I absolutely love learning languages and in fact I read, write, and speak English, Japanese, and Spanish. I’ve spent countless hours over the years working to get these languages to a point where I can use them effectively.
Even then there are gaps here in there depending on the situation. That is because mastery of a language consists of listening comprehension, reading, writing, and speaking well.
For the sake of today’s discussion I would like to take a look at the process of learning to read and how it relates to learning a martial art.
Imagine picking up a novel in a foreign language and trying to read it. If you’ve had no familiarity in the language there is no way you’ll be able to understand the words and follow along with the story line.
Now think back to when you were a child and spent hours upon hours having books read to you by your parents, eventually being able to read those same books yourself. The more you read the better you got at learning how sentences flowed together while naturally picking up new words and phrases along the way. This was fun for you and the purpose at the time wasn’t to “study” a language. You kept reading for the pure fact that you enjoyed it and because those books where at a comprehensible level for you at that time, your language ability improved as well.
You struggled at first but you didn’t give up in mastering the basics. Then with repeated exposure to enjoyable content at an appropriate level, or not so enjoyable while in school, you continued to improve to higher and higher levels of comprehension and execution. That’s why you’re able to immediately comprehend what you’re reading right now at an extremely fast rate.
Now imagine coming into a martial art and being bombarded with multiple new techniques, comprised of multiple steps, in your first lesson. Then after being exposed to said techniques you’re told that it’s time to spar/roll. You have no clue what’s going on and now you’re expected to jump into the deep end try to make your way through a live-action mystery novel that contains many twists and turns.
Hopefully you’d be able to work with a higher ranked belt but chances are you’ll end up with another white belt. As things ramp up, which they typically do, it’s like trying to make your way through a badly written Spanish live-action mystery novel that contains many twists and turns. If you’re a native English speaker you might be able to understand a word here and there but it’s surrounded by other words and phrases that you simply can’t begin to understand. And the fact that it’s a badly written novel, two white belts sparring, is also lost on you since you obviously have no foundation upon which to make judgment.
Sure, you might have had fun and you felt like you were doing something. But ultimately if this is how your training is the majority of the time it’s not going to lead to actual improvement in your martial art.
Taking more of a comprehensible learning approach to your martial art and getting in as much “reading” as possible is in my opinion a much better way of training and teaching. This is especially true if you’re either new to the art or looking to simply continue to stay on the mat forever.
What this comes down to are two things:
- Having a good instructor who can guide your “reading”
- Having good training partners so that both of you can work at a level that’s just challenging enough to help both of you improve.
Finding A Good Guide
First off it’s imperative that you find a good instructor who not only knows how to perform the art well, but can teach in a way that is easy to understand and implement. Just because someone is good at a move doesn’t mean they’ll be good at teaching someone how to do it. When you find a teacher who is good at both the action and the instruction of something, stick around and learn as much as you can from them.
Their role as an instructor is to help guide you in a way that is appropriate to your skill level.
It shouldn’t be about showing you as many techniques as humanly possible each week. Instead, if they are a good teacher, they will help you find the things that will be applicable and appropriate for you. The things that you need in that moment to help you improve in your martial art journey. And if they are a great teacher they will do that while also helping you to see how the concepts and principles are applied to those foundational structures of the art.
What if you don’t have an instructor like this?
You can still benefit but it’s going to take some extra work on your part. Get on Youtube and find someone that you resonate with who is a good coach and breaks things down into bite-sized chunks that you can comprehend. This isn’t a matter of searching for techniques. Take note of how they discuss positions and broad concepts related to those and how simply they can express something complex. Take what that person shares and work to apply it to what your instructor is teaching in class.
For example, maybe your instructor shares a new move each class and enjoys standing up there talking for 15 minutes about every single little detail of that technique before having you practice it. As they are explaining it, take note of WHY that technique works and the fundamental construction of it. Then when it’s time to drill it you focus on that concept rather than trying to remember all the steps involved with it. I know that this can be difficult in the beginning but the better you can get at doing this, the faster your comprehension and retention rate of movements becomes.
It’s important to get a general feel of a move pattern, similar how you first want to get a general feel for what’s written in a sentence. Once you have that general meaning of the sentence, you can then hone in on the individual words, the finite movements, to make the sentence more fully comprehensible.
Which brings us to an important point. A new technique isn’t going to help you if haven’t mastered the basics of moving. Proper stance, footwork, hip work, and structure practiced slowly are some of the things that one would be better off spending a good deal of time on in the beginning. Just like you did when you started reading, you began with sentences like,
- I am Ryan.
- You are John.
- I like dogs.
A good teacher chooses the appropriate words for your level in order to help you understand the structure of reading sentences. Your school teachers didn’t have you jump into complex sentences expecting you to be able to fully comprehend reading them at a fast pace. They worked with you and guided you as you struggled, allowing you however much time you needed to work through the words and phrases.
Reading On Your Own
Once you’re ready to start reading on your own there are numerous options for you to choose. Mystery, thriller, action, suspense, science fiction, non-fiction, and on and on. The cool thing is that there are tons of books at varying levels for each of those genres that will allow you to get in tons of comprehensible input. In fact there are actually specific readers for language learners tailored for each language level. Those language levels are A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2. If you’re interested you can learn more about those here.
These books are appropriate to one’s level, challenging the reader just enough while allowing them to still progress onward and complete the story. By reading in context at a level that is just above where you are at, it challenges you to get better and keep you engaged in what you’re reading. You’re able to “study” the language, making new connections and seeing how things actually flow together while actually not studying at all.
Do that with enough genres and you’re going to end up being exposed to tons of new content. Yet at the same time honing the basis to a very high level since those basics form the sentences that you’re reading.
You’re not studying individual words. You’re seeing how those words are used in actual, real sentences through context many, many times. And thanks to that your retention rate of those words is higher.
IMHO, our training should be the same way. Get that base down then put yourself into situations that are just challenging enough to allow you to get in tons of practice in a way that forces you to see connections that you wouldn’t have seen in a static drilling scenario.
Look at the genres of books as different themes in your training.
- Mysteries could be working on a passing concept.
- Thrillers could be sparring a submission from the back.
- Horrors could be you working to get out from bottom position and escaping to top position.
Those are just three examples but notice I didn’t mention a specific technique. Nope, like a book with a start and an end point, you simply pick one thing that you want to work on with a defined start position and end goal position, and “read” the situation as it unfolds in front of you. The cool thing is that each and every time the story is going to be a little different and eventually can be more of a choose your own adventure book. 🙂
This is why I believe that situational sparring with a clearly defined start and end point is so detrimental to the improvement of our respective arts. Just difficult enough to challenge you yet not so overwhelming that it veers into a free for all of complete randomness.
Remember however that you aren’t just jumping right in to your book and trying to speed read it. Taking time to slowly work into the heart of the story and get familiar with the characters and story line in the beginning is what will help you better enjoy things. So when you’re using training new movement patterns on the mat be sure to start off going slow.
The cool thing is that your partner can act as your guide, no matter their level since they will also benefit from this style of “reading” as well. In the beginning they give you light pressure and allow you to get a feel for what’s going on. Just like you working through the words and trying to get a general feel for the sentence. After some time practicing the sentence you start to work it with more pressure from your training partner and the story starts to unroll in front of you. New things appear and you as the character of your own story are having to read new adaptations to the plot as it weaves here and there from the start to finish. And like a good book, it sticks to the genre and story line throughout.
Choosing A Genre
Pick a particular position that you would like to get better at. This is your genre.
Let’s say the genre is Takedowns and more specifically the theme is getting better at single leg takedowns to top position. Both of my kids are on the wrestling team so this is something we’ve actually been practicing.
You and your partner are on the same page about each other’s tasks. You first slowly work on the mechanics of entering in, getting the leg, and completing the takedown to top position while your partner gives you little to no resistance in the beginning. Rather than simply performing the technique over and over without resistance, your partner gradually adds more pressure, working to the point where they are trying to not let you enter. And if you do enter in they fight to keep you from completing the takedown and getting on top. This form of situational sparring using incremental resistance and making it extremely tough for you to do it will get both of you to a higher level of comprehension in that theme.
This can be done with anyone at any level because it is adjusted depending on the needs and ability of the person performing it. Similar to using comprehensible readers as I mentioned above.
If a person is just starting out they “read” an abridged version of it by only focusing on how to clear the hands to enter for the single leg. They spar that and get good at reading the entry. Over time they add in the other parts and do the same thing.
Here is an example of a wresting coach looking at a specific theme and practicing it under pressure. There is a defined beginning and end and it is worked at an appropriate skill level along with intensity level. Although the goal is the same, each and every time he performs it there are differences in what’s actually happening. Thanks to that one gets really good at reading and adapting to those patterns. Also note that in the beginning of the video he even mentions adjusting the level according to where the athlete is in the learning process.
I’m sure you’ve heard of this style of training and more than likely have done it before. My purpose here is to reframe the way we look at training overall and not loose sight of the fact that we are all at different levels and need to focus on the appropriate material. And work to get in tons of comprehensible content at that level.
Hopefully this will get you thinking about whether or not you’re being sufficiently challenged at a level that’s good for you.
Find a good trainer partner where you can start to implement this style of training as much as you can if you haven’t already.
Do that and it’ll help you stay On The Mat Forever.