CROWDED TOOLBOXES

[Brent Yamamoto]

Another example...

There are a lot of trainers out there that have studied 6 months of everything. That means they know very little about many things.

There are a lot of trainers that are experts at one thing, with no experience in anything else. That means they know a lot about one subject. Maybe they are very, very good at that one subject. You can learn that subject from them. But when they start speaking outside their subject area, pull out the grains of salt and always employ the sniff test.

There are a few people who are experts at one thing, and reasonably competent at several others. These are the people that can look outside their own box and see the relationship with other boxes. They may not be experts with the stuff in all the other boxes, but they know enough to be conversant with it, and they know enough to deal with it using the shit in their own box. These are the people who can INTEGRATE different skill sets...and train YOU to do the same thing. Ideally these are the people you want to train with.

The last group is not available everywhere, all the time. If you find someone like that, take advantage. If you don't, find someone good at one thing, and do all the seminars you can with people from different backgrounds. Obviously, train with Gabe, with Gre, with the other SI instructors. Train with someone like Rory Miller. Humbly, come train with me.

No matter who you train with, no matter what you train in, you will invariably spend some time doing things of limited value. Don't worry about that stuff...look at what IS valuable and keep THAT. The onus is on YOU (unfortunately I can no longer use that phrase without thinking of Dewey Crowe) to figure out what is valuable and become good at it.

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If you train for a lot of years, you will learn a lot of techniques. Let's say you learn 100 things...you need to be a fucking God at 10 of them. Be competent at 10 more. Let the other stuff go. Teach your body how to fucking move, how to react and how to understand what the other guy is doing and that will serve you well enough.

I know how to do Ippon Seoi Nage. It was a technique and a training exercise that helped me become a little better...not because I know the technique but because I am capable of moving my body in ways that are useful, and manipulating another body in ways that are useful. It is NOT a technique I plan on ever doing in real life, but it doesn't clutter my brain because I don't hold on to it. It's like a breath of air.

On a different but related note...guys spend so much time worrying about what to do that they don't fucking do anything. Just go start DOING and you'll figure it out.

[Brent Yamamoto]

One more thought and I will stop polluting this thread...

A little humility is a good thing in an instructor. It always buys some trust with me when an instructor is secure enough to admit there are things they don't know.

There's MOUNTAINS of shit I don't know...and I tend not to yap about that stuff. So when I do open my mouth it's a good bet I know something about what I'm talking about. Sadly that doesn't apply to many instructors.

The grappling people tend not to deal with people who are good strikers. The striking people tend not to deal with people that are good grapplers. Neither the strikers or the grapplers usually know anything about guns...and the gun people tend not to know a damn thing about striking or grappling (not to mention exercising some discipline at the dinner table).

There's a lesson in that.

[Papa]

Apropos of this thread...

Tonight I went in early to train with the Jujutsu guys.

Jujutsu is a grappling system. That means it's within arms reach, both people are usually gripping each other in some way, and it can be either standing or on the ground. And the emphasis is always on unbalancing the other guy in some way, performing some type of throw to ballistically introduce him to the ground, and a joint control when he hits the deck. This stuff is inherently more complicated than striking. Obviously I'm not opposed to this kind of training because I do it...but I also pass it through my sniff test.

Essentially my sniff test is "will this work on me?" Perhaps that's a little unfair because I've seen a few things, but I figure if it will work on me it should work on most people (at least those not built like Eric Tull).

For example...we worked on a few variations of hip throws. For those that don't know what it is, here's the first clip that comes up when I search for "ippon seoi nage" (they call it a shoulder throw, but the mechanics of your core are just like any other hip throw, so I classify it as a hip throw). The guy demonstrating has pretty solid mechanics and I have no criticism of his performance or presentation. Keep in mind that he's demonstrating this for Judo competition.



The technique is mechanically sound. There is value in learning how to move like this, controlling your body as it moves through space, placing your feet, feeling and disrupting the other guys balance, and completing the mechanics of this throw.

But is it tactically sound outside of the Judo ring?

Look at this moment, and imagine this out on the sidewalk. What is White doing that might not be advisable? What is in Blue's favor at this moment? Even if White successfully throws Blue...might there be some things Blue can do on the way to that throw...and for that matter DURING the throw? (And by the way, if Blue know's something about falling he's not out of the picture yet.)
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I am NOT saying that this throw won't work. I'm not saying it's not a viable technique in shitty circumstances, or that it's not something worthwhile to train and be familiar with. After all there are times we get forced into less than ideal circumstances and we may have to make choices that are less than ideal. I AM saying that this particular throw, done this particular way, is not as tactically sound as other choices that could be made.

If you have a lot of time to train, by all means, there's value to being able to do it. More importantly there's value to recognizing when you're being set up for it and knowing how to deal with it. But...we have limited training time. I would not prioritize this one.

That said, I don't care where you train, there's going to be things you learn that are not high priority. Even in my own dojo where I strive to make everything as high value as I can, there are times when we train lower priority stuff. That just happens. But that's ok.

Don't think of it as another tool in your box. Analyze it and make a judgement whether or not it's useful to you. If it's not something you're going to do "on the street", well that's ok. You just did another movement exercise and learned something of limited value. Don't let it clutter your brain. Throw it away and don't cling to it. You still got to move around, you still got a work out, you still got to get in contact with another body and learned something about how people move, what they do, etc. Maybe mostly all you got out of it was "don't fucking do anything like that, ever".

As long as the balance of good stuff outweighs the balance of bad stuff, it's not wasted time. I can't be there so you have to make your own call.

I won't give my back to anyone in a street fight. (And regardless of how good a sport I am, I'm not inclined to let anyone slam me into the ground, even if padded.).

If I'm Blue (there's an inside joke in there, but that's for another time) I'm doing some damage on the way down with my free appendages, and maybe White doesn't see too well when I'm rolling out of it.

Also: "wristy-twisty" rarely works on street, because of timing, terrain, adrenaline and chemicals.

Still, that looks like, well, fun. Just no room in the toolbox for it.

As an aside, the vic in the photo in Gabe's original post was shot on two separate occasions at that location. He apparently opened the door for the shooter during the fatal one. His toolbox was empty, even though he was a player.

Here's the guy who allegedly hit him:

robinson.jpg

What's in his toolbox?

[John McCreery]

Another example...

If you train for a lot of years, you will learn a lot of techniques. Let's say you learn 100 things...you need to be a fucking God at 10 of them. Be competent at 10 more. Let the other stuff go. Teach your body how to fucking move, how to react and how to understand what the other guy is doing and that will serve you well enough.

.

This is gold! After you put in time to do the things Brent listed, it will become very clear when someone tries to teach you something that is questionable. Your body and mind will go uhhhmm, no. It will take time on the mats, getting hit, running FOF. Luckily we have some shortcuts because there is a group of people here that have done the work and can relay the information.

[Randy Harris]

The info is there if people just listen......

[TwoBodyOneHead]

I don't have much time for psychologists, but Hick wrote a good law. The more options you have the longer it takes you to pick one.

I also look at it from the training time perspective. I have a limited amount of time to get good at something. I don't have time to polish highly specialized tools and would sooner invest time in a small number of general tools.

[Greg Nichols]

Too many people try to major in the minors instead of majoring in the majors. The majors in a tactical aspect is the basics of fundamentals, tactics, aggression, and movement. Master the basics and the rest becomes easier and makes more sense. With weapon manipulations or even hand to hand, make it simple, make it repeatable, and make it automatic.

[Dorkface]

Some things are too simple to be tactical...

[wheel]

It is an easy trap to fall into believing that if you learn something new you are improving simply by the fact that you are adding to your techniques, increasing your knowledge.

The mistake that most people make in the Dojo is that they don`t make an actual effort to fix their training challenges outside of the Dojo. The first step being finding out what you need to work on and then figuring out the type of training you need. It is then easier to figure out if learning this new technique will get you closer to solving one of your challenges/If learning and practicing this technique will take time away from your training, that could be better spend working on one of your challenges.

Instead people will show up to training all excited to learn something new. A Sword Kata for example. But once the know the new Sword Form it just becomes one of many Katas they know. And having no further use for it they will move unto the next new technique.

There is also the people that are semi-retired, who has not stopped coming to the Dojo, but has decided that they have nothing left to proof to themselves or have achieved what the can in Karate. They will simply be going through the motions in their training and will look forward to training something new, having a break in the routine.

IN THE TYPICAL DOJO-Focused on Getting Students to Black Belt, Grading`s and Competition.
If you have practiced Karate for awhile and decided to shift the focus of your training to Effective Self Defence/Combatives you will quickly get frustrated will all the unnecessary training that you need to do in the Dojo. Practicing techniques that you will never use in a real fight. Including the Grading Techniques/Techniques that your Style expects you to know- Especially if your style is affiliated to a organization in a different part of the world.

You will simply have to make piece with the fact that your Dojo will not spend time teaching you how to fight effectively. This will leave you with the tough decision to continue training at your Dojo or to leave.

If you decide to stay because you still enjoy some of the training/Karate is the only training available, you can still get the training that you need by simply working backwards.

Simply start by grabbing a friend before/after class and ask him to attack you. Then start to and apply the techniques that you researched online and that you think might be fairly easy to apply-without needing formal instruction while being effective at the same time.

Also keep the instructions to your training partner very basic. So the attacks are unscripted and your friend is free to attack anyway that he chooses. This can still lead to some crazy unrealistic attacks but on the other hand prevent it from turning into Two Lines of Attack type of training, that seems to happen if you only allow your partner to attack in a certain way.

NOTE It has being my experience that if I asked to be attacked in a certain way guys would start feeding me attacks and not come at me as hard as they can. That`s why I simply handed them a Blade with no instructions. Doing this you will soon see a pattern emerging where everybody will discover the same weaknesses and try and exploit them in their own way.Younger inexperienced fighters will use a lot of movement and expend huge amounts of energy trying to land their attack. Whereas an experienced fighter will fight smarter, using more realistic attacks but will still be aiming to land the same type of attacks as the younger fighters. Pointing out what you need to work on.

[wheel]

You can then go back home and research online for the techniques or the training that you need ti fix these holes. It is then simply a case of trying those techniques out to see if they work. These might not be technically correct but will still work. Moving you forward without formal instruction.

Also knowing the holes you need to plug in the first place will make it easier to recognize what might be useful if you come across a new technique. Instead of not knowing what you are suppose to be looking for/Simply adding techniques that you think might be useful.

Doing this you will make steady progress creating an Effective Toolbox for yourself.

You still need to keep a close eye on the Tipping Point. If the Dojo`s soul focus starts to be Competition it is time to revaluate. For example if their is a tournament almost every weekend to prepare for and all the Training Time is spend Points Sparring. Then your training time could be put to better use training at home working on your goals.

IMPORTANT POINT
It is easy to start to believe reading the forum that you are the only one in your little part of the world missing out on great training opportunities/Adventures. Starting to focus on what you don`t have instead of what you do have. Preventing you from being your best with the tools you have right now. Building up momentum moving in the right direction.

Lastly we don`t know what the future holds. Maybe the right Dojo opens up close by. Or a staff instructor starts offering classes in our neck of the woods in a year/so. And now we would have a year`s worth of training behind us-Fitter, Stronger and Moving better. Now able to take full advantage of this opportunity.

OSSU
Elfie