You think you're ready to train in martial arts? Well, think again!

I vaguely remember this warm afternoon back in the late nineties. My Kung Fu instructor had taken all his students to the local track, in order to do a Cooper test. I was in the first bunch of students to complete their 12 minutes of running, and I was standing aside and recovering while the second group performed the test. Maria was running with the second group - she was in her early thirties, and I guess she thought that training in Kung Fu fitted well with her alternative, slightly new-agey lifestyle. I remember she had a sunny disposition and was almost always smiling, but as she was walking towards the rest of us after the end of the test, all I could see in her face was discomfort and frustration.
"Hey, what's with you?", I asked her as she was approaching.
"Well, you know what?", she replied. "I never had the slightest pain in my body... until I started training".

I didn't pay much attention to what she said, I just found it rather funny - I mean, who would take up any kind of training in order to accumulate pain in their body? Still, as my Kung Fu years went by and both the volume and the intensity of my training escalated, as I gradually shifted my focus towards san shou competition, something strange started happening to my body. In the very beginning it was dull pain in both my knees, which was dismissed as "adaptation discomfort", and went away after a few sessions of acupuncture. Later, I started feeling some generalized soreness in my whole body after intense san shou sessions, and it did not go away until my warm-up for the next training session. At some point, I had to take almost a month off training because of a sharp pain in my right shoulder (which later developed into a nasty supraspinatus tendonitis that bothers me until today). The next body part to give way was my lower back: two, maybe three times a year, the muscles in my left lower back went into spasm, and I had to stay away from both training and my job for days at a time. In late 1999, while preparing for the 5th World Wushu Championships, I trained six hours a day, six days a week and at the same time, devoted a minimum of eight hours a day to my job. My body was constantly complaining and I had trouble sleeping at night due to numerous pains. I talked to my instructor about this and his reply was that "my problem was fear, not injury" (or something just as stupid and ignorant), so I kept on training - I wasn't going to cave in to fear, right? Of course, in order to keep going, I had to take lots of pain killers and muscle relaxants. In the end, I was unable to peak my training for the championships, but I travelled to Hong Kong anyway and lost in my first bout. Six months later, in the Wushu nationals, I managed to win two fights, but in the third one, for the gold medal, I had to quit after two rounds. It was impossible to continue fighting, because I could barely stand upright - the pain in my lower back was excruciating and my left leg was numb from the buttock down to the toes. A few weeks later, an MRI scan revealed a L5-S1 hernia and degeneration of disk in my spine. Although my doctor (an orthopedic surgeon) told me that I would never be able to train again unless I had the hernia surgically removed, I ignored him and managed to make a come-back after three weeks of rest, another few sessions of acupuncture and some dead-lifting (no, seriously). A year later, I partially tore the meniscus in my right knee, and as I was pretty close to the age of 35 (which is the age limit for the International Wushu Federation san shou competitions), I decided to call it quits - something which gradually led me away from the Chinese martial arts altogether.

While it is relatively easy to describe the injuries, it is hardly possible to convey through writing all the pain, the frustration and the anguish I felt back then. After all, I was supposed to be a talented athlete! Why was this happening to me? Well, the thing is that my body was trying to tell me something by breaking down, and I was just not listening. In the next years (as I grew older and, presumably, wiser) I decided to pay more attention to what my body was trying to tell, and I also tired to learn as much about the human body as I could. So, what I know today and did not back then, is that I started my training for san shou competition being slightly scoliotic towards the right side, so my right shoulder was slightly protracted and internally rotated (does this spell supraspinatus tendonitis, or what?). I was also slightly knock-kneed, and my feet were slightly everted in a normal standing position. I emphasize that all these problems were slight. They could not be detected, if one did not know what to look for, and it seems no one did. The orthopedic surgeon I mentioned above later told me that they were all deviations from the ideal, but still, well within what is considered to be normal. Oh, and one more thing: my squatting technique was very bad, but nobody seemed to know what to do about it. In any case, it seems that there was no particular reason (at least in the beginning) to suspect problems in my motor control, since I could easily perform all the skills related to my sport.

I suspect that the wealth of information widely available today on the structure and function of the human body was not available back then - certainly not in a country like Greece anyway. The thing is that all those slight asymmetries in my body were weak links leading to what sports scientists refer to as "energy leaks" due to poor biomechanics. You see, even if an athlete has some sort of deficit in strength, flexibility, coordination, stability or balance (like I did), the body will unconsciously find a way to perform what is asked of it, even if that way is less than technically optimal. This is known as "compensating" and that's exactly what causes an energy leak to happen. According to physical therapist and strength training expert Gray Cook, "an energy leak occurs when all of the energy generated to perform a certain task or movement, does not go specifically into that task or movement. Science tells us that the energy must go somewhere. Usually the energy creates stress within the body. The stress can take many forms. It may cause unnecessary work or movement in another part of the body, placing greater stress on certain muscles and tendons (strains). It may create unnatural motion of the spine or limbs, placing greater stress on joints and ligaments (sprains). This movement can create stress and trauma that may go unnoticed for weeks and months. Eventually the athlete will pay the price if the stress continues [mybold]" [1]. Keep in mind that we are talking about slight mistakes here that initially do not affect performance and usually cannot be detected by someone who does not know what to look for. So as the training load increases, a shoulder starts to hurt more and more, the lower back is consistently sore, a knee buckles, but the causes remain mysteriously unknown!

When one takes up martial arts training, it is taken for granted that his body is functioning properly and ready to accept the training load imposed by the needs of the art. Well, this might have been the case with young boys in ancient Sparta, the offspring of the samurai in feudal Japan, and the children in a Cossack tribe. Is it the same though with modern Western people (even youngsters) who grow up sitting for hours at a time in front of a computer, and who's idea of exercise is playing video game hockey or basketball? I very much doubt it. The body needs to be thoroughly tested and assessed first in order to determine if generic movement properties are correct, before one proceeds to learning martial art (or sport) specific movements. After all, a two arm shoulder throw (morote seoinage for you judo people) is nothing but a push and a pull, a rotation around the body's central longitudinal axis, a squat and a bend at the hips. Still, if there is even a minor problem in any of the movement components, the thousants of repetitions required in order to master the technique, will inevitably lead to injury. Oh, and one more thing: even elite level athletes use compensatory movement patterns, resulting in overuse injuries or training plateaus. Imagine what might be the case with an average 20 year old who walks into an MMA school with dreams of becoming "the ultimate fighter"...

So how is it then that one can assess generic movement properties, before progressing to specific skills? Well, there are numerous methods out there, and it is the responsibility (and dare I say, duty) of every coach, especially those working with children, to study as many of these as possible. Otherwise, some day a student might walk up to his Sensei, Sifu, Guro or Coach, and say: "You know what? I never had any pain in my body... until I started training". And that wouldn't be nice, would it?

References:
[1] Cook, G. Athletic Body in Balance. Human Kinetics, 2003. p. 9

So, what's so special about this Fedor guy anyway???

My good friend Vadim Kolganov, SAMBO Master of Sport, once told me that a lot of people have recently taken up SAMBO training, because they believe that this way, they'll discover Fedor Emelianenko's secrets. "But to be honest with you", Vadim continued, "Fedor is not SAMBO. Fedor is just...Fedor!" And what exactly might that be, then? Another friend, Coach Greg Mihovich, muay thai fighter and high level judo competitor, wrote on Facebook the other day that Fedor is "a tremendous combination of skill, power, mental strength, dedication, will, heart, spirituality and humility". I believe that Greg sums it up pretty well on what makes Fedor a great fighter and moreover, a great champion (if I'm allowed to say, a champion at the same level with mythical figures of the 20th century, like Mohamed Ali or Michael Jordan).

Still, in my mind the question remains: what is it that makes Fedor so much better than his opponents? Can it be the "style" he's practicing? Well, according to many hardcore MMA fans, who zealously share their opinions in various internet forums, he practices SAMBO and boxing, which is basically what every other MMA fighter on the planet is practicing - a grappling style combined with a striking style. Could it be that he's developed a set of more effective techniques? Mmm, those techniques have been revealed in the book "Fedor: The Fighting System of the World's Undisputed King of MMA", (widely) available by Victory Belt publications. Unless nobody on this planet bought the book, there should be a number of fighters out there who know the techniques by now. Why haven't they been turned into wrecking machines? OK then, is it possible that Fedor trains more and harder than his opponents? I very much doubt that: in this, world-class level of competition, I don't believe there's enough time in a 24-hour day to put more training in. How about his mental attributes and his sheer toughness? To be honest, I do not know enough about his mental attributes in order to judge, so maybe. Regarding his toughness, I'd say there's no tougher fighter out there than Minotauro Nogueira and even he, got soundly beaten by Fedor, not once but twice!

It's pretty hard reaching a conclusive answer, so here's what I thought: why not watch Fedor's last fight against Bret Rodgers, and try to pinpoint a few things that Fedor does obviously differently than his opponent? Because - you never know - a secret might be hidden in plain sight, right? So, here's the fight and right after, what I notice:



First, check and compare the two fighters' postures. It seems to me that Fedor keeps an upright, relaxed posture, with his shoulders kept naturally down, and his weight evenly distributed over both his feet, while Rogers fights from a semi-crouch, weight forward, spine slightly flexed, shoulders slightly elevated and internally rotated. Is it possible that the forward flexion of the torso does not allow for efficient rotation around the spinal axis, reducing the force of his strikes? Could it be that the elevation of the shoulders (through the use of the upper trapezius and levator scapulae muscles) directs forces to the cervical (the neck, that is) and the upper thoracic spine, towards structures who provide less support and stability, resulting, once again, in diminished power generation? Of course, I will not claim that Rogers is not a hard hitter, but inefficient biomechanics leads to waste of energy: with diminished structural stability, one tends to use pure muscular strength instead, and that leads to fatigue. Well, don't you think Rogers "gassed" relatively early for a world-class athlete? Oh, and one more thing: both spinal flexion and shoulder elevation can mess with an athlete's breathing patterns and guess where that leads: yep, fatigue it is! So, according to elementary sports biomechanics, the foundation for efficient movement is posture[1], still there's a number of MMA coaches out there teaching the "hunchback" as the best fighting stance. Go figure...

At the exchange starting at 1.34 of the video, ending with Rogers being taken down, and once again at 3.01-3.10, notice how Fedor seemingly overextends with his leading right punch, but his feet follow up immediately so that his center of gravity always ends up above his base of support. This way, he maintains stability through mobility so he’s able to continuously generate power from any position. He probably breaks every rule in the textbook of boxing by abandoning his fighting stance and squaring up to his opponent, but guess what: it does not really matter, because he gets the job done by not being bound by his fighting stance! This is a perfect example of what is known as agility and dynamic balance, two fundamental athletic attributes whose application is not limited to fighting. And these attributes are trainable, as every self-respecting football, basketball or tennis coach will tell you.

What else do I see in Fedor that I don’t see in Rogers? I see beauty of movement and effortlessness, and these mean nothing else but technical perfection. To achieve this lever of mastery, according to Joanne Elphinston, performance consultant to elite professional athletes, one requires “a physical structure that supports the sport’s biomechanics, the neuromuscular coordination to correctly sequence the movement, the psychological skills to focus effort without unnecessary tension and the physiology to sustain the movement pattern until the event is completed”[2]. What I’m trying to say here is that while Brett Rogers (and the majority of MMA fighters out there today) is a tough fighter, period, Fedor is a fantastic athlete, which makes him a-totally-different-class-of-a-fighter. The thing is that the “generic” attributes and skills that make a great athlete can and should be trained before one proceeds to train the specific skills of a sport. I have no specific information about how Fedor acquired those, but seeing that athletes from the former Soviet Union are demonstrating technical mastery more consistently, I can only assume that he has benefited from the advanced research done during the Soviet era in the fields of human movement, sports, and performance enhancement, which was later incorporated in the physical education system of the former USSR. On the other side, your Joe Average MMA fighter, begins as a young man, brimming with testosterone and a vague notion of toughness in his head, who goes to an “MMA Academy” and starts technical training from day one, hitting bags, pads and sparring partners, according to the methods of the so-called “old school” (OK, he also does some roadwork and maybe lifts some weights). Well, I have once heard someone say that there’s no better way of guaranteeing an average fighter than to train him in an average way (don’t remember who it was, so I cannot quote him, sorry ‘bout that) and I tend to agree with that.

One last thing that I notice in Fedor, which I actually haven’t yet seen in any other MMA fighter out there, no matter how highly ranked, is adaptability and flow. Fedor is not trying to apply his SAMBO techniques, he is not “integrating his striking with his grappling” and he is not trying to impose a specific system’s fighting strategy – he just does what he has to do in order to break his opponent down. What do I mean by that? Take, for example, Minatauro Nogueira: as excellent a fighter he might be, in each and every one of his fights, he follows the exact same, typical of BJJ, strategy; shoot to take down, try for submission. In his fights against Cro Cop and Tim Sylvia, he just kept on trying to take them down unsuccessfully, until he managed to pull through, on the way taking quite a beating and surviving thanks to pure guts. Take away his BJJ strategy and he’s most probably in trouble. Why? Because he is defined by the style (art, system, sport, whatever…) he practices. Fedor, although he practices SAMBO, is not defined or limited by it. Check again the two exchanges from the Rogers fight I mentioned above, both ending with Fedor taking his opponent down: he leads with the right hand, seemingly loses his balance, steps deeply inside with his right foot and hooks with the left hand. Only, since he’s now in close distance, the second strike becomes a push that trips the opponent over his right leg. Is this “integration” of striking and grappling? No, because there is no distinction between striking and grappling – both emanate from the same kinesiological basis! In this sense, I’d say that Fedor’s style can only be described as “pure fighting”.

Now, some of you might (justifiably) ask: is there a way to train people in this “pure fighting” with consistent results? I believe there is, but this is the subject for another, much more extensive blog post – or maybe even a book…

Notes & References
[1] Besides Fedor, there’s another MMA fighter, very successful recently, who’s utilizing this upright body posture, Lyoto Machida. Also, the very talented Gerard Mousasi has adopted this posture, since he started training with Fedor Emelianenko.

[2] Elphinston, J. Stability, Sport and Performance Movement. North Atlantic Books, 2008, p. 7

Systema cheat-sheet Vol. 3: a big extra on Movement

It was about six months ago when I wrote the second installment of a three-part series of articles about the sets of rules that provide context to the practice of Russian Martial Art. The article was about the "Three Pillars of Systema" (namely, breathing, structure and movement) and their relationship to combat performance. Regarding movement, I concluded that, since each one of our combat skills (evasions, deflections, strikes, kicks, throws, takedowns, joint manipulations, submissions, immobilizations etc) is executed through movement, then movement obviously equals ability.

A few months after I wrote this article, I was reading a textbook on the "constraints led approach" to motor control and learning. In that book, a chapter was included on the ecological psychology perspective on skills acquisition. In a few words, ecological psychology, also known as "direct perception", is a school of psychology based on the work of James Gibson [1] who argued that animals and humans stand in a 'systems' relation to the environment, such that, to fully explain some behaviour, it was necessary to study the environment in which this behaviour took place. The aphorism "It's not what is inside the head that is important, it's what the head is inside of", seems to capture that point [2]. Now, the reason ecological psychology is appealing to those involved with the study of motor learning and control is because it seems to provide answers on what is happening when acquisition of motor skills (such as a throwing technique, a punch, etc.) occurs without awareness of what is happening, i.e. when people cannot exactly explain how they move when they perform a specific skill.

So then, what does ecological psychology and direct perception have to do with movement, the third pillar of Systema??? Well, a central idea in Gibson's work is that movement generates information, which leads to further movements and so on, i.e. indicates a cyclical relationship between perception and movement. "We must perceive in order to move", wrote Gibson, "but we must also move in order to perceive"[3].

In one of our recent training sessions at the Göteborgs Systema-RMA Klubb we were practicing a drill were one person lies down on the floor (prone or supine position doesn't matter), three or more training partners lie on top of him, acting as dead weight and then he must find a way to "escape" from this positon. My interpretation of this drill is that, once under a pile of bodies, one must first and foremost find a way to breathe, locate a part of the torso which is not compressed where the minimum of movement required by breath can occur (being able to breathe delays the onset of panic and trust me, there's nothing that spells panic more than 300 kilograms placed on your chest). Once this fundamental movement of breath can be performed, it provides information about which direction one should move towards, in order to escape from underneath - where there's space to breathe, there is space to escape!!!

Let's see another example of movement providing information that lead to further movement: have you ever seen a MMA fight where the competitors spend way too much time in a standing clinch position, without either of them doing anything decisive, peppering each other with annoying but not effective punches? In my oppinion, when some fighters get in the clinch they are mostly worried about being taken down, so they just brace defensively, remain immobile, and waste precious energy without implementing (actually, without even trying to implement) their strategic plan. What experienced fighters do when they get in the clinch, is continously move: they use the box stepping pattern and try to break their opponents posture, so they can initiate a throwing technique, disengage, or just create space in order to generate some serious striking power (as opposed to pitty-patting their opponent).

There is an old-scool boxing saying, according to which "when you do not know what to do in the ring, just use your jab". I guess that a more inclusive version of this might be "when you don't know what to do, just move" - because movement not only equals ability, it also provides the information on how to use your abilities.

References:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._J._Gibson
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_psychology
[3] Davids, K., Button, C., Bennett, S. Dynamics of Skill Acquisition: A Constraints-Led Approach. Human Kinetics 2008, p. 65

If you want to knnow more about ecological psychology and direct perception, you can find a very good texbook by Claire Michaels and Claudia Carello, in pdf format here.

More than one path leading to the same goal...

I am always impressed to discover converging views expressed by people who seemingly belong to different martial or physical culture disciplines. Check out the following excerpts from two books I am currently reading, Hidden In Plain Sight: Tracing the Roots of Ueshiba Morihei's Power by Ellis Amdur, and Free to Move by Scott Sonnon.

Amdur writes:
"For Ueshiba, however, 'kasutori' was not primarily for the purpose of martial prowess, as analogous training was for Daito-ryu practitioners, even though such martial effectiveness could still be developed. Practice is for the purpose of creating a body that is not only analogous to the enlightened spirit, but also a body that makes the elightened spirit possible".

The word "kasutori" in the above text, refers to the extraction of the pulp-like sediment that is a by-product of the production of Japanese alcohol. The claim here, in a few words, is that through the practice of the Aikido basic techniques, we remove the tension that lies our partner's joints as if it was residue.

Now, let's check what Sonnon says:
"I came to realize martial art is just a physical trick to convince the mind to adopt a higher vibratory frequency: to be more graceful and less disgraceful. The immediate and traumatic feedback of being hit, thrown, or joint-locked tells you precisely where you're holding tension. It shows you where your ego abides within you, when your mind should have no abiding place. Wherever you stop mentally, you amplify emotionally and brace physically".

To my knowledge, Scott Sonnon has not studied Aikido, and my guess is that Ellis Amdur, a respected scholar and instructor of classical and modern Japanese martial arts, knows little about the range-of-motion exercises that Sonnon describes in his book (actually the book is about way more than healthy joints, but you get my point). Could it then be possible that there are a number of universal laws which govern the relationship between our mind as a manifestation of our matter (body) and vice versa? And if these laws do exist (I strongly believe they do) wouldn't they be independent of the cultural context (Japanese martial arts, Russian system of health, Alexander technique, Feldenkrais method, you name it) they are expressed in? Just a little food for thought and maybe basis for constructive dialogue...

You can find out more about Ellis Amdur's Hidden in Plain Sight here.
For more info about Scott Sonnon's Free to Move click here.

The purpose of Aikido practice

What follows is an excerpt from a book I read recently, and made quite an impression to me. The book is Ellis Amdur's Hidden in Plain Sight: Tracing the Roots of Ueshiba Morihei's Power. I want to make clear that I haven't ever trained in aikido, nor am I interested to. On the other side, I believe Morihei Ueshiba was one of the greatest martial artists of the twentieth century and also a great thinker, although limited by the era he lived in and the Japanese culture. I also consider Ellis Amdur an excellent writer and I especially appreciate the fact that he attributes Ueshiba's formidable power to his training and not to some supernatural energy he mysteriously tapped into.

Here's the excerpt:
" A person with 'locked' joints has 'handles' and 'levers' - when force vectors are applied, such an individual cannot absorb and flow with said forces, cannot channel them into the ground, or cause them to resonate and amplify within a trained body, and more importantly, send them back through himself into the aggressor. Such locked joints do not only occur within the physical body. Ueshiba shows the same understanding as Wilhelm Reich, Ida Rolf, and Moshe Feldenkrais, that physical 'handles' and 'levers' are associated with binding and limitation within the psychological structure. Even with the most dedicated practice of physical technique, one very possibly will remain psychologically distorted, something we have seen in even graceful, very powerful martial artists. Similarly, were one merely to chant, meditate, or otherwise strive to cleanse the 'psychological/spiritual' body, one might be quite at peace until one 'runs into' the world, something occurring again and again when spiritual teachers of quite high attainment meet the temptations of modern society with a body still hungry for that energy".

You can find more about Ellis Amdur's work (which includes much more that martial arts training and writing books) here: http://edgework.info/

Manny says: "it's how thin you wanna slice it!!!"

I must have heard it someplace before, but it all came back to me during my summer vacation, when I was reading Malcolm Gladwell's last book, Outliers: The Story of Success (a great read whether you're on vacation or not): in order to become a world-class expert in anything, you need 10.000 hours of practice. In one chapter of the book, Gladwell goes on to describe in detail how the Beatles had performed live for 10.000 hours before reaching their artistic apex, how Bill Gates had been doing computer programming nonstop for seven consecutive years before he dropped out of Harvard to try his hand at his own software company, how it took Bobby Fischer nine years to become a chess grandmaster and so on. It's not as if this conclusion is in any way surprising - we have all heard sayings about one having to "pay his dues", "put the time and effort needed", or even "sweat the t-shirt" as people say in Greece - but now we have a specific target number, synonymous with greatness: 10.000 hours. So, is that it? You fill in your quota and go ahead to become a master? Well, I'm not so sure and the scientists are not very specific either: "In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concerts pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again. Of course, this doesn't address why some people get more out of their practice sessions than others do", writes neurologist Daniel Levitin, as quoted by Gladwell. A number of theoreticians suggest that it is the microstructure of the practice sessions (the specific routines and exercises) that is most important, but existing empirical research in the field has several limitations. OK then, if it isn't just the 10.000 hours of practice, what else helps one become a master???

A few months ago, I had the opportunity to spend about a week with senior Systema instructor Emmanuel Manolakakis. Manny, as he is known in Systema circles, has definitely done his 10.000 hours of practice - he's been training in and teaching Russian Martial Art for more than fifteen years and his fighting skills testify to that. He also has a great talent in communication and, when he's talking, some very complex ideas seem to flow out of him effortlessly. During one of our long conversations on the value of the Systema training methods and their adaptability to each practitioner's lever of skill, he asked me:
"How good do you want to become in this?"
"Well, as good as I can be", I said.
"You know what? It's all about how thin you want to slice it", Manny replied matter-of-factly.

Before I go ahead and try to explain what this means in the context of Russian Martial Art training, let me quote here psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, from his book Flow:The Psychology of Optimal Experience, on the relationship between physical activity and the phenomenon of "flow" - a state of joy, creativity and total involvement, in which problems seem to disappear and there is an exhilarating feeling of transcendence. "Even the simplest physical act becomes enjoyable when it is transformed so as to produce flow", writes Csikszentmihaly. "The essential steps in this process are: (a) to set an overall goal, and as many subgoals as are realistically feasible; (b) to find ways of measuring progress in terms of the goals chosen; (c) to keep concentrating on what one is doing and to keep making finer and finer distinctions in the challenges involved in the activity; (d) to develop the skills necessary to interact with the opportunities available; and (e) to keep raising the stakes if the activity becomes boring" [bold added my me]. As an example of this method, the author takes walking - as simple (some might call it tedious) an activity as one can do using his body. Well, a simple walk can be spiced up in a number of different ways so as to produce flow, Csikszentmihaly claims, such as choosing slightly different itineraries, selecting places to stop along the way, developing an efficient walking technique, paying more attention to intersting sights that might be located nearby, measuring the time taken to complete the route, or comparing the perceived effort needed to cover the distance each time.

Now, let's take a moment to think about it: doesn't this recipe, suggested by Csikszentmihaly, on how to make a flow experience out of practically any physical endeavour, seem to be the path leading to mastery? Because what else is mastery, if not continuously setting goals (slicing it very thin, that is) and measuring one's progress towards them, concentrating, making finer and finer distinctions in the challenges tackled (once again, slicing it really thin), acquiring skills and raising the stakes again and again? Or is it that one becomes a master by simply "going through the movements" for 10.000 hours? I personally doubt that, or else our world would be full of people who have achieved mastery - for example, every person who's done a job for six years would be one - and this is obviously not the case. Oh, and one more thing: 10.000 hours of just going through the movements would make mastery an extremely dull affair...

So, how is it then that Russian Martial Art allows one to divide the road to mastery to an infinite number of very thin slices? I believe the secret lies in the lack of emphasis on technique and what in sport science is known as "external focus training", i.e. concentrating on the results one's actions have on the environment. In Systema, there's is no "ideal" way of performing an action, so the practitioner builds up skills by actually solving motor problems, adapting from trial to trial, and not by constantly reproducing a supposedly ideal technique. Take, for example, a takedown that is achieved by rotating our partner's shoulder line, clockwise, by manipulating the neck and one wrist. Well, what if we tried for the same effect by manipulating the neck and one elbow, or the neck and one shoulder? How about if we rotate counter-clockwise, will our partner still fall down? We can also try to use our elbows instead of our hands to apply the force needed, and maybe add a hip or a knee-bump or a nasty little kick to the shin, in order to break our partner's structure further and do the takedown even more effortless. This freedom to explore can lead to endless variations on a specific action, and according to recent scientific research in the field of motor learning and control, what we have as a result is "better skills retention and transfer". Perhaps we could translate this as "a step closer to mastery"?



In case you've missed the point here, I never claimed that one does not have to train for 10.000 hours in order to become a world-class expert in anything. My whole point is that practice doesn't necessarily make perfect - only perfect practice makes perfect! So go ahead and put the time and the effort needed. But also make sure to do as Manny says: slice everything very, very thin...

How much do you really know about stretching?

Like most people involved in martial arts training for a long time, I too have done my share of harmful stretching practices. I still remember with dread my years of practice in a hard-style Shaolin style of Kung Fu, where stretching was accompanied by growls, moans and pretty often, screams! To be totally honest with you, even if I wanted to forget those "training" sessions, I still have the nagging injuries (insisting for more than a decade later) to remind me. I really don't know if the extreme Shaolin stretching methods are beneficial for the children in China that take up Kung Fu at the age of five, but they most certainly have not been any good for me and all the people I know who practiced them from the age of eighteen and up.

After my Kung Fu years, I trained in Filipino martial arts and Judo, so stretching was never a serious part of my training - what I did was spend maybe thirty seconds stretching a muscle that felt "kinda tight" and that was it. So, the other day I was reading an excllent book on sports conditioning methods (High-Performance Sports Conditioning, edited by Bill Foran, published by Human Kinetics) that included one chapter on Performance Flexibility, written by Nikos Apostolopoulos, director of the Serapis Therapy Clinic in Canada, the only clinic in the world pioneering the development of therapeutic stretching. In that chapter I found tons of interesting information I wish I had known earlier, so I thought I'd share some of it with you:

On why you should stretch:
"Proprioceptors in the muscles, tendons, and joints, which sense muscle length, tension and joint angle, are critical in providing information to the motor system. Therefore, flexibility enhances the development of coordination and technique and the ability of proprioceptors to receive stimuli".

"Proper flexibility training can moderate, or even delay for many years, the deterioration of range of motion that occurs with age".

"Done at low intensity, static stretching and micro-stretching develop the flexibility reserve, decrease the influence of hypertrophy and other muscular changes during the development of strength, and decrease muscle tension, thereby increasing circulation and neural conductivity. This decrease in muscle tension also assists in decreasing muscle tone and aids the removal of metabolic wastes (i.e. lactic acid)".

On how you should NOT stretch:
"When the athlete performs a stretch and feels the muscles burning or senses an extreme pull in the muscles, that is a strain... A strain results in microtears of the muscle near the muscle-tendon junction. Microtears are microinjuries. The body responds to these tears by releasing collagen in the area, resulting in the development of scar tissue. As scar tissue ages it contracts, further tightening the surrounding tissues. These microtears [...] are located in the area of transition between elastic (muscle) and inelastic (tendon) tissue. In contrast to the middle of the muscle belly, this area has poor circulation, which is further diminished with the development of scar tissue. Therefore the repair process is slower".

On how often you should stretch:
"...An athlete must stretch at least twice a day to improve flexibility. The athlete must stretch each muscle group at least three times per session".

On how intensely you should stretch:
"Performance flexibility stretching is always done at a low intensity level (approximately 30 to 40 percent of perceived exertion). At this level, stretching increases the pliancy of the connective and muscle tissues".

"While stretching it is critical to avoid strain or pain, which would result in the activation or constant maintenance of a subconscious protective loop. The body maintains this loop to respond to an injury. Its activation results in the development and reinforcement of muscle imbalances and a further decrease in the range of motion around a joint".

On how long you should hold a stretch:
"The optimum length of time to hold a stretch is approximately 60 seconds. It normally takes about 30 seconds for a stretch to progress from the middle of the muscle belly to the tendons".

"... Individuals who hold a stretch longer than 90 seconds often complain of feeling tighter".


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