How to become a martial arts master!

OK, let me start this blog post by telling you something you might not know: if you're into martial arts and you're following a specific training program for more than few months [1], what you're after is a form of expertise. Even if you have never dreamed of becoming the king of the ring, the mat or the octagon, even if you only want to learn how to protect yourself, or aspire to gain better control and awareness of your body, your goal is, in a way or another, superior performance, so... expertise it is! People are somewhat afraid to use this word in connection to their personal goals, because they seem to think that expertise is the realm of the naturally talented, a do-not-enter zone reserved exclusively for the Michael Jordans, the Mohamed Alis, the Bobby Fischers and the Tiger Woods’ of this world, the ones also known as the “naturally gifted”.

Well, I personally find the idea of any type of expertise quite fascinating and for the past year I’ve read a few books on the subject, most of them easy-to-read popularized science best sellers plus one quite stiff university textbook. From the stuff I’ve read, one thing you might find interesting is that scientists a) considerably disagree on a technical definition of what giftedness is (except for physical characteristics, such as height, body type or muscle composition) and on the methods by which it can be measured and b) have, after considerable research, all but abandoned the idea that innate giftedness and talent can fully account for expert performance. The two prominent scientific views on the subject of expertise today are the “nurturist” perspective (claiming that expertise is obtainable by virtually anyone, and expert performance, irrespective of innate ‘talent’ will inevitably emerge through an extended period of ‘deliberate practice’, typically either 10 years or 10.000 hours) and the “interactionist” approach that attributes expertise to a combination of environmental factors AND an extended period of deliberate practice. In a few words, the Michael Jordans, Mohamed Alis etc of this world became the greatest either because they simply practiced too much or because they had some talent and realized its potential by, once again, practicing too much [2].

We cannot of course rule out the possibility that scientists might someday get to prove that innate giftedness can exclusively account for expert performance, but for now, I’d rather bet my money on the 10.000 hours of deliberate practice. Now, I hope you noticed, both now and earlier, the adjective “deliberate” before the noun “practice”. Yes, I am sorry to say, it is quite true that not all practice makes perfect, or as psychologist K. Anders Ericsson puts it, living in a cave does not make you a geologist. You need much more than just going through the movements for ten years in order to play with the big boys, whatever your choice of field (music, dance, sports, sciences etc). So, what is deliberate practice? Once again according to Ericsson, “it entails considerable, specific, and sustained efforts to do something you can’t do well—or even at all. Research across domains shows that it is only by working at what you can’t do, that you turn into the expert you want to become” [3]. Doesn’t sound like much fun, huh?

In order to give an example of what deliberate practice is people who write on the subject of expertise – scientists and journalists alike – very often use the example of Benjamin Franklin and how he became the extraordinary writer he was. That is exactly what I will do right now – the following excerpt comes from the book Talent is Overrated, by Geoff Colvin, a well-respected American journalist. I guess the European readers of this blog will not know much about Benjamin Franklin, just like I did before I read the afore-mentioned book, and I hope they will find the story as fascinating as I did. My American readers most probably have studied the work of “America’s first great man of letters” in school, so I’ll just ask them to bear with me, because after the excerpt I’d like to make a few comments on how we can benefit from Franklin’s example to make our training in martial arts more substantial. Anyway, here’s the excerpt: “As a teenager, Franklin seemed to think he wrote well enough, but then one day his father found an exchange of letters between Ben and a friend, John Collins, arguing a point back and forth. […] Ben’s father first told his son what was good about his letters; they were better than Collins’s in spelling and punctuation. Then he told him and showed him specifically how they were inferior: ‘in elegance of expression, in method and in perspicuity, of which he convinced me by several instances’, as Franklin recalled. […] Ben responded to his father’s observations in many ways. First he found examples of prose clearly superior to anything he could produce, a bound volume of the Spectator, the great English periodical written by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele. Any of us might have done something similar. But Franklin then embarked on a remarkable program that few of us would ever have thought of. It began with his reading a Spectator article and making brief notes on the meaning of each sentence; a few days later he would take up the notes and try to express the meaning of each sentence in his own words. When done, he compared his essay with the original, ‘discovered some of my faults and corrected them’.One of the faults he noticed was his poor vocabulary. What could he do about that? He realized that writing poetry required and extensive ‘stock of words’ because he might need to express any given meaning in many different ways depending on the demands of rhyme or meter. So he would rewrite Spectator essays in verse. Then, after he had forgotten them, he would take his versified essays, and rewrite them in prose, again comparing his efforts with the original. Franklin realized also that a key element of a good essay is its organization, so he developed a method to work on that. He would again make short notes on each sentence in an essay, but would write each note on a separate slip of paper. He would then mix up the notes and set them aside for weeks, until he had forgotten the essay. At that point he would try to put the notes in their correct order, attempt to write the essay, and then compare it with the original. Again, he ‘discovered many faults and amended them’” [4].

Video: I believe we can all agree that this person here must have practiced his juggling in general and this routine specifically for a significant amount of time. It seems to me that learning how to manipulate a human body that - unlike those three little balls - is resisting, might requite even more training,. What do you think?

So, here’s the outline of a deliberate practice program for you, and I believe there is no doubt that the program was successful. But how does Ben Franklin’s method relate to martial arts training? As I was reading the above text, some thoughts came to my mind, and I would like to share them, so here they are:

1. Franklin taught himself to become a great writer, which basically means he assumed the full responsibility for his practice. He did not search for the ultimate method or some master teacher who possessed ancient secret knowledge on writing, and demanded eternal devotion from his disciples in order to share it. It is my belief that it is the same with martial art: all we need to know is either inside us or out there, hidden in plain sight. All we need to do is work hard enough to bring it to surface and eventually master it. The people whose help we need in order to make our struggle more focused are mentors and coaches, but certainly not “Masters”.
2. In order to become a great writer, Franklin had already learned the basics of writing in school: the alphabet, a limited vocabulary, the rules of grammar and syntax. Unfortunately, nowadays schools, society and the modern way of life do not provide students with the basics of movement, in order for them to learn how to perform the actions found in martial art. But if your quality of movement is not good, then your actions will always be lacking (speed, power, coordination etc), so, if you are a martial artist, unless you’re very athletic, you are starting your study with a disadvantage. Train generic movement first, until it becomes fluent and effortless. After achieving a good grasp of basics, you need to continuously search for what good movement (martial or other) looks and feels like. Following one system religiously doesn’t quite cut it – it leads to a cultish mentality (the way “we” do it versus the way “they” do it) which makes you blind to a wealth of information that your art or system may not provide but you could absorb otherwise. It doesn’t really matter if you just want to become a Specnaz killing machine – you might find treasures of information on good footwork or power generation (and why yours isn’t so good) by studying the movement of Michael Jordan, Roger Federer, masters of Aikido, MMA or boxing champions, salsa dancers and contact improvisers.
3. With the Spectator essays as a measuring stick, Franklin had a pretty good idea of what good writing was, i.e. he had a rough template of his goal, in order to compare his work to a standard and assess his weaknesses. How will you get to know what your weaknesses are? As a martial artist who is training in a specific style, first make sure that you understand the dogma, strategies and tactics of your art (the big picture, that is) [5] and then, for each and every drill you practice find out how it is serving the greater scheme of things. Do you drill in pushing people with your fists? Are you performing rolls on a hard floor? Make sure you know the reason why! Only then you will understand if you are practicing the drills correctly and you will be able to assess and coach yourself. Your instructor must provide this information in specific, easy-to-understand terms – if he does not, it means that either he does not know or he does not want to disclose this information to you. In both cases, a mentor who does not help you learn how to coach yourself is not a good mentor.
4. Franklin did not progress from a mediocre to an exceptional writer overnight. He took the time he needed. It is obvious that becoming an expert takes time and it is not something for the faint-of-heart. 10.000 hours of training is a prerequisite if you aspire to become a world-level martial artist. You can probably become a good instructor at somewhere around 5.000-6.000 hours of training and a decent practitioner at about 3.000 hours. If you are looking for additional short-cuts, there aren’t any. What I would suggest is that you start keeping a training log –today - so that you know where you are at every moment in relation to your goals. You might complain that you are way too busy to practice for so many hours. Well… tough luck. Ben Franklin managed his personal project while having a job that left him little free time – he practiced in the morning before work, at night after work, and during the weekends. But here’s some good news for you: you don’t always have to train with a partner or at a martial arts club, so you can fit part of your training to what your otherwise busy schedule allows you. Solo training can be very productive, as has been proven by Jerry Rice, probably the greatest American football player and definitely the hardest worker in the history of the sport. Rice’s legendary practice sessions included very little actual football playing and tons of strength, speed, and agility work that gave him a distinct advantage over his opponents [6].

Video: There he is - the coolest guy in the world! Does he look like he learned his moves from some "grand master"? Yeah, especially the one he's doing at 1:40:-) And FYI, this guy has got a day job. Check his Youtube channel for the video where he explains that. Where does he find the time to practice?

Well, now you have a rough picture of what it takes. If you have any thoughts to share on the idea of acquiring expertise through deliberate practice, I would be happy to hear them. Otherwise, go make a Ben Franklin out of yourself…

Notes and references:

[1] There is also the category of people who take up martial arts in order to learn “a few easy-to-learn, effective” techniques in order to defend themselves. I believe the military paradigm has shown that this is indeed possible and can be achieved in about 50 hours of training. After that, all the students need to do is occasionally refresh the basic tactics they’ve learned, in order to retain most of the skills acquired. This type of training is primarily tailored to the needs for efficiency of the army as an organism and not to the learning capacity of the students – a great number of recruits have to go through basic training in as short an amount of time as possible, so the idea of them becoming experts is in this case inapplicable. In this sense, the idea of civilians training in “military combat systems” for year after year (and getting graded with belts or levels) seems rather absurd.

[2]Starkes, Janet L., Ericcson, Anders K. (Editors). Expert Performance in Sports. Human Kinetics, 2003. p. 26 – 27.

[3] Ericsson, Anders K.; Prietula, Michael J.; Cokely, Edward T. (2007). "The Making of an Expert". Harvard Business Review (July–August 2007).

[4] Colvin, G. Talent is Overrated. Portfolio, 2008. p. 105.

[5] I recently read in some online forum an instructor claiming that having a strategy and tactics goes against the principles of his art. This claim is absolutely absurd and probably the result of ignorance. The principles of any art (the “how”) are born out of the strategies, i.e. the ways this art chooses to address the problems of combat (the “because”). If there is no “because” there cannot be any type of “how”.

[6] Colvin, G. Talent is Overrated. Portfolio, 2008. p. 52 – 56.

Which way to mastery?

It was a few weeks ago on a Sunday morning when I found myself in an airport, ready to board an airplane, with nothing to read during the flight. My only option was the airport newsstand and, without giving it too much thought, I picked something from the non-fiction shelves - a book titled Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, by Daniel H. Pink. The book is about human motivation, the things that make us tick, and what scientific research has discovered on the subject. I found it a pretty insightful read, although the author tries to reach conclusions mostly on the gap between what science knows and what is commonly practiced in the field of business management (which I do not care much about). What impressed me the most from Daniel Pink's argument for the need of a new approach in order for people to get motivated, creative and productive, is the importance of the element of mastery, i.e. the urge most of us have to become better and better at something that matters. Here's some advice the author gives, which I believe will be helpful and inspirational to martial arts practitioners:

"One key to mastery is what Florida State University psychology professor Anders Ericsson calls 'deliberate practice' - a 'lifelong period of... effort to improve performance in a specific domain[. Deliberate practice isn't running a few miles each day or banging on the piano for twenty minutes each morning. It's much more purposeful, focused, and, yes, painful. Follow these steps - over and over again for a decade - and you just might become a master.

• Remember that deliberate practice has one objective: to improve performance. 'People who play tennis once a week for years don't get any better if they do the same thing each time', Ericsson has said. 'Deliberate practice is about changing your perfromance, setting new goals and straining yourself to reach a bit higher each time'.
• Repeat, repeat, repeat. Repetition matters. Basketball greats don't shoot ten free throws at the end of team practice; they shoot five hundred.
• Seek constant,critical feedback. If you don't know how you're doing, you won't know what to improve.
• Focus ruthlessly on where you need help. While many of us work on what we're already good at, say Ericsson, 'those who get better work on their weaknesses'.
• Prepare for the process to be mentally and physically exhausting. That's why so few people commit to it, but that's why it works".

If you are interested in the idea of mastery you will probably find this previous post on the Systema Sweden blog interesting.

You can buy Daniel H. Pink's book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates us, here (Amazon UK).

How can you learn how to fight when you can barely stand???

Although I own quite a few of them, I don't find martial arts textbooks especially useful. If one does not know how to read between the lines (and pictures), they seem to promote an inefficient way of teaching the arts, by focusing on directions on how to execute specific techniques: "1) Grab your opponent from the neck and biceps, 2) Push the neck diagonally to the back while at the same time pulling the arm in a 45 degree angle towards the opponent's front right corner", etc. Whether we like it or not, combat techniques are not like IKEA furniture, where if one blindly follows the instructions, the end result will inevitably be a couch or an armchair. The subtleties of manipulating an alive and resisting human body are infinite, so sensitivity and adaptive measures are needed every moment of the interaction, and no martial arts textbook can convey that.

Nevertheless, every now and then one can stumble upon valuable pieces of insight in books about martial arts and from my experience, these are usually located in the first, introductory chapters, where the basic principles of the art analyzed in the book are explained. For example, the other day I was browsing Total Aikido: The Master Course by master Gozo Shioda. On page 14 of the book, Shioda explains the first basic principle of aikido, namely Chusin-Ryoku, or "the power of the center line": "One of the basics of aikido is the principle of maintaining a straight center line in the body. For most people, even if they try to stand straight, their center line is not really straight. Even when we do stand straight and focus on keeping our center line fixed, we lose it again as soon as we move. If this happens, then the purpose of aikido, the development of breath power, becomes impossible. If we are able to maintain a strong centerline whatever direction we move in, we have focused power. By forging this focused power, we are also promoting strong posture, concentration and breath power [1]".



Now, Shioda, at a height of 1,57m and barely 50 kilos of weight, was by any measure a very small man. Still, if one watches his aikido demonstrations, it is obvious that this man, unimpressive in terms of stature, possessed extraordinary power and impressive skills, so we must assume that his writings must have some importance, right? The problem is that his descriptions seem to me pretty vague and open to interpretation (as is very common with most Asian martial arts, in my opinion). This should not be surprising: when Shioda was studying aikido under the founder of the art, Morihei Ueshiba, scientific research into the field of human movement was nonexistent, so the terms one could use to describe what happens into a moving human body had to be intuitive, which means that they lacked objectivity.

I don't even want to think about what on earth "breath power" might mean, but how about the term "center line"? Some difficulty might be also present here, in order to explain it. For example, some Wing Chun people describe the center line as an imaginary line drawn along the centre of the human body that joins the eyes, nose, throat, navel, knees, and groin as a central focus of attack. Some JKD people might add that the centerline should always be directed towards the opponent, so that all our weapons are available to use to the maximum of their capabilities. The way I understand these explanations, it seems that the center line is some sort of a topographical feature that lies on the front part of the body. In Shioda's description, I suspect that, much more than a topographical feature, the center line is a biomechanical feature of a body in motion.

Maybe then, if we turned to biomechanics and sports science, we'd get some additional insight. According to Joanne Elphinston, performance consultant to elite athletes, "...all sports require control of a central longitudinal axis (CLA) to achieve their most efficient movement. In practice this central axis is not a rigid position: it is the sense of a firm but flexible central reference point, which supports movement of the torso and limbs. Imagine a firm, thick metal cable passing vertically through the top of your head and down through the middle of your body. This cable would form an axis for your shoulders, thorax and pelvis to smoothly rotate around, but still enable you to move easily in all directions. [...] If the central axis collapses, rotational movement will be restricted due to joint compression on the concave side of the collapse, and soft tissue tension on the convex side" [2].

Some of you might note that from the vague terminology used in some Asian martial arts we have moved into geek language territory, so we'd better try and make it simple: if you have seen the movie Karate Kid 2, you probably remember that little spinning drum Mr Miyagi used as an analogy to help Daniel understand the "secret technique" that was to save him during the final fight (if you haven't seen the movie, you haven't missed much, but you can check the final fight scene and the drum I'm talking about here and before you ask, yes I too believe that Ralph Macchio's central longitudinal axis is kinda crooked). OK, now try to think what would happen if the stick which runs through the middle of the drum, was made from soft rubber instead of wood - most probably, it would collapse under the weight of the drum, so rotation would be hard to achieve, if at all possible. Well, that's what happens if one lacks control of the CLA or, as Gozo Shioda might say, is unable to maintain a "strong centerline". And, obviously this does not only happen in martial arts practice - whether you play golf, tennis, or ice hockey, or you want to pack some serious power in your punches and make your throwing techniques more efficient, you must rotate your torso, and rotation will be strongest when it is performed around a strong, clearly defined axis.

So, how does one establish this central longitudinal axis? Well, it is mostly about maintaining a neutral position of the spine (keeping those gentle curves at the cervical and lumbar regions intact) with the least effort possible. In other words, you need to have an ideal posture, described once again by Joanne Elphinston as "simply and buoyantly supporting yourself against gravity, and allowing your body structures to move and interact in their least stressful, most effective relationships. An ideal dynamic posture should make movement easier, helping you to establish a central axis for balanced motion and allowing you to breathe freely" [3]. Unfortunately, nowadays this is easier said than done in our urbanised society, with most people spending many hours a day hunched in front of a computer, squeezed in a car seat, or collapsed on the couch in front of a television set.

It always strikes me as a paradox when I see Systema RMA practitioners in seminars trying to perform what is taught by instructors with perfect posture, using a less than ideal posture themselves. The problem is two-fold, in my opinion. On one side we have the students that focus on the end goal of each movement they try to perform, ignoring the process through which the goal can be achieved, what F.M Alexander, founder of the Alexander Technique, called the "means whereby": if one only cares about delivering a mighty Systema punch, he tends to "think with his fists", which makes focusing on the ideal posture impossible. On the other side, although all the Systema RMA instructors I have trained with (including Mikhail Ryabko and Vladimir Vasiliev) have an ideal posture, they never actually refer to it as an essential ingredient of their skills. What they do is repeatedly urge the practitioners to relax - the problem is that bad posture, by its mechanical structure generates tension in order to be maintained, which means that relaxation is by definition unattainable...

A protracted and backwardly rotated head, lack of mobility in the thoracic spine, abducted or winged shoulder blades, externally rotated hips, are all factors that contribute to a bad posture and will make your progress in martial arts (or any other type of) training arduous and, most probably, laden with injuries. If you want to check whether your posture is good, the mirror won't help you much - having a partner video your training sessions will. After you see yourself training, go check out videos of top practitioners of martial arts and top athletes and make a comparison (you can check once again the demonstration by Gozo Shioda above, perhaps a DVD with work by Mikhail Ryabko, but also videos of Mohammed Ali, Michael Jordan and even some accomplished dancers or gymnasts - ideal posture is not exclusively found in one martial art, sport or discipline). If you discover that you don't fare that well, you've got work to do, but please stay away from the "military approach" to posture: the advice to "stand up straight, head up, shoulders back, stomach in", will lead you away from your goal, by causing increased effort and muscular tension in your body. The basic Systema exercises (push-ups, sit-ups, flat-foot squats) can help you a lot, as long as you focus on executing them with a "long spine", imagining (not actively trying) that your head is moving away from your pelvis. Some stability training for your core, pelvis and shoulder girdle will also work miracles. Still, the best methods to improve your posture utilize subtle cues in order to activate neurological reflexes that stimulate your posture quickly and easily (the Alexander Technique is one of the most sophisticated I know off). You might want to try some lessons in one of those. And most importantly, when you're training, try not to think with your fists and feet. Before you try to perform any movement, even you warm-up exercises, just perform a mental check of your posture, until the neutral position of the spine becomes a habit for you (the slow training methods utilized in Russian Martial Art make this awareness possible). Because, just being able to stand does not in any way mean you're in a position to fight.

References:
[1] Shioda, Gozo. Total Aikido: The Master Course. Kodansha, 1996. p. 14
[2] Elphinston, J. Stability, Sport and Performance Movement. Lotus Publishing, 2008. p.17
[3] Ibid. p. 61

A system of humans at play!

Whenever an opportunity to train with Alex Kostic turns up, I do my best to grasp it and you know what? - it's not just because I want to train with him. Please don't misunderstand me, Alex's seminars are full of insights and those "aha!" moments, regarding their technical content. What I find even more fascinating though, is talking to him, because he has this uncanny ability to draw analogies between philosophy and somatic psychotherapy (his fields of academic study) and martial arts training and practice. During the last two times we met and trained with Alex (November 2009 in Sweden and two weeks ago in Athens, Greece), we discussed extensively his personal approach to Russian Martial Art, which he has named "Sistema Homo Ludens" and honestly, a number of his ideas made a huge impression on me. For those of you who do not already know, "Homo Ludens" (Man the Player) is a book written in 1938 by Dutch historian, cultural theorist and professor Johan Huizinga, that discusses the importance of the play element of culture and society. My personal views on an approach of teaching combat skills (or any other type of skills) through play might be the subject of a future blog post. What I wanted to share in this post is a text posted by Alex himself yesterday of Facebook, regarding the philosophy of Sistema Homo Ludens, plus a video trailer highlighting the various aspects of Homo Ludens training and a video interview of Alex explaining more of his ideas. Hope you enjoy these!

"Homo Ludens: Philosophy (by Alex Kostic)
Combat, as a diverse conglomeration of specific practices of relations with oneself and others, necessarily implies movement as a horizon of more or less set possibilities. For each of us, the possibility of movement is so axiomatic and immediate that we almost never think of it. The moves that people make are most often instrumental in character – walking from part of the town to another in order to get to work, bending over to reach an important document in a drawer, sitting down to get rest, etc. The common thread for all these motions is that they are not an end in themselves, but rather aimed at some purpose exterior to the movement itself. On the other side, in the window of glorious human dignified practices are those that have taken movement to an art: acting, ballet, dance, etc. What does it mean? It is to say that within those practices the movement is not in the function of some immediate goal, but instead it rises to the fullness of its temporality, which realized its essential capacities through the play. Play, therefore, is not something we use to attain any other goal – it is a goal in itself.

The common attitude is that in combat training most important issue is the command of various fighting techniques. Nevertheless, in the course of such training, what is referred to as techniques, and meant to be the desired outcome of a movement, is usually simply “glued” to a body that tries, under the pressure of desire for success, to anticipate the unpredictable spontaneity of the situation, in which only a body educated through movement can lead to more or less favorable resolving of the conflict. The technical training attempts to compensate for what is lacking in the domain of corporal education, by reaching for the satisfactory outcome in a strictly controlled situation. That way, the combative training instills in its practitioners the uncritical self-confidence in an irresponsible manner, the self-confidence that is not founded in the freedom of move, but rather in the fantasy of efficiency.

First one needs to suspend the yearning for the perfection of technique, for the sake of free movement. Such freedom does not bear with dogma or school uniformity, but instead seeks space for play, which in a conflict situation becomes the unpredictable struggle for survival. Therefore, a man who plays will not ask about the origins of the particular movement, but alternatively he will reinvent every “technique” himself.

That way, the first step in educating the body entails linking the movements freely into various biomechanical kinetic chains. At first on one’s own and later with a partner, the body learns to anticipate force vectors and in the beginning starts with imitation, but soon follows with improvisation, in order to relieve itself from striving to do the “right” or “realistic” technique. In its place, it will make the necessary and sufficient movement, thus rewarding the practitioner with satisfaction. In that context, the satisfaction lures the body into breaking out of its shy autism and stepping into the field of its possibilities. However, in that field there is someone else waiting, and with regards to combat, that someone is threatening.

The threat at hand simulates the feeling of being in danger, which cannot be escaped through any training. In the first stage, the subject has acquired fluid movement, softening the body with pleasure and forgetting about the threat. Once it matures, the body needs to be scared by strong hits, impossible situation that humiliate the narcissism of theatrical flawlessness.

The threat at issue simulates the feeling of danger that cannot be avoided through any training. In the first phase, the subject has acquired fluidity of movement, softened his body with pleasure and forgot about the threat. Once the body has matured, it needs to be scared by powerful strikes and “impossible” situations, which humiliate the narcissism of the theatrical flawlessness. Only through perseverance in the experience of stressful contact it is possible to talk about mature, self-critical attitude towards conflicts. Once the spontaneity of movement, which does not stem from the conscious projection characteristic for technical exercises, is unified with the experience of the struggle and overcoming obstacles, the training becomes free play that is no longer played by the child in its naïveté, nor the adolescent in its competitiveness, but rather an adult person in its responsible relaxation.

Let the spirit of play spread through the training hall, and not the dubious authority of a master, who compensates his fear from the loss of control through egotistical perfectionism. Let the gym become a temporal and unpretentious community of equal explorers of corporal movement, instead of a bullying domain, which insists on rivalry, thus establishing the ungrounded hierarchy that, as a rule, only results in selfish egotism".





More on Alex Kostic and Sistema Homo Ludens at www.russianmartialart-serbia.com.
You can preview the book Homo Ludens by Johan Huizinga here.

What would you rather play? The guitar or Guitar Hero?

Strangely enough, even though I grew up listening to and idolizing the great heroes of guitar (Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Richie Blackmore, Jeff Beck, but also B.B. King, Albert King, Steve Cropper, Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell and George Benson, among others), the people who designed and market the video game Guitar Hero, probably do not consider me (and most people of my generation) as part of their target group. Besides listening to famous guitar players, I also took up playing the guitar for a few years when I was younger. But since I also trained in martial arts, I decided that you cannot break bricks, boards and tiles and at the same time demand from your fingers to be agile, so I finally ended up just playing air guitar at parties...

A few months ago I played Guitar Hero for the first time and although, based on my past, one would expect me to enjoy it, well... I didn't. Part of my dislike for the game comes from the fact that I'm rather the old-school type. I admire all guitar heroes, because they spent countless hours practicing before they managed to reach fame and stardom: first they got to know their "axes" as good as possible and perfected their "licks", then practiced with a band, then performed at humble establishments (to say the least) in order to get their act solid – in a few words they paid their dues. Nowadays, it seems that anyone can "live the experience" of being a guitar god, with the help of a piece of electronic equipment and none of the fuss – so typical of the age of instant gratification we live in. I’m afraid I just don't get it...

Of course some of you might say that this is an ethical reason to dislike the game, but the ethics of one person do not necessarily coincide with those of another, and I am not going to argue on that. Still, there are a few more reasons I do not like Guitar Hero, rather of a practical nature, and I would like to present them too, so here I go:

1. The game is not that much of a challenge. Sure, it requires some skill, but not much: some sense of rhythm and hand-eye coordination. A recreational guitar player definitely has those and something more: he knows how to produce tones from the instrument he's holding.
2. There's not enough freedom. With only five buttons (!) on the fretboard plus a lever that simulates the picking of the strings, there are only twenty or so (correct me if I'm wrong) combinations of things you can do with your fingers of both hands. The combination to use each moment is provided by the game software – you are not allowed to deviate from the "correct" choice, which is dictated by the original recording of the song included in the game disc. So basically, you don't play the game, the game plays you. Isn't this very un-guitar hero? Can you imagine Jimi Hendrix playing the exact same solo every time he played a specific piece of music? Yeah, I thought so… Plus, you cannot regulate the sound of your guitar by using your wah-wah pedal, by playing with a slide, by bending, plucking, strumming the strings or whatever. Boring…
3. It simply doesn't get you anywhere! After having "played to perfection" all the songs included in one of the game discs (possible, but not probable, since the compilations are rather uneven), the fun is over until you buy another disc. Whereas, a guitar allows you to learn new songs every now and then so you can have fun with your friends, become a virtuoso soloist, or even compose your own music – as long as you put the time and effort.
4. A guitar player can very easily play Guitar Hero. A Guitar Hero player can't necessarily play the guitar. Do I have to elaborate on that one?

Lately, a number of people with some experience in military Close Quarters Combat systems have contacted me in order to start training in Russian Martial Art. Some of them seem to think that RMA is a typical CQC system, only the "techniques" we use are more effective, due to the (partially) Soviet origins of our training method. I try to explain that in RMA, we treat every action (a sequence of movements with a specific goal) as a "symphony of movement". And in order to reach the level of skill needed to perform a symphony, one must first learn how to play scales of single notes, i.e. explore the movement potential of the human body for its own sake, then play some "musical phrases" with these notes, later start interacting with other "musicians" in order to understand the ideas of harmony and counterpoint, and finally perform the part which is needed in any given musical piece. The end goal of this process is what my friend and senior Systema RMA instructor Emmanuel Manolakakis calls "a set of skills for life", not only for combat or survival.

The analogy I use between Russian Martial Art and music seems to put off the people who are interested in "a few high percentage techniques" that will address most situations, so they never show up for training. And I think that's for the better, because as an instructor and coach, I'd rather teach people how to play the guitar than play Guitar Hero...

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...