question about drills

[apoweyn]

does anyone else feel that we sometimes put the cart before the horse?

i've been handed all these drills, which i then turn around and teach to my students. and then we try to apply those drills to our sparring.

sometimes that feels very backward to me. so i'm increasingly trying to take note of very specific things that happen in sparring and then devise drills to address them.

perhaps that sounds obvious, like something i should have been doing all along. thoughts?


stuart b.

[mantis108]

Thus, the birth of the prototypical forms of Apoweyn Moon/Pai/Ryu/Style (fill in whichever fits the bill.) ;)

Mantis108

[yenhoi]

Think less, fight more.

:mad:

[norther practitioner]

That sounds like some of the more "new school" approaches I have seen. Some of the ways people tend to look at this is that two man drills should be like forms. It trains your body in such a way to make these movements second nature, thus it should come out in sparring. Unfortunately with many students they don't, and they just end up sparring with a taekwon do style. A mixture of the two, in my opinion, would work just fine. To see how different students move and what techniques they try to apply may be helpful in deciding which two or multi person drills to concentrate on.
Just my thoughts.

[apoweyn]

yenhoi,

i understand what you're saying (in monosyllables). in the end, it comes down to just doing it. obviously. but in the beginning, i'd like to think that teachers have more to contribute than 'think less. fight more.'

[shaolinboxer]

" i'm increasingly trying to take note of very specific things that happen in sparring and then devise drills to address them. "

I thought that's what drills were.

Are you saying that you are training your student differently than you were trained? How will they then learn what it is you learned? Do you think your own training is insufficient? Then why are you teaching at all?

[chingei]

Originally posted by apoweyn
does anyone else feel that we sometimes put the cart before the horse?

i've been handed all these drills, which i then turn around and teach to my students. and then we try to apply those drills to our sparring.

sometimes that feels very backward to me. so i'm increasingly trying to take note of very specific things that happen in sparring and then devise drills to address them.

perhaps that sounds obvious, like something i should have been doing all along. thoughts?


stuart b.

why reinvent the wheel?

those drills didn't come from thin air. you may end up 'creating' things that only reflect the particular group you work with at a given time and that may not prepare the members of that group for experiences outside of said group

[Water Dragon]

You're doing things exactly like you should Apowen. Think about it like this:

No two boxing coaches teach boxing the same way
No two wrestling coaches teach wrestling the same way
No two little league coaches teach baseball the same way
No two....

Why should everyone in CMA teach the same way? Figure out what works for you when teaching. Figure out what makes your students pick things up.

The sparring exists to make sure you stay on the right track.

[apoweyn]

thanks waterdragon. i appreciate it.


chingei,

"why reinvent the wheel? those drills didn't come from thin air. you may end up 'creating' things that only reflect the particular group you work with at a given time and that may not prepare the members of that group for experiences outside of said group"

well, no they didn't come from thin air. nor did they come from a lineage of perfect, infallible superbeings. they came from people. and given how many fallible human beings stand between me and the mythic underpinnings of any given art, it seems to me that if we don't address drills mindfully, then we stand to inherit flaws. to say otherwise suggests an absolute faith in anyone and everyone that came before me. and i don't believe that blind faith, immune from questioning and analysis, is a safe bet.

the notion of creating things based on this group alone is interesting, but i'm not really worried about it. if i perceive that we're having a problem punching out of the clinch, for example, and i devise an exercise that addresses the problem, how would that not convert to someone else who's having trouble punching out of the clinch?

does that mean i'll make every student for the rest of time immemorial practice punching out of the clinch? no.


shaolinboxer,

"I thought that's what drills were. Are you saying that you are training your student differently than you were trained? How will they then learn what it is you learned? Do you think your own training is insufficient? Then why are you teaching at all?"

ideally, that's precisely what they are. but when ideals and real people clash, it's often the foibles of real people that win out. my first eskrima teacher, for example, was a showman. he liked the visually exciting potential of eskrima. me, i'm less so. so certain drills as he taught me should be viewed with a critical eye, not because i don't have regard for those who came before me, but because i recognize that i'm a different person with different priorities (as are my students).

yes, i'm training my students differently than i was trained. i believe that it's a mindful teacher's responsibility to be open to change.

how will they learn what i learned? they won't learn what i learned by rote. they'll learn what i have to offer because i communicate to them a distillation of my experiences. some of my experiences cause me to evaluate how i've done things and try them differently.

different points of my training have been insufficient, yes. and i addressed those points by making changes, which is precisely what i'm proposing here.

my view of teaching is not that i'm in a relay race, passing off a baton to the next runner just as it was passed to me by the previous runner. i'm a person, taught by a person and teaching other people. what i teach them is based on experiences, mistakes, and decisions. the trick, in my opinion, is to be mindful and open in those decisions.


stuart b.

[red5angel]

Ap - I think you might be reinventing the wheel! What you sayin is very logical and has probably already been done more times then is countable. As a matter of fact I would hazard a guess that the drills you practice already were designed by someone who watched sparring or fighting and came up with a way to put valuable repitition training into the mix.

[Water Dragon]

Originally posted by red5angel
As a matter of fact I would hazard a guess that the drills you practice already were designed by someone who watched sparring or fighting and came up with a way to put valuable repitition training into the mix.

True. But here's the problem. Who are those drills for? What specific problem did they have that the drill was supposed to fix. The drill is in regard to what type of problem (striking, grappling, etc.) Was the drill used for all students or just one or two. How does the drill tye into overall fighting strategy?

If you don't have the answers to all these (and more) questions. The drill is probably doing you no good anyway.

[ReverendTim]

Makes perfect sense to me, and I would love to study with a teacher that took that kind of time.

I'm not sure you're reinventing the wheel, either. Not every student is going to be exposed to every drill a system's ever devised. Like, if I'm really naturally good at, say, slipping punches...I just have a real knack for it, my teacher probably won't spend a lot of time giving me drills that train it. But then later on down the line, when I'm a teacher, what if I come across a student who's just horrible at it? There might be a perfect drill for it, but I've never been exposed to it. So why not design one myself? That's what makes a good teacher good AND what keeps systems alive and not just rote repetitions for their own sakes.

Just my 2 cents...

--
Rev. Tim

[apoweyn]

red5angel,

i don't think i am reinventing the wheel.

"I would hazard a guess that the drills you practice already were designed by someone who watched sparring or fighting and came up with a way to put valuable repitition training into the mix."

that assumes that there's been no degradation, no shift in priority, no change in the way people spar, and no amount of half-arsedness (?) for hundreds of years though. and i don't really believe that.

besides, i'm not talking about reinventing chi sao, for example. but honestly, when you spar, does your chi sao look the way it does when you're drilling it?

please bear in mind that i'm not talking about inventing a catalogue of new drills. i'm talking about a more mindful application of drills. look at the live performance of the art, and then make use of the available drills (or make new drills available) to redress any needs that become apparent.


stuart b.

[apoweyn]

reverendtim and waterdragon,

thanks fellas. now we're getting to the heart of it. i do perceive a need and i don't think i'm nuts for doing so. you've both expressed that need far better than i was able to do.


stuart b.

[chingei]

Originally posted by apoweyn
well, no they didn't come from thin air. nor did they come from a lineage of perfect, infallible superbeings. they came from people. and given how many fallible human beings stand between me and the mythic underpinnings of any given art, it seems to me that if we don't address drills mindfully, then we stand to inherit flaws. to say otherwise suggests an absolute faith in anyone and everyone that came before me. and i don't believe that blind faith, immune from questioning and analysis, is a safe bet.



don't get me wrong, I'm not saying your drills are without merit. I think they would be a good complement to the standard drills, but not a replacement. the two together should be very valuable. It seems to me though, that the standard drills represent however many generations of trainers/teachers who've already done what you are doing. why not benefit from this, while adding to it, rather than starting from scratch?

[Water Dragon]

Ap,
Try goal oriented drills as well. My BJJ teacher got me turned onto them and I love them now. I'm convinced these are the way to go. Here's a couple (one for the ground, one standing up)

Drill 1: Person A is sitting on the ground with his legs closed. Person B is kneeling in front of him clasping both knees. Person A's goal is to pull B into guard. Person B's goal is to get cross mount.

Drill 2: Person A wants to shoot and throw Person B. Person B wants to use strikes only to keep A out of range

[JWTAYLOR]

so i'm increasingly trying to take note of very specific things that happen in sparring and then devise drills to address them.

Call me crazy, but if they are already doing it in sparring then what do you plan on teaching them?

I mean, they are already dealing with it, right?

JWT

[red5angel]

"If you don't have the answers to all these (and more) questions. The drill is probably doing you no good anyway"

I believe this statement to be incorrect. a drill usually covers just a few things. I have never seen a drill taht is all encompassing. Most tend to ofcus on one or two specifics, hence the drilling over and over again. For instance many CMA drills are designed to produce proper body mechanics.
Ap - the goal should be for it to look very close yes but ultimately a drill is always controlled, sparring is free form. I think inherently they will always be different. I know I have been doing a drill for too long if while I am doing it it becomes mechanical, for instance, if my arms are just 'rolling' and not looking for and feeling the sensitivity.

"please bear in mind that i'm not talking about inventing a catalogue of new drills. i'm talking about a more mindful application of drills. look at the live performance of the art, and then make use of the available drills (or make new drills available) to redress any needs that become apparent. "

I think all drills should be mindful, they all have purpose. You are correct to say that some may have 'lost' something in the past, due to laziness or ineptitude or what have you. I do believe however that if you are mindful and if your are purposefull, even a drill that has lost something will reveal its goal to you.
A good example is sticky hands, most wing chun people are just rolling hands, flip flopping with no real purpose, rushing it really. A good chi sau is slow and mindful, sensitive.
I am not saying that someone shouldnt make their own drills if they need to, just that if you are doing a drill and it doesnt seem applicable, then a.) there may be other drills for what you are looking for or b) you may be doing the drill incorrectly.

[apoweyn]

chingei and red5angel,

i agree with both of you that it's not wise to disgard drills for the sake of it. and that wasn't really my point. i never meant to imply that i was doing away with existing drills nor that i planned to devise a pile of new ones. my point was that we have drills and we have sparring. and the goal is to close the gap between the two so that the skills learned in the former manifest themselves in the latter.

so how do we do that? insist that sparring only work in such ways that the drills will work as practiced? or change the performance of the drill so that it can actually be applied in sparring?

take hubud from eskrima for example. (similar to chi sao in some ways) when we train it, we maintain a certain distance. but that distance isn't maintained in sparring. so why not practice hubud with closing ranges? nothing wrong with training it the original way. you get to practice the whole range of motion that way and get a feel for the flow of the thing. but why not also have modifications of it that actually pattern how sparring works? that way, the skills will more easily transfer.

then there's the creation of new drills. if i see that a student is having trouble in sparring... he always gets pegged with kicks to the leg, for example, why wouldn't i devise an exercise that focuses on defending the leg so that he can get some solid practice at it? say he can attack with whatever he wants, but his opponent can only counter to the legs. that way, the guy can concentrate on improving one skill without worrying about everything else. then you go back to freesparring, and he's got some extra experience under his belt.

make sense?


stuart b.

[apoweyn]

JWT,

well, no. they aren't doing them. i'm watching sparring and trying to identify things that aren't going right. then trying to devise exercises that concentrate on learning to do them right in a slightly more controlled setting, rather than just telling them to figure it out while they're busy worrying about everything else.

i don't know about you, but in the middle of a freesparring match, i want to be freesparring. not trying to work out why i suck at defending against the right hook. i'm not going to make any big strides in figuring that out while i'm worrying about everything else too.

better to take note of the trouble i'm having with the right hook, then sit down and devise an exercise for it. it may be something as straightforward as telling my partner "do me a favour, throw lots of right hooks." i've now placed a parameter on my opponent's technique beyond those inherent in the sparring format expressly so that i can develop a skill. to my mind, that's a drill.


stuart b.

[apoweyn]

water dragon,

yeah! that's exactly the sort of thing i'm interested in. cheers.


stuart b.

[JWTAYLOR]

Oh, ok, I get it.

Then yeah, do look for drills to work those things.

But, first recognize and work the techniques you've been shown that already deal with those problems. Only then should you decide if it does or doesn't work for you or specific students.

JWT

[apoweyn]

JWT,

good call. thanks.


stuart b.

[ReverendTim]

The way I see it, whether you're teaching martial arts or American history or watercolor painting, a good teacher is someone who can identify what a student needs to know and how best to get them to know it.

If someone needs it, and the old way isn't working, then it is utterly irresponsible of a teacher to shrug his shoulders and give up on the student; you have an OBLIGATION to devise a way to teach them that will be meaningful to them.

Good teaching is good teaching, regardless of subject matter.

--
Rev. Tim

[red5angel]

Hey Ap - I understand what you are getting at. Take your Hubud example. I assumed that with any drill like that, chi sao for instance, you would eventually start to break away from 'traditional' methods of trianing. For example, in chi sao it is progressive. you start with dan chi, move to rolling, and then chi sao, and then sparirng. I guess I assume that although sparring would be done at a set distance at first, at some point this would change and you would drill entry bridging techniques as well, and so on and so on.
I dont think many people get that far really in thier own training before they start teaching and so for some it may not occur to them to follow this progression. For me wing chun is always growing and at some point I may have been doing all the traditional drills and may mix it up some to get some fresh perspective.

[shaolinboxer]

Ap -

Good answers :). I bet you're doing a great job!

[apoweyn]

shaolinboxer,

hey, thanks mate. i appreciate that.


stuart b.

[apoweyn]

red5angel,

i think you're absolutely right. that's a good progression. the trick is actually following that progression. it's too easy to fall into the trap of saying "hubud addresses this sort of thing" and leaving it at that. you've got to actually do the work to make that so, like you said. start out with a basic version, and then add variables or remove restrictions gradually until the drill matches the experience. and by then, skills learned in the drill will show in sparring.

certainly, good hubud, chi sao, or whatever should do those things. the trick is to 1) remain vigilant that they honestly do in your own practice and 2) to devise similar drills to address circumstances not explicitly addressed by existing drills.

i've heard wing chun practitioners discuss 'sticking legs' too. is there a similar training method for that? just curious.


stuart b.

[red5angel]

I believe in the wing chun world many people have lost site of that progression. They believe that chi sao is good the way it is, sort o fthat if it is not broke, dont fix it. Many many schools end with that.
As for sticky legs, well, I have seen it done, I dont think you get the same thing from it as you do chi sao. Legs just arent as flexible as arms are. Regardless I am sure you can get soemthing out of it but I havent seen any real skill come from it.

[apoweyn]

i hear ya.

[fa_jing]

We practice the sticky legs drill (Chi Gerk). Red5 is right, it is not the same level of usefulness as Chi Sao. But, it is a great drill. First of all, good way to train your balance in the one legged stance, great (grueling) exercise at the end of your session lifting your leg repeatedly, trains the surfaces we strive to use with our leg blocks, conditions responsiveness and sensitivity in the legs. Like chi sao, you won't be finding yourself in this actual position in too many fights. Especially since you hold onto your partner's arms for balance while you perform the drill.

I think once you know your style, you can add things onto existing drills. For instance, the Chi Sao roll could be initiated from a hands-apart starting point. The important thing is not to bypass the existing traditional drills, they are all useful and exist for a reason, each has it's merits and is a natural outgrowth of the style.

-FJ

[red5angel]

FJ- Thanks for bringing the balance aspect up! I totally blew that off! I knew there was a reason why I liked the drill but I have alwyas thought sticky legs was a misnomer.