Martial Science

As a martial artist of some twenty years training I have more than a passing familiarity with techniques that work.  I know how to apply them, and more importantly I know when to apply them.  On the instance that a techniques fails to work I am usually able to figure out what I did wrong and so why I failed to get the desired result.

I know I am not alone in this.  There are many martial artists out there at least as competent as I am, many much more so.  But whilst I am often impressed by the level of technical skill shown by both students and instructors I am always dismayed by the level of underpinning knowledge they have.

They know how to perform the technique, and they are aware of all the subtle nuances around successful application, however they do not understand what it is they are doing and why it does what it does.  They are artists, not scientists.

As a Specialist Orthopaedic Nurse who used to teach Musculo-Skeletal Anatomy and Physiology for the British Orthopaedic Association I regularly hear descriptions of so called “science” that baffle me.  Pseudo-anatomical descriptions that bear no relation to the basics facts.  One of the purposes of this blog therefore is to explore what is going on at a deep physiological level when we apply techniques.  It is as much for my benefit as yours, as taking the effort to put my thoughts down in writing helps me coalesce them into a more tangible form.  I just hope you’ll stick around for long enough that we can both learn something together.

The other purpose for this blog is to look at how we can become better fighters together.  To look at training methods and critique them in a objective, scientific manner, to consider other aspects of life such as nutrition and post-training issues and consider how we can develop our own natural abilities beyond the level they are permanently at.

It will not be a short journey, and I would welcome your thoughts as we progress.  Please feel free to comment, to debate and to disagree.  It is only through such debate that we grow in our knowledge.  That is how science works.  Everything we think we know we attempt to disprove until we finally accept that it cannot be disproven.  Then, and only then do we accept it as truth.

I will try to keep the writing here as system unspecific as possible but for those times when I will slip up and revert back to what I know, I apologise.