Aliveness - Alive training methods

Hi guys,

Was just wondering what other "alive" training methods are there apart from sparring. Is the below a good video? Apart from Sparring, what other methods would be considered ALIVE in striking ie Boxing/thai boxing. Sanda etc.?

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imjmLWj5WCU"]MATT THORNTON ALIVENESS - martial arts most important thing Straight blast - YouTube[/ame]

 

Focused technique drills, flow drills, chain wrestling drills....

Even one step sparring can be "alive" if the attack itself is fully committed - I refer to this as "consequences to failure" - one attack fully committed to trying to hit you in the face full power can be quite daunting if one is not prepared or familiar with that kind of pressure

John Titchens "Sim Days" are very much alive

The term "alive" simply means that the other person does not surrender all biological function while you go through the kata dante

 

Excellent video!

 

In fairness to Matt's video it was always my understandingthat is his position too - he was not denigrating the drills as building blocks or skill developers, nor suggesting they are not required, but was instead talking about taking the progressive training method from such "static" drills through to "fully functioning" ones

 

the term as he uses it means: timing + energy + motion. if you are moving around, feeding realistic energy and there is an inherent element of timing (no predicatble pattern) it's a good drill.

if you want a good template for developing drills/coaching/teaching google the I-method, edisco.

it is perfectly possible to move almost immediately (5 mins after being shown technique) to resistent training without having to train otherwise before hand. Its how they train at SBGi and how they train where I am now.

 

Obviously it's bad to only do dead drills.

However, I think coming to the conclusion from that you should only ever do alive drills is a blinkered oversimplification.

He contradicted his own point at the end of the video, when he said that you first have to show someone how the chess pieces move and how you win the game. That is dead training, but it is essential to do before you play a game of chess.

Physical skills are more complicated. Once you know how a chess piece moves, you're done, but physical skills can always be improved and made more efficient. Like his example of the difference between a blue let and a black belt in BJJ; the difference is timing, accuracy and efficiency. You won't get timing from dead drills, but you do have the time to explore ways in which to increase the efficiency and accuracy of a technique unhindered. Learning this through resistive training in motion takes many times longer, as your opportunities to employ a best case technique for your skill level are far reduced. Unscripted resistance is where you learn how to set up your technique.

If strikes are not on target, or your partner is doing suicide dives, that is a problem. But isolation without resistance can be beneficial to all skill levels, I believe. As long as it is mixed with resistance, intent and motion in alive drilling and sparring as well.

The either/or is too much of a dichotomy for my liking.

 

Some great contributions guys!

Some of my more common favourites:
I try to arrest my partner, he tries to escape
He tries to take something from my belt, I try not to let him get it and I move into the appropriate next steps
Someone tries to ground and pound me, I try to minimize damage and get back to my feet

Any training can be sportive/alive and you can change context and focus to suit your needs.
You can do specific components (like the last two examples) which I would term live drills and is good for developing a specific aspect to be worked back into the larger whole. Your partner is still resisting you're just working within narrower confines.
You can also work the whole of the thing you're trying to replicate. So for example my partner trying to steal from my belt can lead into an arrest. A takedown gone bad in that context can lead into me having to escape from my back. Etc.

 

Intent is the most important thing in drilling. I find it really depressing to see martial artists going through the motions of a drill without putting any intent into it.

Very much like the little video on your YouTube channel where you demonstrate some trapping with and without intent. The difference is huge, even when you're going slow and light, and the payoff when you ramp up the pressure is even bigger.

EDIT: "emotional content" you call it.

Video is in spoiler tags because Hannibal says a naughty, but as it is reflecting the language of a violent encounter in the same vein as Sim Day videos, I'm presuming it's okay to post.

Spoiler

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVhv0FuPGHU"]Real emotional content... - YouTube[/ame]

 

No his point is if the drill bares no resemblance to the desired outcome it's flawed and there are better ways to drill which have a better carryover. You can pretty much jump straight to variable resistance after a 10min intro to a drill, such as the jab, and be isolated sparring it straight away.

And Matt has proved his method works and has produced grapplers and mma fighters of great skill (Forrest, Nate, Rory and also produced some of the best coaches in mma and grappling (kavangh, folis, tanswell) so it's hardly right to argue the method he preaches doesn't turn out skilled fighters or has a danger of producing little understanding and skill when it's well known the sbgi produces some of the most skilled coaches and athletes around

 

It's one of those things those that train a sport and have competed, any sport be it a combat sport or a team sport get that video and understand exactly what he says, those that dont don't get his point and argue against it, was the same when it first came out over a decade ago, and try to read different things into his drills and try to make unrealistic drills alive, or to quote Paul sharp when he saw someone trying to make a chi sao drill alive by flowing into the clinch from it "some people can mess us a nice Dream by over thinking it " . Had to clean up his actual quote but you get the drift .

 

The three I'd: introduce, isolate and Integrate. Any technique can be taught quickly and efficiently using that method.

 

Perhaps it's his explanation rather than his methods.

If you take something like a hip throw, drill it dead for 10 mins, then only ever drill it with someone trying to resist, I'd argue that the quality and efficiency will not be as good as if you kept also going back to the dead drill as well. The dead version still resembles the application, more than a resemblance really, it is the actual application in isolation, but you get the time to hone in on every part of the movement to maximise efficiency and effect. If someone is always trying to foil you in your application you don't get that chance to concentrate on the minutiae of a technique. You will plateau at the point where it works well enough, rather than getting the chance to use unresisted practice as a feedback loop to feed back into resistant practice. In unresisted practice you can build on form, i.e. mechanical efficiency and accuracy, and in resistant practice you build on setup and timing, as well as adapting to other techniques upon failure of the intended one.

If we look at heuristic methods:

"A heuristic technique [...], often called simply a heuristic, is any approach to problem solving, learning, or discovery that employs a practical method not guaranteed to be optimal or perfect, but sufficient for the immediate goals. Where finding an optimal solution is impossible or impractical, heuristic methods can be used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution."

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic

This is an important component of training, but to my mind it is one side of the coin. The bottom line is getting enough of an effect for a technique to be useful, but shouldn't you also be looking to improve technique beyond that?

I completely agree that drills should resemble application as closely as possible, but I disagree that every drill you ever do should have someone on the other end trying to prevent you from doing it.

 

Actually if you use progressive resistence, and split the hipthrow up into its constituent parts, then you can definitely improve your judo with the I method, I know it because that's exactly what Im currently doing.

Alive doesnt mean also maximum resistence, its means intelligent use of progressive resistence.

Verity Stevens of the BJA coaches like this, she calls it 4 corners judo, and its very very good.

 

[ame]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GthY0ORwp0Q[/ame]


And heres a multi part tutorial she's done on the subject.

 

I found out she's called Verity Stephens, but I can't find anything about her method other than it is about having a throw/takedown for each corner (presumably this is referencing weight distribution of your opponent). [EDIT: you beat me to it ]

If we look at other sports, taking golf as an example, golfers will practice their swing outside of a game, and without a ball, in slow motion allowing them to be mindful of every part of their body throughout every part of the motion. I am a firm believer that this kind of "deep programming" is just as relevant to perfecting fighting techniques as golf swings.

 

[ame]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GthY0ORwp0Q[/ame]


Wrong link sorry!

 

I don't get the relevance. I watched parts 1 and 4, and didn't see her partner try to resist her once. Quite the opposite.

 

You'd have to go to her seminars/classes for more detail id imagine.

Judo is already randori centric, so its nothing earth shattering for them.

in judo circles, this focused but relaxed technical sparring is called french randori, I assume its an injoke about the french.