Technique and "combat effectiveness"

[Tgace]

I was engaged in a conversation on another thread that was approaching the subject of technique and "combat effectiveness". Primarily it was about firearms but I believe we can discuss it as a universal MA concept.

I had mentioned that a persons firing grip (on a range) could have been improved and another poster basically stated that under combat stress, technique degrades and you really cant judge a persons "combat effectiveness" based on observing their "technique".

Actually I kind of agree with the premise. There are plenty of untrained but "tough" people out there that on any given moment could wipe the floor with a "trained" martial artist. However my opinion is "Practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect." If you are "training" to be as good as you can be, you should be concerned about "technique" and honing it. In a "training" environment you should be striving to use as "perfect" a technique as you can manage so that when the SHTF you will "degrade" even less.

Maybe Im way off base....opinions?

 

[Touch Of Death]

I think what you do in practice is what you do in the real situation. If your practice did not include stress then of course it will play out during the performance of the tech, but everyone dismissing the tech is not the direction I would go I would say the practitioner is at such and such a level with that technique. And people on the street are all at different athletic skill levels through their own training (try finding a guy that doesn't know something from just growing up or possible martial art training) You have to realize some people are just drawn to thuggery.
Sean
Sean

 

[MJS]

I was engaged in a conversation on another thread that was approaching the subject of technique and "combat effectiveness". Primarily it was about firearms but I believe we can discuss it as a universal MA concept.

I had mentioned that a persons firing grip (on a range) could have been improved and another poster basically stated that under combat stress, technique degrades and you really cant judge a persons "combat effectiveness" based on observing their "technique".

Actually I kind of agree with the premise. There are plenty of untrained but "tough" people out there that on any given moment could wipe the floor with a "trained" martial artist. However my opinion is "Practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect." If you are "training" to be as good as you can be, you should be concerned about "technique" and honing it. In a "training" environment you should be striving to use as "perfect" a technique as you can manage so that when the SHTF you will "degrade" even less.

Maybe Im way off base....opinions?

Actually, I don't think you're off base. In fact, I think you're right on the money!! IMO, any time one is faced with a stressfull situation, you certainly won't be operating at peak level. However, like you said, with perfect practive, you will find that you will be able to adapt to the situation at hand much better. Often I get the impression that people are too concerned with learning a ton of stuff all at once, rather than taking their time and perfecting the material. Speaking for me, I'd rather know 10 things great, than 50 that are so-so.

In addition, I also think that keeping your training alive and making sure there is some resistance, that you'll find it slightly eaiser to deal with those stressfull times.

Good discussion!! :ultracool

Mike

 

[Tgace]

Thats pretty much where I am.

For the sake of conversation...Take the firearms issue. Say you were a firearms instructor and you had a student who came to you for instruction. After some work, his "technique" is sloppy, but he can hit. Not great but "effective". Is that enough? Do you try to get him to adjust his grip to the "proper" form? Do you critique him and adjust his "technique"? While this may result in a temporary loss of "effectiveness" with practice it should result in even better performance "down the road". Is that in the best interests of the student?

Granted that all depends on the students goal a la a person taking a "shake and bake" self defense class for a few weeks to a MArtist who sticks it out for years...

 

[rmcrobertson]

I think I'd say that you stress technique, technique, technique so that in a, "real," emergency, off the mat, when you're in trouble and your technique goes downhill--it doesn't collapse into nothing, but into something that may be simpler and, "more primitive," but is still way better shaped, more controlled, and more effective than flailing away would be.

After all, if you are proficient in very sloppy technique, well, you're still going to be under stress in a real emergency--and then, what will you have to fall back upon? Guts and heart are essential--but they mean nothing without a vessel to carry them, if you see what I mean.

Of course the catch is that there will be some students who for whatever reason are set back by trying to hone their technique, or trying to hone it prematurely, or trying to hone it in the wrong way. Trick is to figure out what's going on with students, and what's going on with you as a teacher...

There's one other reason to teach technique: it cuts down on panic, usually considered dangerous in an emergency.

 

[Tgace]

Nicely said...maybe we should stick to conversations about the martial arts.

:asian:

 

[MJS]

Well, I'm certianly not an authority on firearms, but I will say that I would work on the points that were weak. IMO, if I was the student, I'd want to be the best that I could be. That being said, I'd take the time to work on those fine points.

Mike

 

[Adept]

A little off-topic, but to do with the firearm issue:

I read somewhere that some military units do their firearms training immediately after a run (3-5 mile) because the exhaustion, shaking, and elevated heart rate go a long way to mimicking the effects of adrenaline and tension in actual combat. I dont know how accurate or correct that is, it's just what I heard.

I agree with you, Tgace. While being able to get the basics right is best, if you are practicing, you might as well make your practice as perfect as it can be. No point in practicing sloppy form if you don't have to.

 

[Tgace]

Yes they do, but I would compare that to sparring in MA. Not a "training in" of technique, but a test of your technique under stress. Dry Fire training with firearms is one of the best ways to "train in" weapon manipulation skills to the almost subconscious level.

 

[punisher73]

There is one part of the equation that people forget when talking about the relation between heart rate and decline of motor skills. They have also tested elite people (if I remember correctly military people) in their fields and when the skill reaches a subconscious level of something done so many times it literally requires no thought, the performance does not degrade and is relatively uneffected by the stress (and the exact study escapes me right now to reference it).

 

[Adept]

There is one part of the equation that people forget when talking about the relation between heart rate and decline of motor skills. They have also tested elite people (if I remember correctly military people) in their fields and when the skill reaches a subconscious level of something done so many times it literally requires no thought, the performance does not degrade and is relatively uneffected by the stress (and the exact study escapes me right now to reference it).

Interesting. Makes sense, really.

 

[Bod]

If you take the 'technique degrades in a fight' argument to its logical conclusion, then you should simply do the natural thing in a fight. Soil your pants and stand there slack jawed and bunny eyed.

If your fine motor skills do degrade to nothing in a fight, then firearms are surely useless. It should be impossible to point a gun and pull a trigger. The army should train recruits to slay the enemy with haymakers.

Although it makes sense to factor in adrenaline dump into your expected fight scenario and to train for it, I doubt anybody on this board is practising needle threading as a martial art.

In the boxing ring everybody's technique goes to pot during the final rounds, as exhaustion sets in and the heart rate soars. That is when good practise on the bags really shows. If your guard drops on the bag during practice then you bet it will in the ring.

As for the firearms practise, I would guess the thing that you are more likely to mess up on under pressure are things like drawing and releasing the safety. Notice that Iaido practises a whole lot of getting the sword out and cutting quickly. I used to practice swinging the D-lock from my bike, figuring that if my bike was to be stolen I could use it as a weapon. When the real thing finally happened I couldn't get the lock off the mounting and went into brain-fart mode just long enough to get gut punched and winded. Oops.

Perhaps it would be good if you also trained from 'drawing phase goes wrong', as a stimulus. This will help a firearms user to react when he leaves his gun at home, is in a non-gun environment etc.

 

[CMack11]

For the sake of conversation...Take the firearms issue. Say you were a firearms instructor and you had a student who came to you for instruction. After some work, his "technique" is sloppy, but he can hit. Not great but "effective". Is that enough? Do you try to get him to adjust his grip to the "proper" form? Do you critique him and adjust his "technique"? While this may result in a temporary loss of "effectiveness" with practice it should result in even better performance "down the road". Is that in the best interests of the student?

I don't think there's a right answer to this question. I can relate something like this to my experiences in coaching basketball. I have seen players with unorthodox shots who can still hit. I've tried to coach into them perfect form, and it ends up completely messing up their shots. I've also seen players w/ unorthodox shots that I've made a lot better by correcting their shots. I think a lot of it depends on the person. If they already have it firmly ingrained in their muscle memory to make an action a certain way, I think it's a lot harder for them to 'unlearn' it and learn the correct way. In those cases it's easier to fine-tune their unorthodox style. But for people who don't have in already ingrained, then it's easier to start from scratch.

 

[pesilat]

I was engaged in a conversation on another thread that was approaching the subject of technique and "combat effectiveness". Primarily it was about firearms but I believe we can discuss it as a universal MA concept.

I had mentioned that a persons firing grip (on a range) could have been improved and another poster basically stated that under combat stress, technique degrades and you really cant judge a persons "combat effectiveness" based on observing their "technique".

Actually I kind of agree with the premise. There are plenty of untrained but "tough" people out there that on any given moment could wipe the floor with a "trained" martial artist. However my opinion is "Practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect." If you are "training" to be as good as you can be, you should be concerned about "technique" and honing it. In a "training" environment you should be striving to use as "perfect" a technique as you can manage so that when the SHTF you will "degrade" even less.

Maybe Im way off base....opinions?

Here's the way my instructor puts it - and what I've found has worked for me through experience (not in firearms but in MA in general).

Take a technique, any technique, and it has to be performed at 80% of perfect to be effective. Now, you only train it to that 80%. Now you get into a situation and your technical precision degrades (which it definitely does). Now, you have no margin for error. You will not be able to pull off that technique because, with your technical degradation, you will not be able to even reach the required 80% of perfect.

If, however, you train it as close to 100% as you can get - let's say 95% is as close as you can get - now you've got a 15% margin for error. If your technical precision only degrades by 10% when things go down then you might still be able to hit that 80% mark and pull that technique off.

Of course, it's not that black-and-white when the rubber meets the road but the concept is sound and you summed it up in your quote, "perfect practice makes perfect."

Also, the more you test your material in training, the less you're likely to degrade in a real situation.

But the material must be properly developed before it's tested. If it's not properly developed then it will likely fail - but you won't know whether it's failing because it wasn't properly developed or because it just doesn't suit you.

But once the material is properly developed it must be tested - in MA terms, this means sparring at various degrees of reality simulation - in firearms it might mean firing under induced stressed (i.e.: do a bunch of calisthenics, get your cardio up and a good sweat going then pick up your gun and start firing at your targets).

Mike

Mike

 

[loki09789]

There is one part of the equation that people forget when talking about the relation between heart rate and decline of motor skills. They have also tested elite people (if I remember correctly military people) in their fields and when the skill reaches a subconscious level of something done so many times it literally requires no thought, the performance does not degrade and is relatively uneffected by the stress (and the exact study escapes me right now to reference it).

The problem with comparing the combat effectiveness of a civilian student based on a study of top athletes/military types is the fitness/conditioning component. The reduction in performance may not have degraded because the military elite types constantly work out so the neural spike from stress may not have gotten their HR up to or above 145 bpm as quickly. Also consider the confidence from living that total lifestyle vs. training a few hours a week in a recreational/part time setting. Confidence can have a big affect as well on stress reaction.

Regardless of fitness/confidence/military/civilian, when the HR gets above 145 bpm (or there abouts depending on fitness level) there will be a reduced performance ability. You'll take a .1 of a second longer to get something done, make a choice or register an observation....the difference between experienced and novice folks, regardless of background is how they deal with that performance degrade. Novices will generally panic and over compensate and fall apart. Experienced folks will generally keep their cool better and just roll with it. So, the performance degrade will be there but how the individual deals with it is going to dictate whether it makes or breaks them.