Relation Between Technical And

© COPYRIGHT 2010 BY BRADLEY J. STEINER - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Sword and Pen – October 2010 Issue

[Reprinted With Permission]

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HARD training in close combat and self-defense skills provides a lot of extremely beneficial exercise. However, one does not (or certainly should not) approach combatives work for exercise, per se. Train in combatives for combat and self-defense, pure and simple. Let the ancillary exercising benefit be a plus that you accept as "coming with the territory".

Exercise in addition to your combatives training is all but essential. It is essential if you aspire to maximum development of your combatives potential; the technical practice alone will not get you to your personal peak. Look at the example long established by every elite military unit in the world. Soldiers who are trained as Rangers, Special Forces troopers, etc., and sailors who train to be Navy SEALs, receive hundreds of hours of technical skills work with all sorts of weapons, survival techniques, and war gear. However, no matter how rigorously these men train in physically demanding skills and activities, they always follow a rugged physical training program in addition to everything else that they do.

Perhaps a short-term student of self-defense who is "only looking for the basics" can obtain that which he is seeking simply by learning and practicing a set of combat skills. But all of us who are in this for life, and for whom combatives is a complete martial art will want to follow a rigorous, consistent physical training regimen, in addition to our technical practice.

The finest physical training is weight training — weight training done sensibly and progressively either with adjustable barbells and dumbells ("free" weights), with Nautilus machines, with pulleys, with rubber or spring cables ("chest expanders"), or even with improvised weights. But the body can be brought to a peak of strength and condition only when subjected to demands that compel the muscles to increase in strength, and the organs and bone structure to manage overload. Such exercising cannot continue progressively forever, since after two or three years of correct training a person will reach his genetic maximum. However, maintenance of the peak achieved is highly desirable, and this is easily done by continuing to workout sensibly with weights once one has built up to his genetic limits.

Weight training will do wonderful things for your technical ability. You will of course be stronger. However, if you train correctly, you will become much more agile, faster, better coordinated, and tougher. Your body will become better able to "take it", too; weight training builds resilience.

Weight training also provides great mental benefits. Confidence always increases when you can feel yourself growing stronger, and actually see the increased strength in the increasing amount of solid iron and steel that you can lift. You know that you are stronger than most people (and if you train regularly and correctly, you will be stronger than most people, since most people do not follow a regular weight training program) and this enhances your confidence in being capable of fighting back well, if any situation requires that you do so.

The only caution that we wish to leave our readers with is not to confuse the roles of technical and physical training. They beautifully complement each other — but neither one replaces the other.

If you train hard in low front and side kicks (the two key kicking techniques of serious unarmed combat) you will develop excellent, reliable kicks. If you augment this practice by working out on heavy barbell squats two or three times a week, you will greatly bolster your kicking formidability. However, merely squatting will never replace the need for technical practice of the kicks (just as no amount of kicking practice can ever produce the sheer power in your hips and legs that squats will produce). The two activities (technical practice of skills and hard progressive resistance exercise) are perfect complimentary activities. If you are after optimum development and confidence, make both of them a regular part of your routine.

The exercises that typically precede a ju-jutsu or karate class are largely useless for serious combatives. Yes, the limbering and stretching warm you up for the Class, and possibly assist you in improving your flexibility — but that flexibility is not necessary for close combat, and it just may prove injuriously detrimental if you continue it through your later years. We have known numerous individuals who, as black belt holders, had acquired lifetime injuries through too much over-stretching. Unless you are genetically predisposed to be extraordinarily flexible YOU ARE RUNNING THE RISK OF SERIOUS AND POSSIBLY PERMANENT INJURIES DOING MANY OF THE “EXERCISES” THAT ARE PRACTICED IN CLASSICAL/TRADITIONAL MARTIAL ARTS SCHOOLS.

The marvelous thing about properly performed weight training is that it develops you in a healthful, balanced, complete way. When you are 90 you will still be able to train with weights. And if — at 90 — you have been training with weights for four to seven preceding decades, you will be stronger, fitter, and more healthy than most men less than half your age! Look at Jack LaLanne. He‘s in his middle 90‘s, and he works out every day. He is more agile and fit at 95 than many college students are, in their early 20‘s!

Weight training is the ticket to the strength, health, and fitness that you‘re after. It is a "natural" adjunct to combatives work, since it not only builds all round solid fitness, it produces raw strength more efficiently, safely, and speedily than anything else can — and you need strength in close combat.

When, as a boy of sixteen, we began weight training, we had already been a student of martial arts in one form or another for a long time. Yet, we were not genetically favored with either strength or athletic acumen. Within two months of beginning a systematic weight training program we experienced a literal TRIPLING of our ability in martial arts work. We experienced a boost in confidence that was almost uncanny. Our hitting ability shot up so dramatically that we wondered if we were dreaming. And (in ju-jutsu) we began to experience an ability to throw practice partners with an authority that we had not up until then been able to generate; and several people with whom we trained even commented on this. "What‘s happening," one ju-jutsu partner asked us. "You‘re stronger, Brad!" Before our first month of weight training had elapsed we had already decided that this was going to remain a lifetime activity and habit, just as our martial arts work would.

We hope we can turn you onto this path, if in fact you haven‘t started on it, already. Combine your practice (regularly, consistently, effortfully) with a serious program of progressive resistance physical training . . . and watch the results!

No, you will never be a superman unless your genetics has programmed you for such development. But you can get super results — and attain the optimum level of development that your genetics permits. And NOTHING CAN OR WILL HELP YOUR TECHNICAL AND MENTAL ABILITY IN CLOSE COMBAT AND SELF-DEFENSE MORE THAN THAT!