Warrior mindset

Getting to black belt or achieving anything of value takes patience and hard work. It is an admiral quality that people display when they just keep turning up to the dojang and taking another small step towards their goal. This is one mindset that is important to making progress. We can call this a ‘yin’ mindset, something that keeps you chipping away at a goal and knowing that you will get there eventually.

However, we also have to train our ‘yang’ mindset, that of facing a challenge in the present. One that cannot be chipped away over time, but has to be dealt with in its entirety immediately

Years ago I was in a class and we were doing pad work, the instructor introduced the technique to be practiced, which happened to be spinning turning kick. This produced a collective groan from a group, mainly from the higher grades within the class. Granted spinning turning kick is not the easiest of techniques but it is hardly tough enough to have people groaning about it. At that point, I feel, all the people who expressed their dislike of the technique had already lost.

For sure they had exposed a weakness in their technique, the fact that they didn’t enjoy practicing the technique. Also they exposed weakness in their mindset, they had almost already admitted defeat just because it was a tough technique. In that session, no one that expressed their displeasure put in 100% effort. Maybe just going through the motions until the instructor moved to a different technique.

Ok, so it was only a pad drill, but what happens if we carry that mindset into other parts of the art. If we have to spar a tough opponent or even defend ourselves physically. We can’t get used to admitting defeat when we are presented with a challenge. We need to develop a strong mindset that doesn’t let us shy away from challenges

We do this simply by facing up to challenges, in class we hear there is a difficult technique, we have to spar the club champion, we have to spar 2 on 1 , or 3 on 1 or even 5 on 1. No matter what the challenge we should meet it with no complaining and pretty much no comment at all.

At the beginning of this article I referred to the 2 different mindset as yin and yang. Both have to be present in your training. Whereas turning up for training everyday but never meeting a challenge will not help you progress, turning up for training once a month will mean that the basic will always be a challenge for you. If we balance the two, turning up and also constantly accepting challenges that we are presented with they we will make strong progress in our training.

Next time in training, when you are presented with a challenging situation, watch how you react

Sparring Drills part 2

Previously I wrote an article on some sparring drills I use with my students. In that article the sparring drills covered a number of different skills and approaches.

In this article I will be looking at drills specifically that deal with altering the tactical mindset of my students, from sport sparring to self defence

As with all sparring drills it is important that you set things up correctly, make sure everyone is aware of the rules of the particular session and proper safety precautions are observed.

These are slightly more advanced drills and time should be taken to introduce the skills needed to deal with the situations that will be presented before going in to the drills. More information on this can be found on the time under pressure post.

 

No gentlemen

A very common point sparring drill set up is to have maybe 4-5 pairs sparring on the floor with the rest of the class waiting in a line. When someone scores a point off their opponent they bow out and join the end of the queue while their partner stays up and spars the next person.

Usually, as the rules of the sport demand, the students bow, touch gloves and then begin. When I am looking for a more reality based version of this drill, I remove the bowing and glove touching. The new student can run in from the queue and attack immediately. The student who is already up has to deal with the initial attack, normal point sparring rules apply

15 seconds

This is one of my favorite drills, and the only one that I don’t necessarily fully explain to the students before they practice.

The drill is just simply introduce 15 seconds, of time before sparring. During this 15 seconds the students are free to do whatever they want. They can find a better position, they can grab a weapon, try to talk the other students down. After 15 seconds there is a signal and the sparring begins.

Often, as I stated before, when I introduce this drill I won’t give much instruction. I will just tell my students that they will wait for 15 seconds before they start sparring. Always they will wait in their ready position, usually with a puzzled expression on their face. Even if I move to multiple attackers or weapon based attackers they will wait and then fight. After we have done this a few times, we discuss what else could be done with the 15 seconds that they have.

The main point of this drill is to open their mind to other options and to get them thinking outside of the ring where you always have to fight.

 

Weapons

Again, this drill is very simple and the main purpose is to open the students’ mind and get them use to having more options and get use to a non-competition sparring format.

After the students are comfortable with weapon defenses, I lay dummy weapons out, these can be rubber knives, padded sticks, or even just pads and kick shields. During sparring if they can the students can pick up any of these and use them to attack.

 

The first few times maybe no one will pick up a weapon, or both with run for different weapons. However, as they students get more use to this format they will develop different tactics for the situation. Those could be be kicking weapons away, fleeing when someone picks up a weapon, preemptive attacks when someone is picking up a weapon and so on.

 

Ok, so a few of my favorite drills to teach mindset and to break students out of a competitive sparring format.

I hope you find these useful, if you try any of them in your sessions please let me know how it goes.

Foul Language

Like many living in Jakarta I spend a lot of time sitting in traffic. I tend to use this time listening to podcasts, I find it a good opportunity to get some good information. I will post a list of podcasts that I listen to after this article

Currently there is some really great information being delivered by podcasts. However, I have noticed a (what I find) disturbing trend in some of the podcasts I listen to. That is one of over use of profanity. Now before I continue I should say I am not overly sensitive to such language and I myself have been known to use the occasional colourful phrase in my day to day life.

The problem with what I hear on the podcast is that the use of foul language is promoted in an effort to give the podcast a realistic edge. Often you will hear the presenter saying that they promote swearing or encouraging guests to use foul language. This is often greeted with cheering and laughing much akin to school children using naughty adult words. There seems to be the idea that for something to be considered real, it has to be rough and unrefined.

Strangely I see the same trend in the martial arts. People trying to show their style as ‘real’ by also acting rough and unrefined.

These days I see martial arts instructors going out of their way to include profanity in their classes, even to the point of barely being able to give an instruction without swearing. Trying to promote some sort of tough guy image better suited to the movies than the dojang

Some would say the argument for the use of offensive language would be that cursing and the use of foul language is part of self-defense and we should be desensitizing our students to it. Whereas I agree with this, I feel it is often used as an excuse by those wanting to promote the aforementioned image. I don’t feel that this gives way to losing all control over what you’re saying in a class. We certainly should not be actively going out of our way to try to swear all the time.

The other issue with that argument is you are not making an effort to desensitize your students by merely swearing your head off all the time. This would be akin to threatening every new student with a knife when they came in the door. Anyone uncomfortable with swearing would merely leave having learnt nothing apart from your dojo isn’t the place for them. An instructor may have no problem with that and want to only teach those who can already handle swearing, that is their personal choice to have such a place, but please don’t dress it up as a teaching method

If we are going to use the argument that bad language is part of a confrontation then maybe we should treat it like any other part of training. That is to include it at the appropriate time. swearing and shouting  in situational drills either hands on or pad drills, and hard sparring is permitted in my class because that is a suitable place for foul language to be included, it may however be a little out of place during a warm up or a stretching sessions.

I do say this keeping in mind that the occasionally swear word is part of some people’s everyday language. If you and your students are comfortable with that then go for it. My point is forcing it and using bad language to give your style or teaching some sort of creditability is pointless and in fact childish

Again the idea that for something to be real it has to be unedited and unrefined is one that is both dangerous and inherently wrong and not something that we should try to pursue or emulate.

Tactical Taekwondo Pad work

Padwork is an integral part of TKD training. It is often seen as only having sport application but with a little bit of imagination we can make it suitable training aid to pattern application and self defence.

The drills I am going to talk about are hand orientated I am going to leave the leg drills for another time. Before we get to the drills I think we should look at some equipment prefrences.

The Pads and The Holder

I personally like stiff focus mitts to train punches. I find with softer pads you don’t get the same feedback. Feedback is also important when learning to hold pads for someone. There should be a small amount of tension in your arms when you are holding. Just a little bit of resistance when the punch lands so the puncher can feel how hard the strikes are. If too much the punches can be jammed or the holder can end up generating more power than the puncher. If too loose there is a danger to both the puncher and the holder for injury and strikes will never be delivered at full power as there is nothing to absorb the power. It takes time to get the skills for holding but it is an important aspect of training.

Gloves

There is some discussion about whether to wear gloves for pad work or not. For me it is a matter of what your goals are in a particular session. If you are going to be working for a long time at your max power then maybe you should protect your hands a little. If you are working on technique then I suggest you go without gloves, this helps better with the form of your hands and hand conditioning. A while back I found after working with gloves for too long that the form of my fist hand changed and still to this day I can spot people in my classes that have maybe over used gloves in their training.

The drills

These are a few examples of drills that I use in my classes. Before doing these drills you should have basic abilities in punching so that you can train safely. Time should be spent just going through basic punching combinations. This is good for the puncher and the holder to practice.

The first two pad drills are taken directly from the techniques shown in the patterns

Stripping and clearing

This drill is essentially to train your non punching hand. The drill starts as normal with the holder presenting the pads to the puncher. Jabs, straights, hooks, and uppercuts can all be used. Randomly the holder also has the choice of holding the pad for a punch but covering it with the other pad. The puncher should then clear the obstructing pad with their non-punching and then delivering the strike. I like to call for multiple strikes each time this happens, you have just cleared a pathway may as well make the most of it.

Pad control

This drill is also based on keeping both hands active. Instead of letting the holder dictate the strike used, the punch takes control of the pad by holding from behind. Essentially grabbing the holder’s hand. The puncher then moves the pad and delivers three fast strikes, then shifts the pad and delivers another three fast strikes. The strikes again range from, jabs, crosses, uppercuts, hooks, and can also include downward hammer fist and various elbow strikes. The changes and strikes should be fast, after all the puncher is punching their own hand the pad is merely in the way.

When you are well practiced at this you should try the same drill with your eyes closed.

Last three strikes of your life

This is for developing power. Once a variety of strikes have been practiced. The holder calls for a strike or punch. The Puncher then deliver three of the prescribed strikes as hard and as fast as possible. As soon as they have finished then another strike should be called. This continues till the power or form of the strikes starts to drop. Then either the partners switch roles or the puncher gets a short break and goes again.

Cover

Similar to a boxing drill, during a punching drill the holder can attack the puncher with the pads. They should be strikes aimed and the head and the puncher should cover. The reaction of the puncher should be to either grab, clear or grapple the holder. Not just to ride out the punches and continue.

Surprise

The holder engages the puncher in conversation. At a random moment the holder bring up the pad and shouts at the puncher. The puncher should respond as quickly as possible in an appropriate manner ie. Striking and backing off. The more relaxed each person can be before the strike is called the better the practice is. This can also be done with multiple people

These are just a few of the pad drill I use with my students to practice movement straight from the patterns. Of course nothing beats live practice but I find padwork an invaluable part of my, and my students, development. I hope you try some of these drills and see how they work into the TKD self defence system