Martial Science

Following on from the earlier post about the different types of movement I thought it might be interesting to look at how we pass from type one to type three, some of the pitfalls that may be encountered, and some strategies for helping others overcome those pitfalls.

The first thing we need to know as instructors, or even simply as martial artists, is how type three, or instinctive movements occur. On a superficial level it is extremely simple. If you repeat a movement time and time again then your subconscious mind remembers it and eventually allows you to perform it without the need for conscious thought.

Take stairs for example. I am going to assume that everyone reading this blog has at some stage in their life learnt how to walk both up and down stairs. I am in the fortunate position of having a toddler in the house who is currently learning to do exactly that amongst other things and so I am watching her develop these gross motor pathways in real time. It is fascinating. Anyway I digress. If you run up a set of steps you don’t think about things like foot placement, leg lift height and balance control. It simply happens. But it only happens because you, like my youngest daughter, spent countless long hours staring at where your foot should go and then trying to put it there. Movements like this one become so internalised that suddenly introducing conscious movement can cause all sorts of problems. I suspect that you, like me, have on at least one occasion thought about what your feet are doing in the middle of running up, or down, a flight of stairs. The end result is rarely pretty. As soon as your conscious mind gets involved it rapidly becomes clear that what you are doing is in fact a highly complex and difficult combination of movements that you don’t stand a chance of replicating consciously at that speed.

So how is this relevant?

It is relevant because we are trying to learn how to do exactly that. To suddenly, and rapidly perform a series of movements faster than it is possible to do consciously. Even more tricky, as an instructor we are trying to enable our students to do so.

The first thing we need is to understand exactly what it is we are trying to do. We need to be able to break it down into its component parts and look at them in sequence. These component parts need to be small enough that they are possible to do consciously, yet big enough that they seem to have a purpose to the student, because, and this is the big thing, when trying to make someone’s brain do something, they have to believe you. If they do not believe they can do it, then whatever you try and get them to do it will not work. You will not internalise movements you do not commit to, both physically and mentally.

So, you have your technique, it is broken down into manageable chunks and you have your students. Get them to do the first section. This is where your judgement comes in, because you need to add in the second chunk just as the first one is beginning to sink in. If you leave it too long then the first chunk becomes a discrete movement in its own right and the resulting complete action is jerky and disconnected, too quickly and it doesn’t begin to become internalised at all. Once you have hit this magical target you can add the next stage and progressively build the movement until it is complete. The more you run through the completed movement the more internalised it will become. However your subconsious mind also has both short and long term memory. If you stop now you run the risk of the movement being held in short term memory, and then discarded as it has not be re-used. So run through something else, and then after 10 minutes or so go back and do it again a few times. Do this as often as your students will let you. In the end they’ll thank you for it even if they do think you’re running out of ideas.

If only it were really that simple.

The problem is that students all learn at different rates, and all react differently to instruction. You can’t even always predict which ones will learn an action quickly. Sometimes people assimilate new actions quickly, sometimes they have more trouble than anyone would expect. It is all down to how well your set of movements fit with what they already have internalised.

You will almost certainly find that there is no one point at which everyone is ready to move onto the next chunk of movement. Those who picked it up quickly will be champing at the bit, and those who have had trouble will be showing signs of frustration.

I’ll rambling now, so I’ll come back to this point in another post. For now though I think I’m going to go to bed.

Just in case you’re in anyway interested I am still on the diet. I have been finding it tricky to keep my motivation up, with a number of greasy take-aways finding their way into the house, but overall it is still going well. I am currently sat at fourteen stone and three quarters of a pound. That’s 196.75lb to our American brethren. I said I’d stop at 14St (196lb) but from looking in the mirror I suspect another 4-5 lbs wouldn’t go amiss.

We’ll see.