Do you have any experience as to operant conditioning vs training/practice?
How many repetitions does it take to ingrain a new skill, how many to replace an old skill or a bad skill that has been ingrained? How much time does it take to teach and instill a new set of techniques that a previously untrained person can use tomorrow under stress?
OC is a very fast method for learning simple things. It is much harder and more difficult to condition a complex series of actions, and you cannot condition if the stimulus must be interpreted. Also people learn faster and retain much more when they are having fun. Playing.
Stimulus-Response-Reward/Punishment
We give the bad guy a kicking/punching shield, We give the good guy an action, Bad guy gives a single attack action (stimulus), good guy performs the action we want (Response), it works and doesn't get hit or kicked we immediately praise with a good job (verbal reward positive and physically positive). Bad guy gives a different attack action, good guy performs the same response as before and the reward/punishment is again reinforced. This is done at a comfortable pace for 10 - 12 reps. This is the fun/play time. It allows the student to learn at their play pace. Then the stimuli is again performed at a faster more forcefully and the student continues to make the same responses at that faster stronger pace. We then add a counter assault as a response.That is operant conditioning. That is how people can be taught to perform self defense fight back actions in a very short amount of time.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by operant conditioning. Are you referring to responding in a real situation? Then yes, I have, and it was not pleasant. I ended up getting a small piece of my arm (flesh) cut off, and I ended up near fatally stabbing my agressor with his own knife. Neither of which were my objective, but I was much younger then and less experienced in the arts. There truly is a world of difference from what we do on the street and what we train in the hall. Sadly, no amount of approximations and training can be equivalent to the actual experience.
As to how many repetitions? It takes hundreds to thousands, depending on what you are trying to de-program. It depends on the person; people who naturally think faster take less repetitions. For example, on average I do about 200 kicks a day, and even after years of that, there is still work to be done and improvements I can make and am working toward. Within a month I will have done around 7 - 8,000. Once a month I do that many years of kendo strikes. So its 2015, so the first of the month I will 2,015 cuts.
It can take a few minutes, depending on the technique. I start with showing them how to make a fist. Depending on the person I may teach something different instead. For example, if someone only has a half hour with me, I would probably show them how to utilize pushing and how to step aside. Or perhaps I show them to just punch the person in the throat or below the sternum. It really depends on the individual. But it takes little time to show someone how to punch properly and how to do a front kick with the heel. But it can take much time for them to become proficient at it. Frankly, sticking your palm out can do the trick if you smack them on the nose. It depends on if you are trying to fix something they are doing or to teach them something entirely new.
The only critique I might have for the system of reps you described is the good guy should have experience getting hit. Pummeled and annihalated. Pain is a good learning mechanism, and unfortunately, a martial artist should be able to take a heavy blow and keep going. It's how I treat myself- if I'm against someone better than me I expect to go away hurting, but I also expect to keep working with that person and myself until I am on par with them.
I mean, by my standard, one should be able to end the fight with one well placed technique. You should be able to strike hard enough to shatter bone; breaking one inch cinder blocks slabs and working your way up to three is a good way to develop that.
When I kick and they hold a heavy target, say a roundhouse kick, if they can't feel it in their spine when I throw a kick I am honestly miffed at myself. And we all have different standards. Where do we draw the line for what is actually necessary for survival, and where you can turn survival into an artform.
