The internet has made it easy to access pretty much any martial arts style and learn their techniques.
Searching through Instagram, you will find tons of flashy, cool-looking martial arts moves and techniques—everything from throws to how to become a human backpack and choke out an opponent. It’s pretty amazing to think that you can learn anything you want now a days online.
There is one thing that goes through my mind when looking at the majority of these IG technique vids;
They tend to be overly complicated.
Sure, flashy, 10-step techniques can be fun. But remember that martial arts are intended to be effective.
Simplicity is the key to effectiveness when things go live.
Depending on the art you practice, there will be various subsystems for striking, blocking, throwing, or submitting, to name a few. Martial arts are complex disciplines, and they can sometimes seem overwhelming and confusing.
However, there is a single question you can ask yourself to lessen a bit of that complexity;
What is the simplest solution to the problem I’m trying to solve?
Focus on that.
Finding What Works For You
While living in Japan, I worked for 8 years at a martial arts complex located within a shrine. I wasn’t married and had all the time in the world to train in multiple martial arts, such as kendo, judo, daito-ryu jiu-jitsu, and Shorinji Kempo. It was amazing to work there and learn from some of the best instructors in Osaka.
As I got a little older, things changed, and I didn’t have the luxury of training all those martial arts the way I wanted to. So, rather than bouncing around here and there, I focused solely on the practice and competition of judo at that time. I trained at the Minatoku Police Station and was on the judo team there.
In Japanese judo, you’ll typically have a main move or specialty move called “tokui-waza” in Japanese. Finding your “tokui-waza” and focusing the majority of your time on it is a common way of training in Japan. My main throwing combination was going from uchi-mata to sasae tsurikomi ashi or vice versa. I still love this combo today.
Rather than trying to cram in everything, my teammates and I would focus on only a few moves and work to get good at those for competition. We focused on what worked for us as individuals in answer to what the other person was trying to do. And because we all had different “tokui-waza,” we got good at both attacking and defending against each other’s combos while being able to attack with our specialty combos.
The beauty of this was that I knew what I wanted to do, thanks to the deep study and practice of my combos. Therefore, during randori (sparring), I had to focus on getting into a position for one of my throws.
Was it a complete and well-rounded judo game? Hell, no. Did it work? Yeah, pretty well for my needs.
Of course, I had other throws and combos in my toolbox. But that combo was my A-game, which helped lead to an ippon or get into the ground control positions I wanted for the pin.
I focused on what was essential, looking at the simplest answer to the solution I wanted out of my game.
Making It Easier to Learn
Many martial arts practices are random—one technique today, another tomorrow. The students don’t have a reference point for how things connect as a whole. They practice single techniques in isolation and become frustrated when they cannot connect and chain movements together in a live situation.
It’s like learning a language by trying to memorize a list of words. You’ll know a lot of words, but you won’t know how they all fit together cohesively.
A better way would be to look at practicing full sentences and using them as templates.
I wrote in depth about this here.
You first get comfortable repeating the phrase, gaining confidence in pronouncing each word, practicing to make them flow together, and gaining a deeper understanding of the sentence’s nuance.
Once the sentence is mastered, you can replace individual words with new words appropriate to your situation.
Thanks to the sentence templates, we understand how things should work and can make slight adaptations to make ourselves better understood.
I did this with my judo training by combining entries, throws, counters, and ground control components that worked well together. I focused on mastering those combos and flows to use them successfully in randori and competition.
These movement chain flows allowed me to keep things simple yet effective on the mat.
Movement combinations and flows are patterns I continue to use in my work at GMB Fitness and here in the Juyukai.
Making It Flow
Currently, in the Juyukai, we are practicing six major flows. Each flow has a theme, with attacks and defenses at each part.
These flows allow my students to see the general arching pattern from striking to entry to takedown, pass, control, and submission. With defensive answers for each attack.
Each flow becomes a simple pattern they can refer to, whether standing or on the ground. Of course, simple doesn’t mean that it is easy to do!
That’s where practice comes into play.
We break apart each flow into individual parts and work to get better at it, starting with light resistance and ramping up to increasing intensity. The person attacking gets better at adapting to the varying resistance and variations that inevitably occur as the intensity increases. The defender gets better at not getting put into compromising positions.
More on this style of training here.
A beginner would try to understand the general concepts and drill those, while an advanced person would work to hone their skills at a high level of intensity against a fully resisting opponent.
The flow is a simple pattern of movements acting as a template to allow practice at an appropriate level with variety within each individual part.
In other words, it’s not a set form to be performed EXACTLY with the same movement variation each and every time. As you improve, an entry will change into a variation that works better for you. A back takedown changes depending on the reaction of your opponent. A pass becomes something that works better for you according to your opponent’s position.
Like the language learning sentence example, you eventually find your own speaking style, but the general sentence structure is the same.
Rather than learning many different moves and random techniques, we focus on the six flows and get good at them. Over time, this allows us to go deeper and deeper into making those flows more individualistic.
Learn the flows and train the individual parts of it.
It keeps things simple, not only so that everyone knows what’s going on but also so that people at all levels can train together in a safe and fun way.
Is it the best way to train to become a world champion or the baddest mofo in the world?
Probably not. But it’s the simplest solution for us.