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).
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
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.
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.
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...
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".
Unlike today's fitness industry that places extreme emphasis on either physical attributes (strength, power, speed etc) or physical appearance, folk wisdom values dexterity (the ability of an "intelligent body" to spontaneously solve problems that arise out of the interaction with one's environment) very highly. The epics, fairy tales and proverbs of cultures from all around the world praise dexterity consistently - the famous Bible legend of yound David who beat the giant Goliath using his wits and skill is one of the first to pop in mind. Russian - Jewish neurophysiologist and pioneer of the science of biomechanics N.A. Bernstein included the following fable (presumably of Russian origin) in his classic text On Dexterity and Its Development. I find it very inspiring so I thought I should share it:
"The father sent his three sons to travel around the world and to learn wisdom. In three years, the sons were back and told the father that one of them had learned the skills of the barber, the second one had learned the profession of the blacksmith, and the third one had become a fencer.
The father asked them all to sit in front of the house and to wait for a chance to demonstrate their skills. The one who bested the brothers would inherit the house and all the valuables.
They sat for a short while and saw a large hare hopping across the field.
'This one is just for me', said the barber. He took his instruments, ran after the hare, put foam on its muzzle, and shaved it clean without cutting the skin.
'Yes', said the father, "You are certainly a great master. If your brothers do not do something amazing, the house will be yours'.
'Wait a minute, daddy', said the second son, the blacksmith.
And exactly at that time, a carriage appeared on the road pulled by a pair of trotters. The blacksmith grabbed his tools, ran after the carriage, tore off all eight horseshoes and replaced them with new oneswithout stopping the carriage.
'Wow', said the father, 'I can see that you also did not waste your time. I don't know who is more dexterous of you too. Your brother will have a hard time catching his elder brothers'.
He had just spoken these words, when it started to rain. The father and the two elder sons crawled under the bench while the third son, the fencer, remained outside. He drew out his sword and sterted to swing it over his head hitting away each drop of water. The rain grew harder and harder and eventually it started to pour. But the younger son just swung his sword quicker and quicker and managed to deflect every drop according to the perfect rules of fencing, so that he remained as dry as if he were sitting under an umbrella.
The father could not make a choice and divided his estate between all three sons. That was the only smart thing to do". I really don't know what made things change so much since the times when people recounted fables as cool as this, but it seems to me that nowadays dexterity is underrated or rather, ignored, especially in the world of martial arts and combat training, in favour of crude physical attributes, such as strength, speed and endurance. If you just perform a search on the internet, you will mostly find people obsessed with numbers: it's always about how much weight one can move, how many reps of a given exercise one can perform in a given amount of time or for how long can one continously perform one exercisebefore exhausting himself. And thenthere are the people obsessed with appearance - the "six-pack, the "big guns" (biceps, that is), and the shoulders that look as if you can rest the world on top of them. Especially in North America this "notion" of cosmetic muscle buildingis so pervasive that some people believe Fedor Emelianenko can't really fight, since he looks like a fat guy!
Now, please don't misunderstand me, I'm not claiming that strength, speed and endurance are not important physical attributes, and of course, if you're interested in improving your chances of getting laid, a six-pack might come handy:-) But, just take a moment to think about this: why does one want to train in martial arts? Is it because he wishes to overcome an opponent who is weaker, slower and less enduring? Of course not! And what other than dexterity is it that gives an average David a chance at victory over Goliath?
Unlike strength, speed or endurance, dexterity is a versatile capacity, it applies in many fields - in everyday life, in sports, or in war. It is accesible to everyone and it is exercisable, it can be developed. And, according to N.A. Bernstein, "it builds a bridge to the area of genuine intellect. It is an accumulation of life experiences in the field of movements and actions. For this reason, dexterity frequently increases with age and is preserved until later years more than other psychophysical capacities"[my bold]. Do you want to be a great martial artist? Just build a good base in physical conditioning and then move on to dexterity - it is not muscular adaptation you're after in the long run, it is neuro-muscular adaptation. Train movements, not muscles, and make sure you analyze the physiological aspects and biomechanics of each movement (or if you can't do that just ask help from someone who can).
In order to get inspired, just check out the following video I found on YouTube, of people swinging heavy objects around. Then compare the stuff these guys are doing with what the "monster lifters" of the two videos above are doing. Honestly now - which ones impress you the most???
And lastly, here's one last video for all of you who favour David in a match-up against Goliath. Fedor may look like just a fat guy, but man, can he fight!!!
Here's some valuable training advice by Matt Thornton, Brazilian JuJitsu and MMA coach and head of the Straight Blast Gym worldwide matial arts organization. I found it in an interview of his, included in the Functional JKD instructional DVD series. Check it out and see if it applies to you (the stranscription was done by me so there might be a few small errors, but the general content is there):
"I hear that sometimes, my students will complain that some people are natural athletes. It is true, there are definitely people that pick up things quicker, they do BJJ for a year or two and they're really good. But alot of it also has to do with the way you think: a lot of the people that complain about learning slowly are just lazy. They may work hard physically, but they lack the most important element you must have in order to learn anything, which is imagination. When they see me learning something new and a day later they see me doing it in sparring, what they don't realize is that between the moment I learned the technique and the moment I came out and used, I have been thinking about it. I go to bed at night thinking about it, I visualize it, I wonder where it would fit in the context of the whole game, how it could be used from different positions, so I can see it in my mind and then I can use it. It's not just the physical training, there's also the mental part and I think a lot of people are just lazy, they just don't do it. 'Oh, that's the move? OK, show where else you can use it', they say, instead of 'Hmmm, I wonder where else you can use that move, let me think about it for a minute and let me use my powers of deduction'. You can't possibly learn this way. It's too complicated, so you really need that imagination. The people I'm talking about usually don't listen to music and they don't read a lot. If they exercised their brain muscle, they'd learn a lot faster too'.
Here's something for you to keep in mind: if you thought that training in martial arts is something that happens exclussively in the gym, and after you exit the door it is all over, you're going to have a hard time to get really good at your game. Visualization and mental rehersal can give you a serious edge: according to football coach Andrew Caruso, "virtually all recent research has shown that five hours of physical practice and one hour of visualization is consistently better than six hours of physical practice!" [1]All you have to do, is use your imagination. Elite professional athletes all over the world reap great benefits for this. Why wouldn't you?
[1] Caruso, A. Sports Psychology Basics. Reedswain, 2004.
You can find out more about Matt Thornton and the Straight Blast Gym here. You can also find some very interesting articles about training on his "Aliveness 101 blog":
I believe it was right after Fedor Emelianenko’s victory in his MMA fight against Andrei Arlovski, when I read in some martial arts forum a number of comments on how and why this dominant Russian fighter manages to keep his face totally expressionless before, during, and after his fights. Well, in my opinion this is pretty typical of most Russian fighters – for one thing, Fedor’s brother, Alexander Emelianenko is pretty famous too for his facial expression (or rather, lack of) when he fights, and during my competition days and later, my refereeing days in san shou (Chinese kickboxing), I had the opportunity to meet from up close with a number of formidable Russian fighters who, when on the ring, looked as if they were spending just another boring day at the office!
Most of the explanations given on this matter by the members of the forum I was reading had to do with Fedor not wanting to give any information about his emotional state to his opponent. This view is actually quite correct - without a doubt, the human face is an enormously rich source of information about emotion. Still, there is another explanation to Fedor’s emotionless facial expression - not a strategic but a neurophysiologic one - which is based on the claim posed by a number of scientists that the information on our face is not just a signal of what is going on inside our mind, but in a certain sense, it is what is going on inside our mind.
A great deal of our understanding of facial expressions comes from the work of psychologist Paul Ekman. During the sixties, Ekman was interested in studying faces, so he travelled to Japan, Brazil, and Argentina and also visited some remote tribes in the Far East, carrying photographs of people making a variety of facial expressions. To his amazement, everywhere he went, people agreed on what those expressions meant. After that discovery, Ekman and his collaborator Wallace Friesen decided to create a taxonomy of facial expressions. What they did was sit in a lab and try to move each one of their facial muscles, first separately and then in combination with other facial muscles. This way, they documented (through video) over ten thousand facial configurations. Most of those were nonsensical, but about three thousand of them were indicative of specific emotions. Now, here comes the interesting part: when Ekman and Friesen were working on expressions of anger and despair, they discovered that after a session of “putting on” these faces, they were feeling terrible, so they started to keep track of this effect! “What we discovered”, said Ekman, “is that expression alone is sufficient to create marked changes in the autonomic nervous system. When this first occurred we were stunned. We weren’t expecting this at all. And it happened to both of us. We felt terrible. What we were generating were sadness, anguish. And when I lower my brows, and raise the upper eyelid, and narrow the eyelids and press the lips together, I’m generating anger. My heartbeat will go up ten to twelve beats. My hands will get hot. As I do it, I can’t disconnect from the system” [1].Ekman and Friesen conducted further research on this subject, and so did a German team of psychologists a few years later. The results were, in my opinion most interesting: while we think of the face as the place where emotions end up, the process also works in the opposite direction – emotions might also start on the face. In a few words, just forcing a smile can make you happy!
So, how does this relate to hand-to-hand combat and our training? Well, without getting very scientific here, the tension in your face can result to tension in your body and disintegration of your skills. So, during training, when performing a task that you find challenging, instead of contorting your face in a mask of agony or superhuman effort, just relax and keep your expression neutral. When you find yourself frowning (yes, you have to try and be aware of that), just stop the drill you’re performing for a moment, and rub your forehead, cheeks and ears with your palms and then give yourself a few light slaps on the face, before you resume - you will find that it helps a lot to get rid of the tension in the rest of your body and enhances your general performance.
Try this out and let me know how it works for you!
[1] as quoted in the book Blink (Little, Brown & Co 2005), by author-journalist Malcolm Gladwell
Spyro Katsigiannis has trained in various self defense systems, martial arts and combat sports since 1985. He became a certified instructor in Systema RMA in 2007, by Mikhail Ryabko and Andreas Weitzel, and he expanded his knowledge of Russian fighting styles by training in ROSS (The Native Russian System of Self Defense) with Alexander Retuinskih and Frank Etherson, in SAMBO with Vadim Kolganov, and in Systema Homo Ludens with Alexander Kostic. Spyro is a certified instructor in Filipino Kali and has a national certification as a San Shou (Chinese kickboxing) coach by the Greek ministry of sports. He has competed and coached athletes in San Shou. He has also received training in Eagle Claw Kung Fu (Ying Zhao Fan Zi Men), YiQuan and Judo. In 2008 he founded the Göteborgs Systema-RMA Klubb, today known as the Göteborg Dynamo Club, with the goal of integrating the common elements of all modern Russian Martial Art styles, rather than representing and promoting a specific Russian “brand” of martial arts activity. He represents the Russian All-Around Fighting Federation in Sweden. He has written a number of blog articles on the history and training methodology of Russian Martial Art.
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:
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