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Can you provide some suggestions on improving (or just pointing out what makes these pedagogical black holes)? I am a MA practitioner myself (Aikido, 32 years

by Pamar 5y ago

Can you provide some suggestions on improving (or just pointing out what makes these pedagogical black holes)? I am a MA practitioner myself (Aikido, 32 years and counting) and while I am always interested in the pedagogical aspect even if I rarely held a lesson myself. (And yes, I know that BJJ is very different from Aikido, but at the end of the day, I see lots of other arts - including Karate, Judo... Aikido etc. - being taught as warm-up/a handful of techniques from the curriculum/sparring...).

elbows 5y ago
A lot of martial arts training is focused on practicing techniques in isolation and developing "perfect" form (punches/kicks in the air, doing the same throw repeatedly against a cooperative partner). The problem is that any technique you want to apply against an opponent in a competition (or self-defense situation) also has a significant tactical/decision-making component, which is not really trained by that approach. You have to learn when to do a technique, how to set it up, and how to adapt the movement to your specific opponent. You can learn the tactical skills in sparring but it's difficult because there's so much going on. So when you try to jump from isolated technique practice to sparring, there's a disconnect because you haven't built the tactical skills. Even worse, the movement you practiced in isolation may be different from what works in sparring, so all that isolated practice can actually be counterproductive. You can see this pretty clearly in combat sports like kendo and fencing which have a strong component of tradition -- the movements of high-level competitors tend to be very different from the "correct" form taught in class. I'm not sure how much this would apply to aikido, which as I understand it is not particularly focused on competitive or self-defense applications. If you're interested in pedagogy for martial arts (or sports in general), I highly recommend "Development of Technique and Tactical Skill" by Luis Preto and Spyridon Katisgiannis. "Principles-Based Instruction for Self Defense" by Rory Miller is also pretty good, if a bit rambling.
- Pamar 5y ago
  Thank you for the pointers. I have already put the Preto's book in my Amazon basket. Yes, I am aware that Aikido is radically different from most other martial arts (some dojos do practice a sort of "freeflow randori" but it's usually just having many ukes throwing attacks at you, and there is not much resistance to your techniques... and in any case it never really dominate the lesson in terms of time). Regarding your answer: personally I think this is a sort of paradox which cannot really be solved when teaching "how to fight": if I go to a "translator school" I will dedicate lots of time in actually translate texts. There will always be a practically infinite quantity of German texts to pick up, and I am expected to always tackle each with full energy and apply any trick I know. At the same time, there will never be a German text that will sue me from its hospital bed, or send the police to arrest my teachers and close down the school on Manslaughter charges. Even if we look at fighting arts/sports that were designed to freely apply full force (e.g. Judo) what you learn there is targeted to face an opponent which is wearing Judo Federation approved garb, is alone and is in your same weight class and probably level of expertise. And there is at least a referee around, fight happens on a sort of "consecrated ground" etc. etc.
borroka 5y ago
This is for the common gym (and follows what was developed as class structure in the early days in Brazil), not for the more enlightened gyms that exist but they are not (or not likely) for the common person. Say, for 100 gym, 90 are set up the way I describe above. The technique section is like going to a seminar whose topic you didn't choose and whose content you won't likely see again for a few months or years. Like, today we do partial differential equation, and we will do them again in 6 months from now (apart from some of you who like them and decide to practice with no support). There is very little effort to present the common processes that make a technique work or not. For example, in ML you have broad categorization of approaches, such as supervised/unsupervised/reinforcement learning. Within supervised learning, you then have classification/regression. Then within those buckets, you have linear, non-linear. Within non-linear, you have bagged or boosted or neither. They share commonalities at different levels and they help the practitioner learn the techniques much faster and then apply those technique in a creative way. Likewise, in mount and side control you have similar need for hip control, shoulders on the mat, diaphragm under pressure for the more pressure-oriented jiu-jitseiro. But more often than not, the side control technique of the day is presented as just the technique of the day with very little connection to other techniques or common processes that make the technique work. A waste of potential deeper learning. More often than not, the instructors/coaches/professor love their voices and presentations way too much -- 5 minutes of explanation regarding some details of little relevance while students are getting cold and unfocused, then 5 minutes of drills that take 3 minutes to start because students have forgotten what the coach has shown (and you can imagine how long it will remain in the mind of the average practitioner after the class is over). Then, we have sparring, which in JJ is for some reason way too high stakes. In judo, you see top people getting thrown or give points all the time in randori/sparring with no ego bruised (well, more in judo than US wrestling, while in Russia for example you see more learning-oriented sparring, in the US it is grind, grind, grind), but in JJ, especially after people get their blue belt, they absolutely do not want to get chocked, arm-barred or swept by equal or lower belts. This creates defensive games that make thee knuckles white, but give little back in terms of improving the game of the practitioner. Positional sparring is pedagogically much better than free-sparring, since the same position or situation is presented or needs to be faced multiple times and that creates lower stakes, less defensive sparring and more "learning". That's the drilling that matters (and see Dave Alred's repair sessions https://leadersinsport.com/performance/dave-alred/ https://leadersinsport.com/performance/dave-alred/) and what for example Roger Gracie, the best JJ sport practitioner of all time) does. Many other points to discuss, but the main point is that coaches are not trained in coaching, they have no idea how to present ideas or concepts (clearly, there are exceptions and they are very often the most successful gyms, although there is selection bias at work), they are "just" good at JJ and they went into coaching. Some might say: but some people are getting very good at JJ. I agree, but "sink or swim" is a selection approach, not a teaching one.
sn9 5y ago
It's been a few years since I read it, but Josh Waitzkin's Art of Learning discusses how he went from complete novice to winning the world championship in Tai Chi Push Hands within two years. It's a pretty good memoir for anyone interested in chess, martial arts, or just learning in general.
- borroka 5y ago
  It is an interesting book and I know people who know him since they trained in the same gym, but along with the solid substance (meat) that he proposes, my impression is that he throws a lot of smoke at the problem (see for example the few interviews he gave to Tim Ferris). He is a smart guy and the book is one I recommend, but he overcomplicates what should be pretty straightforward. I met many high-level, sometimes world-level practitioners of various sports and at the risk of coming across as glib, I have yet to find one with higher-than-average intelligence (there are, I just have not met them). That's why when some NFL or NBA players are presented as semi-savant, it makes me chuckle and want to say to the interviewer or commentator, "that's what you want to believe, not what it is. They are simply much better, but very rarely in an intellectual way".
  - sn9 5y ago
    Yeah I get what you mean, but it's also pretty rare for people to achieve what he did in martial arts in such a small time frame. And the specifics he outlines about how he rapidly improved to the point where he could compete at an international level will surely benefit anyone looking to improve at their art.

by Pamar 5y ago

elbows 5y ago

A lot of martial arts training is focused on practicing techniques in isolation and developing "perfect" form (punches/kicks in the air, doing the same throw repeatedly against a cooperative partner). The problem is that any technique you want to apply against an opponent in a competition (or self-defense situation) also has a significant tactical/decision-making component, which is not really trained by that approach. You have to learn when to do a technique, how to set it up, and how to adapt the movement to your specific opponent. You can learn the tactical skills in sparring but it's difficult because there's so much going on. So when you try to jump from isolated technique practice to sparring, there's a disconnect because you haven't built the tactical skills. Even worse, the movement you practiced in isolation may be different from what works in sparring, so all that isolated practice can actually be counterproductive. You can see this pretty clearly in combat sports like kendo and fencing which have a strong component of tradition -- the movements of high-level competitors tend to be very different from the "correct" form taught in class. I'm not sure how much this would apply to aikido, which as I understand it is not particularly focused on competitive or self-defense applications. If you're interested in pedagogy for martial arts (or sports in general), I highly recommend "Development of Technique and Tactical Skill" by Luis Preto and Spyridon Katisgiannis. "Principles-Based Instruction for Self Defense" by Rory Miller is also pretty good, if a bit rambling.

Pamar 5y ago
Thank you for the pointers. I have already put the Preto's book in my Amazon basket. Yes, I am aware that Aikido is radically different from most other martial arts (some dojos do practice a sort of "freeflow randori" but it's usually just having many ukes throwing attacks at you, and there is not much resistance to your techniques... and in any case it never really dominate the lesson in terms of time). Regarding your answer: personally I think this is a sort of paradox which cannot really be solved when teaching "how to fight": if I go to a "translator school" I will dedicate lots of time in actually translate texts. There will always be a practically infinite quantity of German texts to pick up, and I am expected to always tackle each with full energy and apply any trick I know. At the same time, there will never be a German text that will sue me from its hospital bed, or send the police to arrest my teachers and close down the school on Manslaughter charges. Even if we look at fighting arts/sports that were designed to freely apply full force (e.g. Judo) what you learn there is targeted to face an opponent which is wearing Judo Federation approved garb, is alone and is in your same weight class and probably level of expertise. And there is at least a referee around, fight happens on a sort of "consecrated ground" etc. etc.

borroka 5y ago

This is for the common gym (and follows what was developed as class structure in the early days in Brazil), not for the more enlightened gyms that exist but they are not (or not likely) for the common person. Say, for 100 gym, 90 are set up the way I describe above. The technique section is like going to a seminar whose topic you didn't choose and whose content you won't likely see again for a few months or years. Like, today we do partial differential equation, and we will do them again in 6 months from now (apart from some of you who like them and decide to practice with no support). There is very little effort to present the common processes that make a technique work or not. For example, in ML you have broad categorization of approaches, such as supervised/unsupervised/reinforcement learning. Within supervised learning, you then have classification/regression. Then within those buckets, you have linear, non-linear. Within non-linear, you have bagged or boosted or neither. They share commonalities at different levels and they help the practitioner learn the techniques much faster and then apply those technique in a creative way. Likewise, in mount and side control you have similar need for hip control, shoulders on the mat, diaphragm under pressure for the more pressure-oriented jiu-jitseiro. But more often than not, the side control technique of the day is presented as just the technique of the day with very little connection to other techniques or common processes that make the technique work. A waste of potential deeper learning. More often than not, the instructors/coaches/professor love their voices and presentations way too much -- 5 minutes of explanation regarding some details of little relevance while students are getting cold and unfocused, then 5 minutes of drills that take 3 minutes to start because students have forgotten what the coach has shown (and you can imagine how long it will remain in the mind of the average practitioner after the class is over). Then, we have sparring, which in JJ is for some reason way too high stakes. In judo, you see top people getting thrown or give points all the time in randori/sparring with no ego bruised (well, more in judo than US wrestling, while in Russia for example you see more learning-oriented sparring, in the US it is grind, grind, grind), but in JJ, especially after people get their blue belt, they absolutely do not want to get chocked, arm-barred or swept by equal or lower belts. This creates defensive games that make thee knuckles white, but give little back in terms of improving the game of the practitioner. Positional sparring is pedagogically much better than free-sparring, since the same position or situation is presented or needs to be faced multiple times and that creates lower stakes, less defensive sparring and more "learning". That's the drilling that matters (and see Dave Alred's repair sessions https://leadersinsport.com/performance/dave-alred/ https://leadersinsport.com/performance/dave-alred/) and what for example Roger Gracie, the best JJ sport practitioner of all time) does. Many other points to discuss, but the main point is that coaches are not trained in coaching, they have no idea how to present ideas or concepts (clearly, there are exceptions and they are very often the most successful gyms, although there is selection bias at work), they are "just" good at JJ and they went into coaching. Some might say: but some people are getting very good at JJ. I agree, but "sink or swim" is a selection approach, not a teaching one.

sn9 5y ago

It's been a few years since I read it, but Josh Waitzkin's Art of Learning discusses how he went from complete novice to winning the world championship in Tai Chi Push Hands within two years. It's a pretty good memoir for anyone interested in chess, martial arts, or just learning in general.

borroka 5y ago
It is an interesting book and I know people who know him since they trained in the same gym, but along with the solid substance (meat) that he proposes, my impression is that he throws a lot of smoke at the problem (see for example the few interviews he gave to Tim Ferris). He is a smart guy and the book is one I recommend, but he overcomplicates what should be pretty straightforward. I met many high-level, sometimes world-level practitioners of various sports and at the risk of coming across as glib, I have yet to find one with higher-than-average intelligence (there are, I just have not met them). That's why when some NFL or NBA players are presented as semi-savant, it makes me chuckle and want to say to the interviewer or commentator, "that's what you want to believe, not what it is. They are simply much better, but very rarely in an intellectual way".
- sn9 5y ago
  Yeah I get what you mean, but it's also pretty rare for people to achieve what he did in martial arts in such a small time frame. And the specifics he outlines about how he rapidly improved to the point where he could compete at an international level will surely benefit anyone looking to improve at their art.