The Martial Touch - Part IV

Oct 03, 2022

“The purpose of today's training is to defeat yesterday's understanding.” ― Miyamoto Musashi

Okay, so in my last installment I covered how to practice this when striking and due to some of the questions I’ve received from some folks. I realize I need to talk about some other stuff that I do to develop this ability in my own personal training. This will just be a short follow up and I’ll add some other stuff in here about training in general so that you can get the most out of your workouts.

As a Review

This is something you will eventually want to practice in everything you do until you become so aware of your body and all its’ movements, even at the most subtle level that you can change direction or come to a complete stop at will without thought. It just becomes something you can do. In my own personal training, I like to devote at least one training session a week where I do nothing but focus on this type of movement. So, whether I’m’ practicing a striking technique, stepping technique, or doing an exercise to increase my control over my equilibrium. I try to an nth degree move in this fashion starting slowly and then building up speed focused on nothing else but being aware of how my body feels as I move while trying to remain as smooth as possible regardless of speed, controlling for any overtravel no matter how slight. The operative word here is "focus!" You have to focus on this in order to develop it otherwise you're just wasting your time moving for the sake of moving.

Easy to say and very hard to do, but well worth the effort.

The level of control you will develop regardless of how long you have been training will surprise you. Even to this day I learn something new that allows me to refine my movement each time I train in this fashion.

On Understanding Adaptation

"He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.”

― Leonardo da Vinci

We've all heard about "not trying too hard" at a thing or "do not to try too hard" because at a certain point you start having diminishing returns. The reason is because when you train there will always be mistakes and making mistakes is a part of the learning process and we sometimes get in our own way by having the wrong attitude about our training. Also, when you try too hard you stress yourself out for no reason and make yourself tight in everything you do.

The problem is if no one explains what they mean by this, they are just pissing down your back trying to convince you it's raining. This type of talk does nothing more than prevent people from putting forth the necessary effort to accomplish their goals. When you train you need to have an idea of what you want to accomplish which is why how you frame training is critical to this because it provides a path to follow. Sure, there will be lessons learned along the path, but that is expected because it's just a part of training.

Anyway...

I’ve been meaning to blog about this for some time but just never got around to it and I think this is crucial for people to understand as they train to develop their body for combat. It really has to deal with how to overcome when we become stagnated in our training and how to move past it. I call this “The Process Known as Adaptation.”

Now, the reason many people plateau in their training is because it is a part of the natural process of how our bodies adapt to physical stress / stimuli. The other reason is because they are training in the wrong things or training the wrong way with the wrong mindset, but that is for another post.

So, since they train in a manner or system that does not take adaptation into consideration. Their training is not progressive in nature nor logically structured so they double down on what is no longer working for them because they know nothing else.

In other words, if there is not a logical progression built into the training along with the proper feedback mechanisms. At a certain point they’re just banging their heads against the wall. However, this is not their fault but a deficiency in the structure and pedagogy of the system they train.

This is like lifting weights and after you reach a plateau in your development thinking that doing the same thing the same way is going to yield a different result. Even if you do improve, the improvement at that point is marginal. Also, there is a physical limitation to how much we can progress at anything and if you do not have the genetic predisposition for certain things you’re just not going to get there. Sorry but that's the way it is.

Anyway, here it is in a nutshell and hopefully as you train you can keep these things in mind and incorporate it into your training in whatever you do.