long time of medium workouts or a few very intense workouts

[ironsifu]

I may not be making someone into a professional fighter, or a hardened black belt, but I think that if someone is going to come to class, then I should be able to teach them to effectively defend themselves within a much shorter period of time that it takes to master an art, which the second point of view.

i think every teacher should have this as a goal. not to turn everyone into a professional fighter, exactly, but to make sure that every student has the skills of one. hardened black belt? yes, i believe that all black belts are supposed to be "hardened", if not, they should not be wearing a black belt.

but this, i understand, is a cultural thing. last saturday i was at a tournament and i met a very nice teacher of the kajukenbo style. he watched a couple of my girls sparring, and asked "black belt?", i said no, white belt. we ended up having a good conversation about how the black belt no longer means what it use to. for business, that might be good. but for the respect of the art, the teachers, and the school and styles, it is very bad. BLACK BELT use to mean, the best of the best, the end of a very long, difficult road to skill and achievement. today, many teachers consider it "only the beginning". that is ridiculous. but if the belt is earned in only three years, and even a 10 year can past the test, then maybe it is the beginning (of the "master's club membership" lol). but seriously, the black belt is called "dalubhasa"--expert level in my art, and many other styles too. it should never be just somebody who learned the curriculum, but should also be the ones who completely changed his body and his relationship with himself and theones around him, and how he possess his art, and how he views self defense and fighting.

in other words, he should be the kind of guy a bad guy would be committing suicide if he mess with him.

but these days it is the end of a contract term, and another patch on the uniform.

btw, the guys students and mine smashed that day.

one last thought, when the black belt is given easily, skill is no longer the goal, the goals become the next step... degrees. so we end up with 1st degree by 11 years old, 2nd degree at 14, 3rd at 17, 4th by 20 years old, 5th degree at 23.... all the way to 30 year old grandmasters!

[bushido_man96]

I'm not saying that a black belt shouldn't be a very dedicated individual, or that he/she should be soft. I do think that they should be fairly fit, and be able to hold their own.

I just think that there is a difference between training to fight, and training to survive.

We also have to have an idea of what we are. Are we teaching fighting/self-defense techniques, or are we personal trainers? Should every Martial Arts school be doing the 300 training regimen? Some things, a person has to do in their own, I think.

[ironsifu]

i believe good training, good fighting skill, and excellent physical conditioning should go hand in hand. fighitng skill comes from good training, and one of the reasons you will be a good fighters is because of the hard training and strong body.

i just looked up 300, and wow, thats a great program. a good martial arts program should be a good alternative for personal training. about one quarter of my students are one on one students, but they train the same way the ones in my classes study. everyone will do martial arts for a different reason, but as long as we dont lean too much in one direction, a solid martial arts program have something for everybody. if we train them right, they can get cuts and "thunder & lightning" in each hand too (lol). i always joke with my guys we do push ups for thunder and lightning, and to look cute in t-shirts too. but hopefully there not out there looking to get in fights, its a bad way to meet women (most of them are married men anyway).

has anybody looked at the old kyokushinkai schools of the 60s and 70s? those guys were very traiditonal, and excellent shape. i think, a good example of how the school should be run. when you look at the black belters of those days, and compare to todays' you see that we actually went backwards. i am hoping that the new trend will return back to the old way. in my town (sacramento california) when i first moved here i was the only mostly adult school, but now, there is at least 5, and that's a good sign.

[ironsifu]

oh, and thats adult school without tae bo (thank God that trend went away)...

[bushido_man96]

One thing that we do agree on, the training should be difficult. I think that one should get stronger doing the MAs.

[tallgeese]

Actually, I do think that unused skills, even when one is very skilled in them, do deterorate without repetition.

For instance, when I was competitive, I'd spend the 2-3 months leading up to a fight training only with the rules set of that competition. No small joint stuff or weapons. Then, when done, I'd go back to integrating all my skills into my sd game.

Guess what, my timing and flow weren't there they way they had been. I'd have to work them back up to speed. Now, for this sort of thing I will conceed you have to limit your training to a certain "set" of skills if you want to be competitive. But even withing that set you have to be diverse.

Now, removing competive goals from the equation, you can't have skills dropping off the radar for extended periods. If you spend less time on a skill, it sould be because your fighting principles define that skill as less important than others. This is a different deliniation than you're talking about.

As an example, while I consider unarmed training vs. a knife and club impoortant skills, I don't spend as much time working them since I've started carrying a gun for a living. Given my profession, my primary tool of choice in these encounters would be to deploy my firearm. Therefore, I can shave some unarmed time off of dealing with those to add time training in other things. Including now, range time.

It's not to say that I never train them, but just that as people and circumstances evlove, you might re-evaluated how certain skill fit into your defensive plan.

That's very different than choosing to train in only one aspect of the fight game for quiker results in a single catagory.

[ironsifu]

i agree with most of what you said (tallgeese). but in the long run, skill stays sharp once you have it built, and even though it takes a lot of time and training to build it, once you have it, it doesnt take too much to keep it.

what you do for competition seasons is the same thing we do, and we look at it as training for this season, and that season, and overall training. the end result of everything is just plain old good fighting skill in the end, which is what we all want.

earlier a few people talked about overtraining or doing too much. i dont believe you can plateau and stop improving. there is always improvement that can happen. using boxing again, take floyd maywether at 21 years old ad then floyd at 29. at 21 it looked like this guy cant get no faster and better, and at 29 he is a light year better than when he was younger. there is a saying that there is always somebody going to be bigger, faster and stronger than you out there, just make sure that guy is you. we should never be satisfied with our presence skill.

[ShoriKid]

Training a technique to the exclusion of all others for a quarter of a year will cause a deterioration of your other tools. If you have a high degree of skill, you must maintain them. A pro fighter would not neglect all of his tools except one for that period of time. The loss and lack of intergration renders whatever skill increase you experience null and void.

If you train a single technique as the focus of a class, that's fine. If your goal is to improve the jab, to use your example, then the next several classes, you start out with working the jab. Then your work the angles with the jab the next class. Then the next time, warm up with the jab, learn to use it setting up your cross. Next class, jab into the hook. Then the jab into the low purring kick. Then the jab to close for the double leg. Then, the jab as a defensive cover your retreat and motion. Then the jab to cover movement by obscuring vision with it. Then, the jab to counter or cut other strikes and follow up with a combination. Now you've spent time on the jab each class, in exclusion, say five three minute rounds each class as your warm up. And, your still working other martial applications and learning to use the jab in the context of an actual fight. And, you've gotten 8 classes, at one a week that's 2 months, focused on the jab. You've sharpened that skill considerably without completely forgetting about everything else your working on.

If you've already gotten your skills to such a high level that not training them for 3 months won't hurt them, the gains given by sole focus on a single technique will be negliable at best. It has nothing to do with martial arts being a race, or the drop in quality of blackbelts. It has everything to do with developing overall compitency. That's why forms don't consist of a signle technique over and over.

[ironsifu]

If you've already gotten your skills to such a high level that not training them for 3 months won't hurt them, the gains given by sole focus on a single technique will be negliable at best. It has nothing to do with martial arts being a race, or the drop in quality of blackbelts. It has everything to do with developing overall compitency. That's why forms don't consist of a signle technique over and over.

exactly. that is what i am talking about. we are developing our students, one skill at a time. will we train with others? yes, but for a month at a time, there is one focus. for my intermediate/advance guys, its three months, but at that time they are already fighting black belters.

i did see something i would like to start another topic, and it was something shorikid spoke about, one skill in one class, another skill in another class, and so on... but everything about one technique (in his example, the jab).

[bushido_man96]

If you train a single technique as the focus of a class, that's fine. If your goal is to improve the jab, to use your example, then the next several classes, you start out with working the jab. Then your work the angles with the jab the next class. Then the next time, warm up with the jab, learn to use it setting up your cross. Next class, jab into the hook. Then the jab into the low purring kick. Then the jab to close for the double leg. Then, the jab as a defensive cover your retreat and motion. Then the jab to cover movement by obscuring vision with it. Then, the jab to counter or cut other strikes and follow up with a combination. Now you've spent time on the jab each class, in exclusion, say five three minute rounds each class as your warm up. And, your still working other martial applications and learning to use the jab in the context of an actual fight. And, you've gotten 8 classes, at one a week that's 2 months, focused on the jab. You've sharpened that skill considerably without completely forgetting about everything else your working on.

I agree with this kind of set up. If you want to work a technique, doing it this way will help you integrate the focus technique into the rest of your training.

there is always improvement that can happen. using boxing again, take floyd maywether at 21 years old ad then floyd at 29. at 21 it looked like this guy cant get no faster and better, and at 29 he is a light year better than when he was younger.

I think Maywether as an example is a bit skewed. This guy is a professional athlete and fighter, who would have spent upwards of 8 hours a day training, most likely 6 days a week. The typical Martial Arts practitioner doesn't have that kind of time to devote to training.

On the flip side of that arguement, you could look at George Foreman's jab when he fought Michael Moore at age 40 something, and when he fought Ali or Frazier when he was younger. I wouldn't say that his jab was better, but he could still win the title.