tallgeese

Anger isn't really needed. Emotion, will, mindset, these are important. Anger can cause adrenal response but it's not really THE motivation you need. I prefer a professional, worker like attitude towards the matter. However, aggression must be met with aggressive action. There is a real difference between anger and aggression. Fear is a powerful emotion, and one we all have. And it's one that can be useful and has been in the human condition for some time. If you're interested in the subject, check out "The Gift of Fear" by Gavin DeBecker. He has some excellent insight into the matter. Lastly, here is some footage that depict the box drill I mentioned earlier to give you some idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl5BGhSZ39k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq7dcO5DcmE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsTFGb_5yYw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl5BGhSZ39k Bear in mind these are plenty of variations of what you can incorporate. These are, for us, highly situational. The attacks and response options should mimic your reality as well.

Welcome back to the arts and welcome to KF!

12/2 Drilled arm bar from mount utilizing a collar choke set up. Moved into arm bar from S mount. 30 min free roll. 15 min sparring work. Cool down with MT kick work. Teeps, Power, Swicth. Knees.

Thank you for the kind words, Patrick. I am humbled. And thanks to everyone else as well. Being both a member of this community and a moderator is an honor. I really do believe in the community and the level of discourse that Patrick has fostered here. It is fantastic to be part of such a thoughtful group of martial arts who can discuss, debate, and disagree is such a civil manner. I appreciate Patrick for putting this all together and everyother member who has taken part in the discussions since I've been here. Thank you all.

That could very well be the case, I don't know enough about the educational side to comment. For me, the biggest thing I took was the concept that some individuals will intrinsically learn better with different learning process. His linking it to kata got me thinking. For all my distaste for the kata process, and discussion of adult leaning theory, there might be students who lean better via methods like kata, despite the fact that it, to my thought process, it's not the best method for combat prep. So, despite the fact that the method I use is pretty solid, there might be people with the same goals as I that don't work the same as I do. Forget the effectiveness of the modality. That's something that tells me that that guy I need to send elsewhere. That would probably be better for him and me.

11/30 am: Drilled straight ankle lock, followed by heel hook. 30 min free roll. multiple rounds no gi for fighter prep. pm: knife pattern work 12/1 stick pattern work

Here's a fantastic talk about learning styles that makes a wide range of great points across a lot of domains. That said, there's some really specific application and reflection from the martial arts domain that bear listening to. It's the kind of thing that could make me modify my anti- kata stance a bit under certain circumstances for certain individuals. If you're an instructor of any sort (martial arts or otherwise) it's worth listening to.

11/29 Drilled knee bar from top, transition to ankle lock review. Moved into knee compression locks from bottom half guard. Then applied same compression lock from back. 30 min free roll.

This is really dependent on the structure of the systems you are involved in. This, to me, is a very easy question if the systems are different. There's no reason you shouldn't claim them from qualified instructors in different schools if you've earned them. That said, I can see some issues if it's the same style, but even then I wouldn't see too much of a problem. You earned the rank.

First up, welcome to KF! Glad to have you. On the subject, it's always a good topic to go over. For developing combat mindset there are a lot of things to consider. First up, and I won't dwell, but make sure that you're training in a system that has the tools you need for self defense. They training methods need to line up with your goals as well as the tools they are teaching. On this note, they have to be tools that work for you. There are plenty of guys that can throw their shin up to an attacker's head. I'm not one of them. So, no matter how effective the kicks of certain systems might be it's not something that would be time effective for me to try to employ. So take a look at your goals, physical attributes, and the school you're at to make sure they all come together. Now, let's more on to how to develop that skill set to a functional level under stress. First, those skills that match your goals and are good tools for your goal must be drilled to the point of unconscious competence. Your body must respond without thought or you'll never stand a chance of getting it to work under duress. That means that you can't get tired of repping the basics. That's gonna be your life when it's on. Don't get bored with going over and over things. Those unconscious reps are mandatory. You must do it so that you can't get it wrong. There's a saying that I'm paraphrasing that essentially is: Good people practice until they get it right, great people practice till they can't get it wrong. That's what you want to strive for in this case. Next, and you touch on it in your post, think about filling in gaps that you might have that cause you to question your competence. So, if you're worried about being stuck on the bottom by a bigger person, train in a grappling art. Dig into BJJ and go until you've got that answer. My opinion only, if you've been around for a bit a blue belt at BJJ you've gotten a lot of self defense answers from the ground perspective. If you're worried about weapons, spend some time working with arts that make you defended them. Once you've accounted for this, integrate them. Work the different aspects of your background against each other to find their strengths and weaknesses and how to blend them. This make you more tactically competent AND makes you more confident in your skill set. Psychological studies tell us that the more confident in a skill set one is the better they are to perform that skill under stress. Now we come to the meat of your questions. How to take this and get it ready to work real world. Stress inoculation is your friend in this instance. You're going to take those skills and try to work them under stress against resistance. You'll start at low resistance and work higher. Check out Grossman's works, On Killing and On Combat to really get into the principles of this and how to use it. The idea is that you're building the traits of combat veterans into individuals who have not yet experienced fights thru training. Lots of this will be based around simulation training or scenario based training. Simulation training is taking a part of a skill set and putting it into a realistic situation while scenario based training is the complete skill set done with realism. The beginning to end of the encounter. There's lots of good ways to do this. Adding physical exhaustion prior to simulation training is a good start. So pick a drill, do sets of HIIT training then go and run the drill live. Do this by rounds. Add external stimuli as well. Kill the lights, add strobes, blast music, ect. All these will add stress to your response. Conduct "box drills" where you put a box (or loose bag) over your head. Have a partner armor up and give them some parameters to attack with (say, knife, gun, tackle, punch, or no attack at all) A third partner will then pull the box and make you respond. This kind of spontaneous response will build discrimination and mindset. Do circle drills where you are in the middle of your partners and they get to attack you from any angle, one at a time, and try to surprise you. Then respond. Then all multiple attackers. Expect to get hit when you train like this. That's okay and it's not failure, it's training and it's reality. Thing WILL NOT go to plan under the stress of a real fight. Learn here how to adapt to it. There's a ton of drills out there. Do some research and be creative. Keep your mindset at all times. Use this kind of training to identify holes in your game and then go back to the start of the process. Learn skills to fill them, rep them to death, integrate them, then pressure test them. Lastly, exercise the intellectual side of developing mindset. When you're not in the gym spend time in the stuff you need to be reading to build and understanding of mindset and how it works: Warrior Mindset by Asken, On Combat and On Killing by Grossman, Sharpening the Warriors Edge by Siddle, Living the Martial Way by Morgan. Don't forget the classics: The Hagakure, Book of Five Rings, Soul of the Samurai. All of these are good as well as plenty of others. I'm always looking for more material, you should be as well. Anyway, just some thoughts. Keep training and keep us posted.

I concur, I hope it goes well. There need to be more leagues out there to develop fighters. There's a pretty good gap between most promotions and the UFC. Some intermediate steps would be good for the progression of up and comers. And I like Bas, I'd like to see it make a go of it.

Both of those books are "must read" in my opinion.

Absolutely... I second this notion... Finding out the instructor's credibility and history is a must (don't just take the words on his Web site for granted, look into it!) What these guys said. I have no problem with eclectic styles, that said, I want lineage on where the components came from, how long the coach in question trained in given disciplines, ect. That helps establish why he's even qualified to start thinking systemically. I'd also be wary of it just because I didn't see any information about the principles or outlook of the system. Most places that do this sort of thing will explain their outlook. I find it disturbing that they are so vague. Vague always makes me question. Lastly, the claim of teaching BJJ is getting more common these days. That said, there's no instructor named and no lineage there. That's even more rare in BJJ than it is in oriental arts. It's a system that really prides itself on self regulation and legitimate instructors. To not put that out there is odd. Again, it does not mean that the school isn't good. It just means that the presentation would raise some serious questions for me.

Happy Holidays all!

I concur with just about everything that everyone has said, including welcome to KF. There's a lot of good advice listed above. For me, looking at the double and single, particularly the power double, is a great tool. Additionally, consider any type of body lock takedown. These are easy to execute, rely on body weight and mechanics that are often simpler to conduct under stress than other takedowns, and usually present less counter opportunities than others, thus keeping you safer. Lastly, really think about MP's advice. if you're going to work takedowns, be prepared to capitalize on the advantage you gain by their use.

11/27 Drilled knee bar set up from top half guard. Transition to straight ankle lock. Finished with technique by reviewing knee compression from Monday. 20 min free roll.

11/25 Drilled straight ankle lock and knee compression lock. 45 min free roll. 15 min stand up sparring.

11/24 60 min free roll. Spent a lot of time working leg attacks.

11/22 8 hour day of knife seminar work. Knife patterns, disarming, application. Finished with spontaneous response drills incorporating armed and unarmed encounters as well as the knife work from the day.

11/21 45 min free roll. No gi grappling working with the fighter prep. Some rounds off of cage.

Congrats! I like the fact that it's a little site specific tradition that happened out of hand.

11/20 Reviewed ankle locks from last time. Added heel hoot from from partner recomposing guard from bottom side. 30 min free roll. 15 min sparring work.

11/18 Drilled ankle locks from side. Transition to knee bar. 35 min free roll.

I used to be rabidly anti-bouncing. I'm with MP on this point, if you want good drive and solid position to work from, you have to be "seated" if you will in a stance. Grounded. This does not mean that your stance should be immobile, in fact, it should move and be designed for high levels of mobility. But it should be a structurally sound core from which to generate power at just about any point. That said, I've more recently been modifying my view just a bit. I've had some exposure to JKD methods that utilize a single bounce or multiple bounces to help control angle and distance at kickboxing ranges. The big difference between what I see most often in previous exposure to bouncing tactics and what I'm seeing with these experiments is the angle and directed movement. It's never bouncing for no reason, it's directed movement for a specific purpose. That should go without saying, but I'm not certain that it does. Still, on a whole, I like less rather than more bouncing. For my personal journey, the bounce has let me cut the occasional angle but more often it's let me control distance in while circling. However, the trade off is that I can always generate more power (for attack) or frame (for defense) if I'm more grounded with my stance work. So I've moved from an "absolutely no bouncing" position to more of a moderately anti-bouncing thought process.

11/16 More D'Arce work. Drilled Anaconda choke as well. 60 min free roll.