their mis-fire.

If honoring the past is part of your goal in the ma's, then by all means, I agree 100% about preserving old kata. I do also agree that we can come up with superior training methods in todays world. Not necissarily kata, but drilling methods, training tactics, ect. that can be much more intuitively applied "real world" more quickly. The oldest forms are most certainly about fighitng, in a text book sort of sense, not necissarily a straight up mimic of combat. I agree that you are also correct in the fact that they are very complex. Due to this, you see lots of people who really have no idea what the movments actually are. In my experiance, these individuals are very rare. Thus, making learining the actual content very difficult and we are stuck with "interpertation". As to newer forms, I find them all pretty artificial, hence very far removed from the original concept. Most of these have never been tested in the "battlefield". To that point, we see alot of stuff getting used these days in fairly realistic or actual conflicts. MMA fighters train under unarmed conditions that are fairly realistic in terms of "aliveness" and contact. Lots of RBSD training goes into prepping cops and soldiers that routinly go into harms way. We still see testing in these crucibles and are learning some valuable lessons from them.

Thanks bushido man, yeah, there were some good things that got brought up. The overall scheme remained intact, so the core remained pretty much untouched. There were some thoughts about the beggining posture that I plan to encorporate but overall, I was happy with how it went. Now I want to do some cut work on meat in the next couple of weeks to make sure I'm getting the depth and damge I want. Then, I need to use it agaist knifers and attackers that are out of radically differnt systems who move and think differently. If those go well, I'll start putting stuff on paper and locking things in. Alot of our guys have trained in differnt arts you'd think of along these lines, but I want some guys who don't have the same "group think" when it comes to the cross trining we've all done. Still, I'm really hopeful for my little project at this time. two days ago- range time: 400 rounds of handgun. Basic marksmanship and then combat move/shoot drills 100 rounds of long gun. Mostly weapon familiarization with the AK-47 yesterday- sparring day: 2, 3 min rounds of stand up only at range 2, 3 min rounds of stand up to clinch and infight as well 2, 3 min rounds adding takedowns as well 1, 3 min round with grappling/striking on the ground 15 min block of drilling on escape from guard. Then half guard series after escape. 4, 3 min rounds of free roll

Congrats on the promotion!

Moving to the outside of attacks is always preferable for me. As you said, it keeps you away from the other weapons he can bring to bear while allowing you to close the gap. Or counter from range it that's what you're wanting to do. Either way, it keeps his other threats in a position that meakes them harder for him to throw, and forces him to reorient to attack you. As we know though, preferable isn't always reality when things really start flying and you might very well end up inside. Still, I angle for the outside when possible.

Just got my shipment of these in this week. I have to second the opinion of pitbull, these things are great. I picked up the knee and elbow pads and put them thru a good sparring day and they were excellent. They stayed in place acceptably well, the knees were better than the elbows in this regard, and took up quite a bit of shock. Way better than any others that I've used. My only gripe was the 1/8 in neoprene they used in construction. I'd have been happier with 1/4 like my grapplin knee sleeves. However, before I blast them for this oversite, I'll use them a bit and see how they hold up. I have high hopes. When I paired up the knees with my Top Contender shin gear, it made a really great lower leg system. They have quickly replaced the old parts I had here for my armored sim days. Thanks again, pitbull for putting this up there for us.

I'll second Kuma. Get him to give you at least a primer. Without going overboard into specifics of placement, hand control and chin tuck cover most everything you'll need to know.

Then welcome to KF!

This post was originally published as an article in a dedicated KarateForums.com Articles section, which is no longer online. After the section was closed, this article was most to the most appropriate forum in our community. So, what exactly is principle based training when it applies to the martial arts? The principles for your art are the core beliefs and responses that you will use to deal with conflict. They are the framework around which all of your reactions are founded. I believe that they are present within any systemized fighting art even if it isn't taught that way. I talk a lot about it here so I thought that I would expound just a little bit about it, as well as explain how it can be used by martial artists of any style to make their approach to conflict more fluid. I happen to come out of a system that was built fundamentally around principle based training; however, anyone can apply this training methodology to what they are doing and, hopefully, increase their chances of surviving a fight. Simply put, teaching fighting through principle is dealing with the larger picture of conflict rather than merely considering technique. Practicing technique is good; repetition is the key to being good at a physical skill of any kind. The problem comes when one trains in the fashion of meeting X attack with Y defense. This continued practice trains the body to respond in only one fashion to a premeditated attack with no variability. Suddenly, when faced with true combat where things do not progress as anticipated, your reaction time becomes compromised due to an inability to cope with variables that did not exist in training. In reality, an attack may be thrown that was not accounted for during training, leaving the defender with no practiced options that he is effective with. Even less dramatic, perhaps an attack that one has practiced against is thrown, but it is at a slightly odd angle, thus rendering a memorized tactic less effective or not effective at all. Conversely, a principle based training platform allows for more efficient responses by the student. In this methodology, the student becomes concerned with meeting larger strategic objectives rather than applying specific techniques to a situation. He is given a set of tools and trained in such a way as to apply them to meet these objectives. This way, if unseen variables occur during a fight it is less problematic to the practitioner. He simply continues to select tools to accomplish his strategic goal. His mind does not become locked into attempting to perform a technique. It remains fluid in its course to his objective. This versatility allows the practitioner to respond more quickly to threats and allows for individual strengths to be exploited. He does not have to remember what to use to forestall an attack, just that he needs to do so. The situation will dictate how this is accomplished. The process then becomes a goal oriented process, where the outcome is much more important than the way in which it is accomplished. So, how does one go about applying principle based training into his art? Well, the good news is that you really don't need to start all over again. Think of it as a shift in mindset and fighting paradigm more than anything. The first step is to look at what you're doing in your style. What are the strengths and weaknesses inherent to your system, and let's face it, we all have weakness in our approaches to fighting. That's OK, despite what some people think. The trick is to recognize them and work with them, not ignore them. Really get a good feeling for what it is that you are doing. The next step is to start thinking in broad, strategic strokes. What is it that you are primarily working to accomplish within your system in response to attack? How do you plan on getting there? What factors might stand in your way of doing this? How will you deal with these? Remember, think big picture. Now, considering the strengths and weaknesses of your system, as well as the movements that you spend the most time using repetition to perfect, start mentally working though your best case response to a fight. Start from the initial aggression and work through to the final end-game of the conflict. Do this several times as realistically as possible. Now, add situations where things go bad and you have to adapt. With this information, start looking for similarities. What is it that your system is teaching you to do from start to finish? This will give you a good start on your framework. For instance, if you are involved in a kicking art, you might see yourself immediately moving in some way to gain distance and create a functional kicking gap in most of these situations. It doesn't matter if you do it via a stepping motion, retreating kick, or cartwheel. What matters is that your initial motion is to move to a range where you can deploy your most dangerous weapon. How you do that will become the drills you work on to fulfill what has just become your first principle: Create distance. No longer will you simply practice the transition to a back-stance in response to a predetermined attack. Now, you will consider it one of many tools used to create distance. You will drill it against variable attacks; you will transition to other methods of gaining distance if it doesn't work. Your framework now has its first piece. Remember, this is an example only. I don't claim to be a kicker. Once you've established a set of principles, experiment. Do they function across the board? Will they hold up under the stress of varied attacks and situations? Do they make intuitive sense to students who can then see intrinsic value in their application? If they don't hold up, change them. You may not get it right the first time. Once they hold up in controlled drilling, will they do so in free-fight training? Especially in simulation drills. Now that you've established a framework of principles, how do you apply them to teaching/training? Good question. First, you start by teaching within the context of the principles. Everyone has to understand why they are doing things. This is why the framework needs to be intuitive to your individual style. Once developed, use them. Not just as questions on a belt test but also as an overarching theme to training. Continue using repetition to perfect skills that you formerly thought of as techniques. Now, practice them as movements; they are now tactics to accomplish your principles. This is very much a mindset component to your training. Once skill is developed in movement, there is no right or wrong answer to how a principle is fulfilled. There is only well preformed movement and movement that needs to be worked on. Principles that are adhered to and those that are ignored. This is the new paradigm of your training and what will determine success or failure during the real thing. A key component then becomes spontaneous attack and defense drills. This allows students to respond to a threat chosen at random by the attacker. It is a drill that allows for individual application of strengths unique to them and teaches them not to become rigid in their responses. This is when they get a feel for applying principles free form and worry less about how they accomplish this. You can certainly define the type of drills done to focus on specific scenarios. For instance, you might limit them to grab defenses, to a tightly controlled set of attacks, knife threats, knife attacks, etc. Only your training needs and your imagination can define these. Contact levels can be altered as well based on what you need to work on. At a lighter contact level, you may treat it as no armor and surface contact only. For realistic simulation, you may armor them with caged head gear and Kempo or MMA gloves as well as knee and elbow pads and have them go at it. Again, your specific training needs will determine this. Always continue experimenting and testing your principles as this is how growth occurs. Test them with the spontaneous drills to see if they hold up. Modify them if needed. As you learn new movements from other sources, consider how they fit into your principles and therefore your strategy. This will give you a good feel for not only how to train them, but also how to apply them within your current game plan. This process creates a highly individualized fighter. One who utilizes his own strengths within the framework rather than mimicking his instructor. This creates a fighter who is much more likely to successfully defend himself. There it is. Principle based training in a nutshell. For those who are curious as to what a completed format looks like, I've included those used in the art I work out of. I've posted them before, but I include a brief version here for examples sake. They are not my own thoughts, they are the principles that I was taught and have held up well through years of doing this. Step 1) Evade. At its simplest, this is getting out of the way of an attack. It may be through parry, redirection, open evasion, or blocking. Step 2) Stun. Again, simply stated, this is hitting the attacker back. This serves as both a way to damage him as well as a distraction applied so that his mind is occupied with something other than attacking you. This can be strikes of any kind at any range. Step 3) Unbalance. This is taking the individual’s center. It can be as little as a destabilizing tug on a trapped arm or as complex as a takedown. In this step, you move to a superior position over your attacker and make it more difficult for him to do damage to you. Step 4) Control. This is control of the attacker as well as the entire situation. It could be a joint manipulation, a choke from standing or the ground, a knock out, any of these will do. A quick side note. These should kind of go in this order. However, in the fluidity of a fight, some movements will sever multiple functions. For example, in response to a wide hook, one might evade by slipping under the strike. A stun could follow as you drag a counter hook of your own behind the initial evasion. It makes contact and knocks the attacker cold. In this case, it serves as a controlling motion as well because the bad guys are taking a nap on the ground. If you really wanted to split hairs, it is also an unbalancing movement because he had to lose balance to fall. At this point, I'll just be glad he's out and I'm fine and leave the fine points to the post-event breakdown. I hope this helps explain not only the basics of principle based training but also gives those interested a guide to developing their own set of principles. Hopefully, if nothing else, it will help give some ideas about more fluid training tactics and mind set training. Thanks for taking the time to read.

yeasterday- training at my old school. plenty of strking drills, move to sparring of various sorts followed by grappling to exhaustion. finished with knife work. spent time against good knifers wroking my scheme, it's showing really good results all things considered. today- 3 mile run

That straight armbar can be useful. It's also a good feed to set up a bent armbar in the opposite direction,which is excellent in it's own right. I think you'll find the extra comfot with it very handy in prone cuffing considering your profession. The other great thing about that particular movment is the stepping and distancing work you get with the reps. I agree with your comparison to the interception of a strike.

I agree. I don't think it was ever ment to be a literal interpertation of a fight sequence. I go back to my textbook analogy. It's to store up peices of combat for reference. That's in it's original form at least. Now modern construct forms are more likely to mimic fight combinations, however, many times I find these wanting in their construction.

Different sects of karate will have different styles of sparring, some will allow both knees and elos and other weapons as well. Some schools will vary within the same art depending on their focus. YOu'd probilby be suprised at how many do allow it in some form. Additionally, differnt types of sparring within training cycles might included them for wroking on certain tools or situations. It just depends. Still, you're probibly right about the majority of schools treatment of some very effective weapons. It's my understanding that the big sparring push came from Funikoshi in Shotokan. As to deliate how he came up with the specific regime and how it's evolved from there the ShotoKan guys on the site will probibly have better historical insight.

This is a pretty loaded topic and people tend to have strong feelings one way or the other. The idea of kata, as I understand it, was that it was not an imaginary fight but more of a text book for striking areas and tools that one could employ. Often complete movements were not constructed together and were difficult to interperate without guidance. Old kata bunkai were rarely obvious. Now, most of the moern era katas were designed with specific movments in mind and tend to string combinations of movements together. How useful or applicable they are tend to be based on the art and instructor. The benift is where you'll get heated debate. Personally, and this is just me, I don't do them or teach them. We live in a society where we can practice ms's openly. Any time spent memorizing kata can be, in my mind only, better spent actully practicing and repping movments in more practical drills. Additionally, you have to look at what the movements are, are they even useble? Are you with an instructor teaching the old forms? Does he know the bunkai to the movements of the pattern? If they are known, why not practice them in a more realistic fashoin? Now, that's just from my perspective. I have limited time to train, and I want to focus on more "live" practice and I'd rather train newer people via other drills. Now, if you're in ma's for diferent reason and preservation of old way and tradition are part of those reasons, then doing them is much more important to you. That's not less valid, it's just a differnt reason or set of reasons for training. That's all. It's a good questin to revist every so often to get new imput into it. Just expect fairly strong opinions both ways.

Well, you'l probibly get some mixed responses here. For my part, I think a fair degree of formalization occured during the modern era of ma's. This accounts for much of the things you're referring to. Some can probibly be attributed to training drills that have since had the meaning lost, ie the bunaki of old kata. Some may have roots in combat, others just don't and are a modern creation. Some were probibly more combative in an era when the spear and armor were used. My best guess is that the the roots of ma's from the east probibly looked very different from what they do now in most cases. Before I get blasted, note I said more, not all. Just my take. And welcome to the boards.

There's a few. I always have to stop and watch Roadhouse. I can't help it, beleive me, I wish I could. That's the first one that pops to mind. The first Smokey and the Bandit and SuperTroopers fall into this catagory for me as well. Open Range will also make me stop and pretty much drop whatever I'm doing.

today- 3 mile run

Welcome to KF! Looking forward to hearing your take on things.

I haven't had to do any of it. It's just something I've done. And I don't really spend alot of time putting stuff into it that we rep alot. It's more for stuff that is helpful hints, or out of another art, useful mindset stuff, historical stuff, ect... There's a ton of knife work in it, basic cuts and combos. A detailed write up of some chineese stuff that I always thought I'd work more with from time spent with a college roommate who was a practitioner. There's the occassional drill, ect. There's also about every handboook or syllibus that I've ever gotten in there. Now days, I use the same sort of thing online with my groups group's page. We post workouts afterwards so the guys can pull combos and drills off it whenever they're training out of class. Has the few hints on it, ect. Actaully, now that I think about it, it's pretty much the same thing only online.

In fairness, it's been thru a few subject changes in the body or replies