Beating a Dead Horse

I would like to preface this post by stating unequivocally that I think Steve Maxwell is one of the baddest mother fuckers in America. I am not sure if I have all my facts perfectly straight, but I think it's pretty spot on when I say he was the first American BJJ black belt. One of the first guys to adopt KB training over ten years ago. A collegiate wrestler. His son Zach just fought and beat Kron Gracie at the ADCC trials. Basically most of the things that I think are cool, Maxwell excelled at a decade ago, or more. Here's some pics:

That being said... He just posted a statement against Crossfit on his blog. I run a Crossfit. So I read it. He is one of my heroes after all. The gist of my response is that he failed to state anything new, and made some broad generalizations that aren't necessarily wrong in many cases, but far from true across the board. I think it's helpful to understand that ALL Crossfit affiliates are different, and attempting to describe 'Crossfit' will always require either clarification or always risk being generalized and thus lacking specificity, accuracy or legitimacy. At the article's worst points, he makes statements without support that I think show an unclear explanation of his premise at best, and perhaps some incomplete or biased logic. I have copied and pasted the headlines he used, and I will address the issues discussed therein. For a primmer on this topic, consult Mike Boyle and Gray Cooke from like 4 years ago HERE.

Notice below that most of the material is kinda SOS, DD.

Here's the Steve Maxwell article: Blog

The use of high-rep Olympic lifts for time

I agree with this one in principal at first. If you wish to be an olympic lifter, you need to train very low rep sets. The bulgarians are famous for the ME every day approach and the Russians have Prilepin's chart. No denying the evidence and the crowd are all suggesting mostly 3 or less reps with rests of 45-300 seconds between sets. If you're goal is to use the O lifts for power development more broadly as an athlete, then you can interpret 'the rules' a little more loosely. HOWEVER, one of Steve's principal arguments is that the O lifts are not best for developing power and do not transfer well for athletes. Furthermore that they are not safe in general (citation?) and that Olympic lifting specialists get injured all the time (citation?). If the O-lifts are such shit, what does it matter how many reps I do?

Where the logic really falls apart is when we then read that Maxwell suggests KB's instead, which are in one sentence 'designed' for high reps, and in another also highly technical and at risk for causing injury. Two thoughts: KB's where designed for marketplace weighing, and why is the movement not dangerous but the implement? How are KB's inherently safer than barbells? This coming from an RKC (me). By the end of this section, I have to admit I lose track of where he stands. But I will say this: MOVEMENT MATTERS. Not implements. Your body doesn't know or care what you are lifting. Just how heavy it is, how fast you move how many times etc. The O lifts are really hard. 90% of people who do them suck terribly, and should not be doing them for more than 3 reps, and this includes almost ALL Crossfitters. Sorry guys. Practice harder.

If you are going to argue that explosive lifting for high reps is safe (girevoy sport) than you have to allow for Grace.

Making exercise into a competitive event

This does suck some times too. It's a double-edged sword, with pros and cons. Crossfit WORKS because it's empirical and participants share results, and inherently this leads to competition, which pushes everyone to do better. If you compete every single day, if you NEVER have training days, only competition days, your career will last months. That's it. After that you will start to get worse or hurt. That's not Crossfit's fault. That's the culture of a gym. Coaches have to make it clear that there are differences. If you went in to a BJJ gym and every single person treated every roll like Mundials, that would suck too. But it's not BJJ's fault. Selling a martial art that incorporates non-cooperative sparring as more effective is a delicate balance between death matches every night and chi hugging at opposite extremes. But it can be done. In judo and in Crossfit.

The use of kipping pull-ups and other joint-harmful gymnastic-type exercises

This argument is structured very similar to the Olympic lifting one. Again there's no citation of the claim that gymnasts get hurt a lot. This is then extrapolated to say that if competitive gymnasts get hurt, then regular trainees should not do kips. Furthermore, women and weak people do kips because of their inability to do real pull ups (harsh).

This could all be true. I think that the kipping pull up is very similar to the push press, and isn't much more inherently dangerous except that the weight is fixed at an intensity (BW) that's usually too high for beginners. If you can't do deadhangs, it's inherently unwise to try and do kips. Why do a power movement when you can't handle the slow lift equivalent? This is just logical progression.

WOD (Workout of the day)

Steve argues that there's no rhyme or reason to the selection of training. I believe he intended to refer specifically to HQ, and to be honest I can't really argue for or against this point. At the affiliate level this changes a great deal from gym to gym.

At our facility, we try to overcome some of the obstacles that Maxwell points out. We have multiple levels of classes, an entry program prior to them, and we are offering more and more specialty classes (barbell, yoga etc). These classes all have their own 5-10 week long periodized cycles.

CrossFit encourages over training

Yeah. If you aren't super fit, you can't train hard 3 days in a row. Lip service is paid to scaling and progression, but it's up to coaches in gyms to make it happen. We all work under different constraints to get this done. In a group setting, you do the best you can to make sure that a client is doing the right intensity, and training the right frequency and finally give them a sense of whether they need to go 50%, 70% or 100% on any given day or as a rule. And it's an art form that takes years to figure out, and every client will be different. It's a tough job.

CrossFit is no way to prepare for specific sports

Duh.

CrossFit is primarily a social phenomenon

Huh? I don't think most people acknowledge a desire to join a cult either. To argue that the social interaction that takes place at a Crossfit is a problem is strange to me. Team sports have social elements. BJJ is highly social. When you care about something, you make friends, you talk shop, and you form bonds. I don't get this one on the positive side, but I do get it on the Kool-aid warning negative side. There is a kool-aid problem. If you don't make your own decisions, and you don't want your coaches to think critically, you are beyond help. And you won't be reading Steve's blog anyways. So that's just a nod to his readers who already think that anyways. I have seen gyms that make poor decisions on behalf of their clients because that's what everyone else (HQ, the games competitors, whomever) is doing. That does suck.

CrossFit's Greg Glassman is obese and unfit

Bela Karolyi never made it as a female gymnast, and was apparently a giant douchebag. That didn't stop him from coaching some of the most successful female gymnasts of all time (thank you Rhadi Ferguson, PhD and also black belt for that analogy).

Glassman is a highly divisive figure. He's not fit from anything I can tell. But he's good at communicating, and he's led a group of people that have mustered 2500 gyms, with 50-200 members each, doing KBs, o lifts and handstands, where before there were almost none. Think about that... a quarter of a million people exposed to snatches, and the idea that you can try do gymnastics after 16. Is it perfect? Is it pretty?

Neither was UFC 1, but it got Americans thinking about grappling again, and it led them away from TKD in droves.

Aren't you just a little bit skeptical about why all these dudes who sell competing products are all trying to make broad, generalized and unsupported claims about why something someone else is doing is all wrong and dangerous and stupid? Especially when they only have their facts sorta straight? On the balance, Crossfit fucking rocks. But buyer beware. SHOP AROUND. Would you buy the first house or car a salesperson showed you, without asking for an inspection or appraisal? Do your homework. If you want to do Crossfit, just make sure the affiliate your going to is what you want. And if you're happy, healthy and making progress, then tell the haters to fuck off.

Phone's Ringing Dude

You doin' the Open?

Dear Level 1 Crossfit trainer with almost no other training or competing background other than when you quit the globo and started doing Crossfit like 18 months ago: "You are like a CHILD that wanders in to the middle of a fucking movie and..."

Well. I suspect you get where I may be going with this. You have no perspective. Seeing as how this is only the second girl you've ever dated, don't make too many sweeping generalizations about women, or your love-making prowess just yet. Were you listening to the Dude's story? Since you have only a limited grasp of what has come before you, what training was like "pre-Crossfit", and since your familiarity with those not officially ordained by HQ is limited at best, save your comments until the end of the presentation.

Sometimes I am afraid that they will turn me in to Walter:

I definitely don't want to turn this in to a thing where I am the wise old smart one. I don't want to be that hipster kid that liked everything before it was cool, and I don't want to be the cranky old fart that hates everything new either. Let me start with the historical evidence...

Virtuosity

So this is purportedly from the desk of 'Coach'. It would appear that the fear of HQ in 2005 was that newcomers to Crossfit would not have the patience or take the necessary steps to gain mastery over the fundamental movements that form the foundation of Crossfit training. Looking over the early journal articles from 2003-2005, I would take this to mean the Clean, Jerk and Snatch. I would also assume the slow lifts: Bench, Press, Deadlift, Squats. I also observe numerous references to the basics of gymnastics on the floor, ring and parallel bars. I remember the days when there were short runs, but HQ also posted WODs with swimming for example. On a personal note, I can't recall ANY jump rope work (I hate jumping rope).

Well, I feel it's safe to say that despite many intentions to the contrary, a lot of trainees new to Crossfit ended up skipping that mastering the basics phase, and jumped right to 'leet' competition phase. Using language and imagery such as 'elite fitness' and 'athlete' is a double-edged sword I am afraid. While I think there's great potential in helping every day folks to see a new passion for training through the lens of competition and the psychology of the athlete in training, there's also a terribly strong pull towards over-confidence, narcissism and foolish decisions that lead to the injury of earnest trainees, or at the very least a lack of progress towards other goals outside of the gym.

Strength Shop Article

This article elaborates on why it's important to consider what benefits outside of the gym the things you do inside the gym will have. WHY? Why are you training? If you don't have clear goals, then you are not training. You are exercising. Some people enjoy exercise. To be honest, despite my degree, my CSCS, my RKC, my affiliate and my years of doing this... I don't really like exercising. I find it fatiguing. What I like is empowerment. I like getting better at practicing my sport, and I am perfectly happy to tell you that my sport is not fitness. I don't compete at exercising. If I could do one set of 3 reps at 135lbs and get stronger and do better at my sport, than that would be ALL I do. However, that's not how it works. It takes exponentially more work to keep getting better, especially the more progress you make. So I do what is necessary to keep my lifts creeping up in so much as it doesn't take away from running my business, completing my school work or training on the mats.

This brings the issues of eliteness, expertise and progress right to the front. What is 'elite'? Well, I think it simply means you are in the top small percentage of the field right? Being an expert can be considered perhaps to have competency in all the known aspects of your field. Chase and Simon (1973) and Ericsson et al (1993) both argued that exhausting the already known will typically take at least 10 years or 10,000 hours. If you consider that a hard working dude will spend 4 hours a week in the gym, that's 2500 weeks, or about 48 years to attain expertise. I bring this up, because it will probably help you to see that it takes more than some time in the gym to really be an expert in the field. If you're not reading books or articles, watching instructional videos, taking courses, seeking mentorship and practicing coaching every day, you should probably wait until you're asked to offer your thoughts on training. It's also important to consider that if ALL the information you have comes from only one source, that is a major weakness. It's nearly impossible to reach an expert level with practice and feedback only coming from a single domain.

The Open is a really cool thing. It's probably the best way to get a lot of people involved in the games, and on balance, that's a good thing. The Crossfit Games are a great way to capture a lot of people's attention and imagination. It's a clear and concise image that, once broadcast in places like ESPN, will give much larger chunks of America a fucking clue what you're talking about when you say you're doing muscle ups and snatches, and on balance, that's a good thing. But it's not the right thing for everybody all the time. So far we've seen 7 minutes of burpees, followed by 10 minutes or less of 90 or more barbell snatches. Being an RKC, the first thing I thought was basically they really misread or misunderstood the Girevoy Sport rule book. While I suspect they were trying to help delineate some of the lesser athletes with a high skill, high intensity movement, having male Crossfitters wait to snatch 210lbs until after they've done 90 other snatches (30 each at 75, 135 and 165) sounds like a pretty ugly scenario for anything other than the absolute beasts. Basically, I have only trained a few people to ever snatch over 165lbs, and I'd imagine that the ratio of trainees reaching that level is similar at most affiliates. Ie, at most gyms there are only a couple of guys and girls that could even possibly complete this workout, IRRESPECTIVE of whether or not it was necessarily a good idea or if it were possible to reach 90 in under 10 minutes. However, I suspect what happened was you had 60,000 people already signed up who said, "Well, shit, this is what I gotta do. I will not quit, and I will do my best."

While that sentiment is admirable, what I suspect followed at most affiliates was a bunch of driven Type-A hard chargers FORCING their way through about 5-20 AWFUL, dangerous and nearly pointless 165lb snatches. In an effort to constantly raise the bar, the absurdity has also risen. I don't care what your background is, plain old ISABEL (30 reps at 135 as fast as possible) is a shit kicking, fucking bad ass workout for almost anyone that has some strength, decent technique in the power snatch, and the self awareness to maintain technique over speed as best they can. But somewhere along the way, this workout became insufficient. This is basically where I have to draw a line in the sand. Workouts don't need to be bigger, longer or heavier. They need to be more intense. 1RM's need to go up, times need to go down, skill needs to improve. But we don't need more volume for the sake of it, and we don't have to make up new bullshit moves for the sake of novelty.

Expertise rarely comes about via novelty. It takes years and thousands of hours of BORING, REPETITIVE work designed to make you perform better. You need information, support and feedback. If you're alone in your basement, training for 18 months, I guarantee you are not going to the games, brah. Let's face it, to go to the games, you need to have immense strength and power, and you have to have work capacity at an incredibly high level. Finally, you have to have some specialized skills: handstands and muscle ups, double unders, snatches etc. Look at the facts... Last years regionals and games included many events with C&Js in excess of 200lbs for reps. How many of those 30,000 guys signed up for the open do you think can legitimately C&J over 225lbs? Dude, if you can't do that simple low threshold task, why don't you skip the next open workout, and just go work on your O lifts?

So, am I doing the Open? No. I can't snatch 210lbs. I hate burpees. I'm not much for double-unders. But that doesn't mean that I think the games or the Open are bad. There are going to be some out there, who have an amazing level of fitness, and they are going to want to make exercising their sport. If I had a client who had the requisite capacity to make it to regionals, I would encourage them to consider it and help them to train for it. Thankfully though, most of my clients love to watch the games but harbor no fantasies about their belonging there. Most of my clients are 30-45, and they just want to get in better shape with real fitness. You know... Cleans, Jerks, Snatches. Powerlifting. Pull Ups and handstands. Running, rowing etc. If they ask me why we don't do 50 box jumps in a row, I tell them. If they're curious about when we are going to do a hero workout that has 500+ reps or takes the average Crossfitter 45+ minutes to complete, I tell them (probably never, no more than once a year).

I am blessed to have friends in collegiate S&C, who train powerlifters and strongmen, and who train MMA fighters. I still have to face these guys, so I can't do too much stupid shit at my gym and get away with it. THANK GOD. It's a nice checks-n-balances. I know how it can get, when you don't leave the compound and all there is to drink is Kool-Aid. I don't want to be like that, and I kinda hope my clients and members get that. I am about to finish my master's degree. I have other certs beyond Crossfit, and other interests. In short, if Crossfit never happened, I would still be doing barbell snatches, KB swings and pull ups. The difference is, now, thanks to Crossfit, lots of people want to do them with me. I want to make it clear: I don't want to condemn the Games, but rather to make the most out of the positive aspects for a sustainable future for our brand of functional fitness. I just hope we can maximize the exposure they bring while minimizing the cost, both in injuries and misrepresentation they cause. I don't want to lose clients because they think people do shitty heavy snatches when they shouldn't be doing them at my gym. Let's face it; there's enough barriers to real exercise as it is.

PRACTICE CROSSFIT!

Check your ego, and work on getting better.

Remember better is a lot more than just doing more work all the time.

Keep my mind limber

"Of course! My thinking about this case had become so uptight."

Here's some light reading: the 3 P's

And here's some heavy shit: the Fallacy of Technique

I earnestly and respectfully suggest that if you teach one of the disciplines we are always talking about here (BJJ, Judo, MMA, Weightlifting, Crossfit) that you give the two articles above an open-minded read.

If you have followed my blog for 2-3 years, you probably know that I have been preaching a similar idea: Has to be real

Rhadi Ferguson: The technical Myth

So, Matt Thornton, Cane Prevost, Rhadi Ferguson and I are all saying closely aligned things, and I think the most important thing to take away from this is that it's probably about 90 to 180 degrees out of step with the way Judo and BJJ are taught. In a previous post I commented on how most 'drills' in martial arts classes are ill-suited to the ability they intend to improve. Well, I think Cane's posts above really put a great framework around 'ne waza' to help folks look at their training another way.

I think I am a pretty intelligent guy, but my go to 'conflict deference' technique at most of the BJJ schools I frequent is to show up late so I don't have to 'learn techniques', and if that's not possible or practical then I feign the mental incapacity to possibly learn new techniques because they are too hard or too technical or something. This might sound totally ass backwards, but the truth is, as a super duper 10 stripe white belt, I don't need to know how to set up a heel hook from deep half. In fact, with my Judo background, I received my first real introduction to plain old half guard posture/pressure just a few months ago.

So, that's what's wrong. I don't really belong to one school; I have a standing invitation to train at a few whenever I want, which is a WONDERFUL BLESSING. This means that one night a week, I train at one place. Another 2-3 nights I train at another. And then once a week I take privates from a black belt. So, attending classes, about 3 times a week, what I observe is a constant stream of random, overly technical shit that is highly specific. Seriously. ALL THE TIME I see BJJ instructors do 20 minutes of exhausting warm ups (post for another time) and then the first thing they say is something like "So,OK. When you are doing de la Riva and the guy pops off your heel in the hip, this is what I want you to do."

Seriously? Who the fuck is this instructor talking to? Odds are, there's 1-2 blue belts that are working there way through that type of guard game, but even they are only going to get so much out of it... I mean if you read what Cane and Rhadi are saying it should be clear that you don't need ANOTHER technique. What you need to ask is 'why does my opponent always succeed in popping my heel off their hip?'. Everyone skips right to technique or 'possibilities' as Cane would put it without discussing what is going on at the posture or pressure levels. In all likelihood, some live drills that helped ALL the students to understand what the posture issues are for the top and bottom guy would probably clear up the problem well. The reason you are losing one aspect of your posture is probably because you aren't applying enough pressure. The reason you are having to counter your loss of de la Riva is because your de la Riva is weak, not because you need to know more techniques!

In all likelihood, less techniques and more purposeful practice will probably go a very long way. In Chinese martial arts there is a saying, "I don't fear the fighter who has practiced 1000 techniques, I fear the fighter that has practiced one technique 1000 times".

One thing that I like about Judo is that some of the underlying culture of the art helps to reinforce my way of thinking somewhat. There are between 40 and 60 something techniques in judo officially, depending on who you ask. It's assumed that you can reproduce most of them by the time you get to black belt, and it's frequently argued that you need maybe 1000-1500 hours on the mat to make that happen (5 hours a week for 4 years should do it). Given this assumption, most new judoka will learn 20-30 of the techniques in their first 6 months of judo, and the remainder will show themselves eventually. However, in many Judo clubs, there's not much discussion outside of possibly a dozen throws that represent probably 90% of all scoring techniques in the IJF. Thusly, white belts and black belts BOTH assume that when they go to judo practice that night, they will practice seoi nage and harai goshi and o uchi gari for instance. And even though every white belt knows o uchi gari, rarely will a black belt complain about practicing o uchi gari again.

In spite of all this, I see Judo teachers say to a room full of yellow belts "This one is for you more advanced guys" every time I see them teach. Who is this guy talking to?

My case in a way is a 'Galapagos' case study. I began judo in 2005, and I trained my ass off as best I could for two years, barring a few injuries and what not. I'd say I wracked up about 70-80 weeks of 6-10 hours per week type training in 50/50 stand up and ne waza. Then I moved to Richmond Va, where my options for Judo training were severely limited. I would say at this point that my reception of outside instruction all but stopped entirely. Especially as pertains to stand up. On the ground, I have had no formal instruction for quite some time outside of occasional interludes of intense private instruction, which have been major breakthrough points for me, but have been tailored to my own game and my own way of learning (I force my instructors to teach me as little as possible in one session). I say 'galapagos' to refer to Darwin's discovery of isolated species of birds that had widely diverse characteristics. So, in a way, I learned Judo ground work up to about the Gokyu or Yonkyu level as far as techniques are concerned. Then I mostly stopped adding techniques to this except where some private BJJ instruction intervened. My understanding of posture and pressure in the basics that Judo and BJJ share have grown nicely over the last 5 years. I think I perform at a BJJ blue belt level when it comes to kesa gatame, side control and reverse kesa. However, I perform at a very low beginner level in butterfly guard, half guard etc. If someone starts butt scooting, I am pretty bad at dealing with it. No one has ever explained to me the strengths and weaknesses of this posture, or what objectives I should have in acting against it. It's only been in the last few months that an instructor has begun to spell some of this stuff out for me, and it's been in a private training instruction setting where I bring it up.

So that is what is wrong. If I were waiting, I can't tell you how long I might continue to wait to simply get lucky and have an instructor go over the vary basics of the positions that I am unfamiliar with. The irony however is I have observed instructors berate their students for not executing X or Y action that the instructor has never really taught.

I sense that grappling instructors feel as though they are under considerable pressure to teach fancy shit and teach new shit as frequently as possible. This could be for a number of reasons. I do say that I see most instructors pride themselves on how they 'teach technique', but I can't help but think that this simply perpetuates the 'encyclopedic technique collection' approach to grappling, which in my mind is just shit. I mean I am a rank amateur, but I have had plenty of experiences where I was doing the one or two things that I was good at (the positions that I have a firm grasp of posture, pressure) and submissions I have never done before simply revealed themselves to me because I was in total control.

The best things about these arts are that at the end of the day, most of what the best guys in the world are doing is the shit you learn before your first rank test. True in Judo, true in BJJ. Hell, it's true in Crossfit; you are going to learn to squat and do pull ups early on, and frankly, if you want to be a bad ass, just keep practicing those. Do them well, do them heavy, and you can do whatever you want. If you can escape from most pins, sweep to a dominant position, and put pressure on someone until they do retarded shit to escape, than submitting them will likely take care of itself mostly. I think it's more important to understand how a sliding collar choke actually works than it is to learn a bazillion variations of it. You can make up your own crazy variations on the fly if you get the principles. But if you are just mimicking or replaying techniques from the library then you are probably screwed when some little thing is different from the script.

We should talk some other time about how coaching (objectives, goal setting) and teaching (3 P's) interact to facilitate learning, retention and performance.

You don't go out looking for a job dressed like that? On a weekday?

Or... "What's so wrong with a Hard Routine?"

Let me preface this by saying, if you want the short version of this rant, it's "Why are you here?". As a coach, and a business owner, I've worked hard to figure out what I am presenting to you, the consumer, and why. I know why I am here. As a general approach to problem solving, I feel that if you don't identify objectives, then frankly your chances of 'success' are pretty dismal. I mean, what is success if you have no definition? Sometimes that can work. Sometimes, "I'll know it when I see it" can be an appropriate approach to long term life goals. But generally speaking it's a miserable way to go about training.

So, what do I provide? I provide technical expertise. Sure. But more importantly, I provide an environment. A culture. An attitude. A mindset. I coach athletes. In Crossfit generally, the term 'athlete' is thrown about pretty liberally. I use 'athlete' to describe a type of person, and it only has a little bit to do with performance. Being an athlete is about 'Gameness'. Athletes by my definition are committed to improvement, and willing to do what it takes to achieve progress and to bring a competitive best effort to as many events as possible. They want to win, whatever that may mean to them, and they try to hard to win. They act accordingly.

So, why are you here? Presumably, it's to get the things you want. Presumably you know what that is. Not being an expert, I don't expect you to say: "I want to increase my Sinclair total and lower my LDL to under 120 mg/DL". However, I DO expect you to tell me that your doctor told you that your cholesterol was getting too high and you want to be stronger. Those are measurements of health and fitness, and that's my business. I can tell you right up front whether or not that is a service we provide and what's realistic to expect.

I also understand that you are here for an experience; I acknowledge that my gym, and Crossfit generally, is engaged in the 'experience economy'. Like those who spend their excess income on cooking classes, vacations, Yoga and psychotherapy, Crossfitters are buying life experiences just like other american consumers. If you're looking for a building with weights in it, there's a globo gym within 3 miles of your house. That's not what I am selling. I am selling coaching and an athletic environment. I am selling the experience of the hard routine, and I am not going to settle for selling a shitty one at that. The experience that we offer is that of empowering yourself by submitting to a hard routine. One that challenges you more days than not. One that requires commitment, one that will not give freely what is not earned. To be honest, in our daily lives in America, most of us take a lot for granted. We have a lot, and much of it we didn't have to work terribly hard for. Crossfit is a treasure because it is a meritocracy: you know exactly what you are or are not capable of and much of it has to do with how hard you work for how long. Outside the gym, everyone gets a participation award. No one is a loser. At Crossfit you are usually a loser most days. This is the way it should be. Until you can earnestly say that you are more fit than 99% of people out there, you don't need someone telling you you are.

This is what I mean when I ask, "why are you here?". I offer coaching and access to the experience of the hard routine. This may not be what you want, but it's likely what you need. If you acknowledge that you are here to buy this experience, then you will likely do well. Eventually. If you are here to use my weights, you likely won't be renewing your membership, and frankly, that's OK with me. As a coach, I try to understand what you have and what you don't have. I try to help you gain what you need, not what you want (See Joshu below). In my mind, this is what a coach is, and what an athlete needs. It's true: I don't offer many pats on the back, many at-a-boys etc. "This is what you did right, this is what needs improvement. This is how we will do better next time." This is the process every day.

The first time I heard the expression "Hard Routine" it was from Pavel. I can't remember exactly what he was talking about, but generally it was the idea that the most radically transformative programs (whether mentally or physically) were the most grueling, demanding and austere. He seemed to embrace the necessity of this from time to time. I have seen since that it's a common expression amongst special forces to describe the discipline with which they conduct themselves professionally. This is of particular note, because it says almost explicitly that these guys see the professionalism and discipline that most soldiers display and they scoff at their slack asses. Given that Pavel was supposedly a trainer for the Spetsnaz I guess it's a pretty universal premise. It seemed perfectly natural to me after having spent a half year on a mountain with the shaolin monks. There I observed the differences in progress and performance between the students that devoted themselves to 'the system' and those who just got by.

I suppose my experience in routines 'hard' as such has shaped my coaching style somewhat. I have to admit, as a personal trainer in the average gym, my approach was different before leaving for China than what it is today (after a few years of trying to train 10-20 people a day and having seen various elite athletics teams train). It's something of a joke amongst friends, acquaintances and clients that I can be anywhere from:

unsympathetic

not nurturing

tactless

to:

a dick

That always makes me chuckle. For a couple of reasons. I guess it depends on your definition of nurturing. I tend to think of nurturing as 'facilitating growth', not making you feel better. I love my clients and I work my ass off to come up with the best system for them. For 10+ years, I have wanted very badly to be as strong as I can be for my size and to learn martial arts. The lengths to which I have gone to get stronger have included intense training programs that involved lifting twice a day or more, working through or until injuries, being treated like shit by coaches and athletes stronger than me so that I could stay under their guidance or environment long enough to learn from them and more. I have blown thousands of dollars on DVDs, workshops, certifications and classes and coaching sessions. I have traveled all over the country. I have spent hundreds of hours in college weight rooms and have gone 10's of thousands of dollar in debt to get a college degree. ALL OF IT FOR MIXED RESULTS. Sometimes experiences were worth it, sometimes they weren't. But I typically paid out the ass in some way or the other for both.

That's what I did for strength. Multiply all that again for martial arts. I have changed my work schedule, quit jobs, saved up $1,000's to leave for China for half a year, gone to any number of tournements and schools, bought DVDs, went to camps and seminars and so on just like above, and just like above, I took the good with the bad, and just like above, there was at least as much bad as good, and I just HAD TO SWALLOW IT ALL. It was far from perfect, but I had to accept that and make the best of it. If you haven't had the pleasure of learning something complex, difficult and dangerous from an asian, you should really try it. Then come back and tell me I'm a dick.

What I do as a coach and a business person is I try to distill this process down to convey the best things I learned, while helping my clients avoid a lot of the bullshit and unnecessary pitfalls that befell me. And there's a lot of bullshit out there. In light of all this, I have to admit that there are times that I envy my clients. I wish I were them. I wish I was the one in class, getting coaching, and training with others and being taught what's important and what's a waste of time directly, instead of having to learn the hard way. Sometimes I get feedback that I am not flexible enough or that our policies at the gym are hard to comply with. I have a hard time hearing that something we do is not accessible, because I have seen the alternative: Most gurus out there are more charlatan than expert, and what they offer is often more expensive and less valuable than what we are laying out. I know because I had to 'wander through the woods' stumbling past many of them. Let me be clear: every learning experience I have had has offered me less substance for more cost than what I offer today in my coaching/teaching. That is my mission statement; that is where I am coming from. I know that eventually our business will succeed because we offer a better value than anyone else out there.

The only compromises I ever make in our coaching and training system have everything to do with market realities. In essence, my gym would be better, but that would scare off too many potential clients. I have changed the way we structure beginners' classes, how we bring people in for trials, how we handle payments and other issues to make it easier and more convenient to start training with us. Honestly, much of it is irrelevant. Even if ALL my prices are listed on my webpage, the number one question I get on the phone is "How much does it cost?" I can't tell you the temptations that run through my head, the possible sarcastic responses that leap immediately to the frontal cortex. Is it unreasonable for me to doubt the prospects of a potential student who won't make the effort to navigate an additional page in to our website to try and answer some of his own questions?

When I was 21 years old I began bartending under two GREAT mentors: Johnny Dollar and JD Doyle. These professionals had been working in hospitality for longer than I had been alive, and they were experienced enough to have a system. I was lucky. JD was known around Atlanta as being something of a 'populist' wine expert: a genius at making great wines accessible to consumers of moderate means instead of only the rich elite snobby types. As an Irish guy from south Boston with a mouth like a sailor and the look of a Popeye with no hair, he would never be mistaken for a snob. But he understood wine and he made a profound observation about it that I think can be generalized to other subjects. I paraphrase:

"All the best wines come from shitty soil; the vines have to struggle to bear fruit to make truly exceptional wine."

I was trolling through the Judoforum a few weeks back, and someone started a thread about little things that made big differences in people's practice. Ie, knowing what you know now, what would judoka tell beginners were the easiest ways to make the biggest improvements in their judo. I'd say the two most popular answers were:

1. Show up

2. Don't be late

Last quote, then I am done;

A monk told Joshu, "I have just entered the monastery. Please teach me."

Joshu asked, "Have you eaten your rice porridge?

The monk replied, "I have eaten."

Joshu said, "Then you had better wash your bowl."

New Shit Has Come to Light

In the discipline of motor behavior, learning or control (what have you), academics subdivide motor activities in to a number of categories. Some of the most fundamental are as follows:

Open vs Closed

Within this paradigm, movements fall in along a continuum from open at one end to closed on the other. A movement that is 'closed' or occurs within a closed environment is one in which there are a limited number of external variables, and the movement is relatively predictable, as is the environment in which it occurs. Think bowling. The ball, the floor, the lane, they are always the same, and hence you can be fairly certain of what to expect when you attempt to perform. The only thing that really changes is internally within the performer, sometimes they have a good shot, sometimes a bad shot.

A movement that is open or more aptly a performance environment that is open is one in which there are many variables outside the control of the performer, and as such they must react correctly to changing stimuli, often on short notice to make adjustments to their regular techniques that fit the changing environment or movements made by their opposition.

Discrete, Serial or Continuous

Researchers and academics also break movements down based upon their beginning and end points within the context.

Discrete movements are essentially singular and irreducible, and begin and end with one motion.

Serial movements are comprised of several connected movements that progress towards a final goal.

Continuous movements are cyclical and ongoing in nature, with no clear beginning or end point.

Example: Crossfit.

In Crossfit, the pull up happens in a closed environment. The rules are always the same, the environment relatively stable and you choose when the rep begins and ends.

How you do the movement determines what type of skill it is:

Deadhangs are like discrete movements; up, down, done.

Swinging Kip Pull Ups are serial, in that you arch, hollow, kip with the hips, pull to the bar, push off the bar, and swing back in to your next rep.

Butterfly Kips are continuous: you're elliptical path is smooth, and an outside observer can not distinguish the beginning from the end and the only real constraints are when you choose to start and stop.

Example: Grappling.

In Judo or Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, there are a lot of drills and training methods that are used 'just because'. Often, the purported reason for doing a drill is to get better at a particular type of technique in randori, rolling or competition.

For example, many BJJ and Judo schools teach the armbar, one from the guard and one from mount. They often teach a drill to help get better at the armbar, to make it more 'automatic'. While it's true that a great number of repetitions of a movement will enhance the automaticity with which it's performed, only within the context within which its practiced. Hence, in order to transfer, the domains and movement types MUST match. Therefore, if a skill is open and serial, but your drill is closed and discrete, the transference will be minimal at best. In fact, there's a strong chance that there will be some interference or negative consequences to your mismatch of training and application. So that we're all on the same page, here's a video to make it clear:

As you can see in the video above, there are different ways to look at and drill the armbar in practice situations, but in the context of application, the armbar is OPEN and SERIAL. In order for Marissa to set up an armbar she has to either force her opponent to react or she must respond to the actions of her opponent. Keith may try to pass, may lose his balance, may commit his arms to certain grips. Marissa must sense these changes in the environment and adjust accordingly, and the matter of executing the arm lock itself never magically appears, it's also after a set up: securing the arm, controlling the upper body, aligning the legs then locking the elbow.

So, what's my point?

My point is this: We all want our practice to make us better at the tasks we want to do. In sport those tasks are almost always of a competitive and open variety. In one way, martial arts that include sparring are already a step ahead, as non-cooperative sparring accounts for much of this training need. Non-cooperative sparring is always open by nature.

But what about the other hour of class, the one you spend drilling? Are hundreds of uchikomis and 20 minutes of drills like the continuous armbar making you a better fighter?

The answer is a complex one. The short answer is yes, a little. The long answer is something more like: While repetitive closed drills of a discrete or continuous nature likely won't make you WORSE as a fighter, they are liking doing very little to make you better.

Most martial arts are taught in a format like this:

1. Let me show you this move

2. You try it out, slow and without resistance

3. You spar, and hope you think to do that move during sparring

4. Some weeks later you are expected to do it well in repetitive drilling

(5. One day you will do it naturally during sparring)

Depending on who your teacher is or where you train, each of these segments may take up varying proportions of your time. They all play necessary roles within the framework of going from not knowing them at all to correct placement of automatic movements. In the beginning, you absolutely have to have the movements shown to you. After this, you will go through a period where simply remember the order of the steps is the main focus of your practice. Once you no longer struggle to simply remember the movement, then you want to get better at it: do it faster, more precisely, with more force or better timing. Once you 'know' the movement, then you have to apply the movement within the environment of sparring. That's where things start getting tricky. That's also when the motor learning side of things goes from the purely mechanical to the cognitive: you have to sense changes, perceive what they mean, interpret the relevant information to you, choose a response and then execute that response.

Most martial arts instructors do a good job of showing you techniques. They themselves are technical masters of these movements, and can demonstrate to you how to do them correctly in great detail. Many students are adept at mimicking these movements within the context of drilling. They can replicate the motions well after a short period of practice like this. The hard part comes when it's time to show you how, when and where to apply those techniques. How do you know when it's time to try and stick your foot in the hip, turn and go for it?

One answer is to incorporate drills that require decisions. For instance, perhaps you can still drill the armbar from the closed guard, but your partner can attempt two different passes. Each will require a different correct response to set up an armbar as an answer to their attempt to pass.

As simple as this drill is, it's still infinitely better (1 vs 0) than the continuous armbar drill showed at the end of the first section of the video, at least in terms of perception, decision making and reaction time. This is a good time to introduce the concept of degrees of freedom: the number of possible outcomes or choices. In reality, BJJ contains hundreds of degrees of freedom and as such is probably one of the most cognitively rich sports out there. In terms of drilling, simply going from only one possible answer (closed) to two or more (open) instantly enhances the experience of the trainee. Due to the open nature of the sport, an athlete with poor movements but sound cognitive skills will likely fair better in sparring and competition. Obviously combining both would make for a superior athlete.