Tactical (and I never misuse that term) Proficiency = Training + Field Experience.
The best in the world train well, and frequently. They are also busy. They acquire real world experience and modify their training accordingly. Assuring that training exceeds the needs of application.
NTOA standards encourage tier one tactical teams to train at least every other week.
Teams that gain Tactical Proficiency through a balance of training and field experience are running warrants or responding to call outs on the weeks they are not training.
If a team is very busy they may not have time to train as often. However, they maintain a high level of Tactical Proficiency because they are gaining so much practical experience.
Therefore, teams that are not very busy need to train more often, and train better to maintain Tactical Proficiency.
This is where we live in regard to personal protection.
You do not want to be busy. If you are continually gaining personal protection field experience see also surviving criminal assaults you really need to change your lifestyle.
If you are consistently gaining social violence experience (which Randy King summarizes as High School tough guy bullshit) you are probably a prick and don't read this blog anyway
If you are consistently gaining social violence experience (which Randy King summarizes as High School tough guy bullshit) you are probably a prick and don't read this blog anyway
So, if you are not "busy", clearly you require frequent, quality training.
However, even regularly scheduled technical training does not necessarily ensure Tactical Proficiency.
Not being "busy", is a good life. How does one become Tactically Proficiency in a safe and reasonable manner?
Don't let anyone sell you on training as real life experience.
However, smart force on force training can come as close as is safely possible.
A historical perspective:
In 1886 Mr. Mishima, Chief of The Tokyo Metropolitan Police held a tournament to determine which martial art was superior in a true fight, and therefore to be taught to his Police Force.
On one team you had four or five Masters from various schools representing Koryu (martial arts that predate the Meiji restoration -1868) Jujutsu.
On the other team you the young upstart Jigoro Kano's crew that were trained in the new Kodokan Judo method.
The Kodokan team won 12 of the 15 matches.
The final match was between Shiro Saigo and a much larger and more experienced Jujutsu master who later became head of Yoshin-ryu Jujutsu.
About 15 minutes into the fight Saigo perfectly executed his trademark Yama Arashi, which ended the match with such force that his opponent retired with a concussion.
This match firmly established Judo as the superior form of Jujutsu, and Judo was subsequently adopted as the official training style for the Tokyo police academy. This also led to widespread acceptance of Judo as the most effective form of hand-to-hand combat in Japan.
The world recognized that Jigoro Kano had created training methods that were superior to those traditionally used in older forms Jujutsu.
What was the defining factor? Were the Kodokan fighters technically superior?
No, in 1886 the Kodokan was only like four years old, so a majority of the Kodokan fighter's training was the same as the Koryu team.
Kano's big stud Saigo was trained in Aikijujutsu. All the best Judo fighters start with some form of Aikijujutsu.
What made the Kodokan method stand out from other Jujutsu schools was it's intelligent use of force on force training.
Koryu Jujutsu had competitions. However, as described in Darrell Max Craig's "Japan's Ultimate Martial Art: Jujitsu Before 1882 " Jujutsuka would write letters saying goodbye to their families before leaving for a tournament because there was a high likelihood they would be maimed or killed in the competition.
Kano took all of the most dangerous elements of Jujutsu and preserved them in kata. What was left could be trained at full speed against highly trained and fully resistive opponent.
In my most humble opinion, being able to train hard, and safe is what led to victory in the Tokyo Police tournament.
*Grain of salt* Granted, Kano in known as a great martial artist. However, for as good as he was he was a much better teacher. He was a literal (and I never misuse that term) professor. Also he was just plain smart. He recruited talent from other Jujutsu schools, helped further develop them with his training methods, and made sure the Police Jujutsu Tournament followed Kodokan competition rules.
For personal protection you don't want to become Tactically Proficient through surviving multiple criminal assaults.
The apple pie life - doing what you want with those you love in a comfortable environment is the goal.
Therefore, to become Tactically Proficient I feel that you must engage in some form of force on force training.
How do you learn from loss?
How do you turn loss into a positive experience?
Jamie Lanister: One can learn quite a deal from defeat
Olenna Tyrell: You must be a genius
First you must survive the loss. Originally competitions like Judo were safe ways to practice much more dangerous things. Life and death battle.
A little game to improve the BIG picture.
If you lose a little game, who cares? Especially if you learn something that will help you survive a large battle.
However, many times when one is not "busy", when people are enjoying an apple pie life the large battle becomes abstract. The little game becomes the entire picture.
People become afraid to lose a game. Fear of losing becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
How do you learn from loss?
How do you turn loss into a positive experience?
One way is to use it as an exercise in overcoming fear
- Fear of loosing
- Fear of being injured
Fear of loosing
Fear of losing inspires "gaming" of the rules. No longer the original intent - little game to improve big picture. No longer are you striving to win, but you are altering your entire training so that your skill set revolves around "not losing" in a very specific environment and rule set.
Things that would get you killed anywhere outside of that rule set.
You can't be afraid to lose. That is easier said than done. How does one overcome fear of losing?
First and foremost, it just doesn't matter. No one cares if you lose.
I was afraid of losing. My brothers were great wrestlers, and I put a lot of pressure on my myself to measure up to them. Fear of losing becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. I didn't start winning until I was able to put that shit aside. I wasn't able to put that aside until I started focusing on smaller things.
Performance goals
How does one eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Winning a competition is an elephant. Performance goals are bites.
For me, in wrestling my performance goal was to hit a double leg take down. That was all I had to focus on. After I got a takedown, confidence began to rise. Confidence made getting the next performance goal that much easier. Another bite of the elephant.
In the coming weeks I will post a blog on the chemical cocktail that pumps through your blood under the stress of interpersonal conflict, and it's effect on physical performance.
Performance goals, goal oriented focus, helps mitigate the negative effects of the chemical cocktail.
Before I knew it the match was over. I didn't always win, I didn't always hit my performance goals. However, if I didn't, I knew exactly what I needed to work on the most the next week at practice.
Most importantly I was no longer afraid of losing and could strive to win...until I dislocated my knee...again
Fear of being injured
I can't get hurt. If I get hurt I don't work. If I don't work my bills don't get paid.
Life is a contact sport, and sometimes shit just happens.
How does one minimize the possibilities of being injured?
A balance of intensity and safety. Just as Kano put aside certain aspects of Jujutsu so others could be focused on at full speed. Find good people (people that care about others, even their competition) and find a sensible competition system.
As I have mentioned before I am a huge supporter of USA Combat Wrestling.
To review that blog click HERE
Recently members of Katamedo Jujitsu had an opportunity to try out for the USA Combat Wrestling National Team and a chance to represent America at the International Championship in Japan
And, as you can see they were fairly successful.
The aspect of their success that I appreciate the most, and how this is applicable to personal protection, is that the Katamedo doesn't even train for competition.
Katamedo St Louis only trains twice a week. That doesn't leave much time if any for competition prep. Yet, Katamedo produces champions in a wide array of combat sports. Beating people, that focus solely on competition!
Training for adaptability, especially through the use of progressions, just happens to work really well in competition as well. Plus all the added benefits of the full spectrum of Jujitsu including personal protection.
How do you find this balance of intensity and safety?
What if you train in a system that has no form of competition?
Be creative, take a page out of Kano's book. You will need to develop your own games, and develop you own people.
- Determine your training goals
- Develop methods to add pressure
- Create a positive learning environment
Determine your training goals:
What are you trying to achieve? For personal protection force on force training logical examples include escape, disable, control (the last one for force professionals with duty to act). How the student achieves one of those logical goals doesn't matter as long as they found a way that works for them.
This portion deserves a blog in and of itself. In the coming weeks in a blog post entitled "Make a friend of the wolf" how to develop methods to add pressure will be discussed in depth. However, for our purposes here lets look at the "building codes" the methods you develop will need to meet.
Force on Force building codes:
- Provide adequate negative stimulus
- Prevent training scars
- Develop your people
Provide adequate negative stimulus. Mental and physical discomfort, not injury
A rule of thumb for this, if the person receiving the stimulus froze and did nothing they should receive the negative stimulus, and continue receiving it until they break through the freeze and actively stop the threat.
However, they should not receive a broken nose or swollen shut eye.
Mental and physical discomfort, not injury
Prevent training scars
The negative stimulus has to be some variation of the students regular offense training.
Take boxing for example. Mit work is different from heavy bag work, which is different from sparring, which is different from an actual match. All working different angles of the same skills. Small games to develop skills for the big picture.
If your negative stimulus attacks ineffective targets or ingrains "pulling punches" one half of your training time will be devoted to ingraining bad habits.
Develop your people
In sport competition you can scout the opponent, watch tape and develop a specific strategy. Not so for personal protection.
There is a school of thought that an athlete can only be as good as who they train with.
A wrestler who can easily pin everyone on his team near his weight class is not getting the same level of training as a wrestler on a team full of tough guys where everyone has to bust their balls each week to make the varsity team.
Personal protection is not a sport. However, we owe it to the people we train with to be the best "bad guy" we can be. Able to push our friends to their limits. Assuring that training exceeds the needs of application. So that God forbid if they ever had to use these skills, if they became "busy" they will have the feeling that they have already faced worse and triumphed.
Being a good "bad guy", being the devil takes practice as well. You, and your training partners deserve / require a legitimate skilled threat.
Create a positive learning environment:
Win or learn, an example of this is - tap rewind. If a student just gets tapped they don't learn a whole lot from the experience. If their partner can easily tap them they are not benefiting much either.
However, if after the tap you rewind and one student coaches the other on how to prevent being tapped in that way or how to escape that situation, then learning is enhanced for both partners.
Drilling that scenario makes one student better at defense. Because the defense is better the other student has to work harder / learn more efficient ways to achieve their goal
A tap signifies that I am defeated, see also dead.
Don't practice dying! Never ingrain that habit. However, not tapping equals getting hurt.
Things like tap rewind allow you learn with out getting hurt or ingraining giving up.
Focus on performance goals. Performing and focus also become self fulfilling prophecies increasing your odds to win
Confidence is gained through competence.
Competence is nurtured through tactical proficiency.
Unless you are a prick, or living a deliberately dangerous lifestyle, tactical proficiency has to be earned in training by successfully accomplishing what a skilled opponent is actively preventing.
May the odds ever be in your favor.
Train hard, train smart, be safe
Dude I really needed to read this thanks.
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