As practitioners of martial arts, or combative
disciplines if you prefer to call it that way, we strive to achieve the best
possible command of the technical tools we use in such endeavors. Saying the
full mastery of techniques could be somewhat presumptuous, but that would be
the goal to aim for. But, how do we know when our technical understanding is on
a satisfactory level? Don’t’ you love it when answers come from unexpected
places?
I guess we all seek to find the right criteria and
diagnostic approaches to find an answer to that question, especially so if
we’re instructors and wish to monitor the progress among our trainees. Well,
after years of building some resemblance of a coherent set of criteria, I got
an excellent, almost ready-made measurement “filter” from my music teacher
Anthony Wellington. Ant is a superb instructor with solid curriculum and great
pedagogy when working with his students. So, he told me that a person learning
some piece of music needs to have four dimensions of understanding in place, in
order to attain the full command of what they’re working on: intellectual,
visual, aural and tactile.
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| From this... |
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| ...to this! |
Since the aural grasp is not so much pertinent for
our purposes here, the domains we need to get a grip of are the following:
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Intellectual;
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Visual;
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Tactile-outgoing;
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Tactile-incoming.
Intellectual
understanding, basically, means the ability to explain (verbally) what is
required of a practitioner who is performing an action. The less you need to resort
to the physical demonstration, the better. Also, it entails being able to
explain why the thing are done the way they are done.
Visual
understanding, as you probably presume, means being capable of understanding
what is going on when you see a technical maneuver in action. For example, if
you’re watching a boxing or grappling match and have no “what has just
happened?” moments. The lack in this domain is typically why the grand majority
of lay persons find BJJ or other grappling types of fights confusing and
boring.
Tactile-outgoing
sphere is developing the feel for the right technique. When it is accomplished,
you don’t even need anybody to watch and comment your performance, or analyzing
the video footage, to tell you that some details of your technique are flawed,
or what needs to be worked on. Also, such tactile awareness helps you adapt to
the actions of your opponent/training partner. However, even if well developed,
this field of tactile insight is still just one side of the coin, hence the
need for…
Tactile-incoming
perception,
which is how I call the ability to figure out what is going on and how it is
done, while you are on the receiving end of a maneuver. This is especially
important for some of the more intricate holds and tactics, especially in
clinching, grappling and similar situations. I love being the demo dummy (or uke for the more traditionally oriented
people out there) during seminars and regular training sessions[1],
for this exact reason.
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| Four-pronged approach to understanding |
Naturally, the best learning situations are those in
which a few or all of those aspects are accessible. Let’s take the example of a
seminar. Ideally, the instructor conducting the session would be highly
eloquent (but not a logorrhea-suffering type) and well-articulated with his
explanations, as well as able to answer the questions accurately and
succinctly. Also, his demonstration of whatever technical actions would be
clear and well executed, while the participants would have a good an unobstructed
view of the action, maybe even from more than one angle. Next, the said
participants would then have ample time and opportunity to practice executing
the techniques on more than one partner, but also to feel those techniques
being applied on them.
Over time, the four domains of understand start
melting together, thus enabling a more holistic understanding. I mentioned
before my inclination to serve as the dummy for technical demonstrations. At
this stage I have developed enough kinesthetic and proprioceptive perception to
make it possible for me to see the action being done with my “inner eye”, while
having it executed on me. On the other hand, seeing it done with someone else
(or maybe on video) often elicits certain physical sensations in the parts of
the body that would be affected by the hold in question. Sometimes the same
goes while hearing a good explanation from a good instructor. You get the
picture….
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Hopefully, this article will help other
practitioners and instructors in doing more efficient analysis of their
training and spend less time trying to figure out what is going on and how to
proceed with it. Have in mind that developing this level of understanding takes
time and the process needs to be engaged again many times, when encountering
new and unfamiliar type of moves and techniques.
[1] Of
course, if the instructor at hand is not of a sadistic predisposition and/or
prone to inflicting injuries and hurting people just to stroke his ego or prove
something.
