Arnis

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Back to training, sometimes life gets in the way.

Well we’re back to training.

I’ve been working for Habitat so I’ve been inconsistent.  Some of you have been away or occupied with life events and duties, but looks like we’re all settling in so we can start training together again.  I’ll be regular at Black Lightning unless I post differently on Facebook, and we have a Sunday morning group meeting in Campbell Park with Guru Aldon leading.

Let’s do our thing and have some fun.

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Kick & Sticks

It’s really hard to add advanced kicks in flow while doing Kali, and probably impractical.  The sticks or blades wiz by a lot faster than your legs can.  I’ve sparred with someone who wanted to add high kicks and you end up whacking their legs.  So if I have two sticks in hand I probably won’t bother high kicking.  But I like the challenge of seeing where and when they can come in, and adds dimension to the carrenza.

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All Around Fighting

For several years now I’ve been training an eclectic mix of martial arts for myself.  In a single session I often train Kickboxing, Reality Based Self Defense, Kali , Jiu Jitsu, Silat, and Karate.  That’s why my training sessions have to be about 2 hours long, after a warm up.

I’ve trained these exclusively at times, meaning all I did was Kickboxing or Kali or Systema  to the exclusion of the  others, for weeks, months, or years.  Now, after almost 50 years in the martial arts, I am comfortable mixing all of them to my joy and delight.

I’m not a professional competitor, I don’t own a chain of schools, I don’t pay dues to masters above me, I’m not locked in to any particular style, and I’m not adoringly worshiping of any instructor.  Some will view this as disloyalty to my “masters” and consider this standing as “not traditional.”  Well, if you’ve read any of my other stuff you’d know I don’t value tradition as much as some.  I think that often along the way students and teachers of the martial arts miss the point that, to paraphrase something else “The martial arts were made for man, not man for the martial arts.”376063_289617814408826_327184943_n10176159_744530215584248_2897955722894680788_n

Sure, it’s good to have a solid foundation in any one of them, realizing the benefits of the style or training, and recognizing the liabilities of each.  Training a particular martial art’s skills sets make for solid skills that those who try to do it all at the beginning lack in. Look at MMA’ers who have done nothing but MMA.  Yes they kick and punch and throw and choke.  But so often their kicks look amateurish, clumsy, unbalanced.  Their punches look like schoolyard haymakers and nothing else.  They look for volume and brute force, not precision.

Then look at someone like Cung Le or Geroge St Pierre.  Cung Le has one of the best looking and most effective lead leg side kicks in the business, and George all round demonstrates abilities that only come from exclusive Karate training.

But these are professional athletes who will do whatever it takes to win in a competition.  They are also subject to protocols us civilians are not, like starting face to face in a ready stance, having a referee who will restrict them to the rules, having a particular space to fight in.  We need to recognize some subtle differences between training martial arts for fight sports, and training martial arts for self defense.  1044576_529145147122757_405149113_n

 

 

 

 

I’ve had my fun training for competition, won and lost.  I’ve had a couple of real life encounters, won and lost.  Losing a real life encounter is a lot different than losing in a tournament.  Hell, the entrance to each is a lot different.  In real life there will probably NOT be a get ready face to face start.  Your real life opponent may be a better boxer than you.  You, a good stand up boxer may find yourself on the ground in a flash at the start.  You, a good Judo/Jiu Jitsu person may be attacked by multiple attackers.  In a multiple opponent scenario “pulling guard” on one person can be suicide.

Random violence is chaotic.  I’ve learned that much.  I’d hate to be the instructor who spent lots of time on an upward block against a stiff armed front punch from a static training partner, so that it “looks good,” then the student out in the world easily gets sucker punched and “Philly dumped.”

Instructors need to think and choose what they want to teach and train.  So I train a variety of skill sets. Each with its own progressions, but in no particular order. 529515_398388640198409_789226797_n

In any training session with me you may do some boxing, knife tapping, take downs, ground work, self-defense scenarios.  Does that sound chaotic? When you step outside the dojo, I don’t know what you may encounter, if anything, and hopefully never.  When you step outside the dojo, even on the first day with me, I want you to be at least familiarized with more than one of the many chaotic possibilities you may encounter.  We can’t cover them all every time, but we can certainly go over more than just a rising block against an uninspired front punch.

For those who’ve asked; No I don’t teach Shorin Ryu Karate. I don’t teach Tae Kwon Do.  I don’t teach an exclusive brand of Filipino Martial Arts, I don’t teach American Kickboxing, etc.  I teach skill sets from these and other martial arts that I’ve trained along the way, and I’m still learning.

If you’re looking for a black belt in something or other, a certificate as a guru, I don’t offer those, you can buy them or make them up for yourself like many have done.  If you’re looking to train all around fighting and random self-defense skill sets for your own personal edification; then I may be the one to call!

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RICK VARGAS

Kali Silat & Self Defense Training Group

(386) 320-3075


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Video – Kali Silat at Black Lightning Martial Arts

Another Kali Silat self defense video clip from Rick Vargas & Joe Cueva

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NLP & Martial Arts

 

 

In the literature and studies of self improvement you’ll find the concept of Neuro Linguistic Programming, that’s a mouthful, so it’s commonly referred to as NLP.  NLP is a recent branch of applied psychology, and has high profile proponents in the field of self help.

Originally used in psycho therapy, its concepts and tools found their way into business,and personal development.  Car salesmen were using NLP principals to increase their sales, people in sports and various fields were using it’s concepts to improve their performance.

So what is it?  The words themselves bear extended definitions as well as simplification; Neuro refers to the brain and its relation with mind and body.  Linguistic refers to language and communication systems, how we communicate with ourselves and others. Programming refers to patterns and change.  It’s a process for establishing patterns and making changes that improve our condition.

How can martial artists and use of NLP work together?  Without going into a comprehensive study of NLP, it’s still important to cover a couple of things, one is the Four Pillars of NLP.   They are:

 

  • Outcomes
  • Sensory Acuity
  • Behavioral Flexibility
  • Rapport  

 

Another important element I’ll mention is called “Modeling.”

For Instructors.

Instructors can benefit from understanding what a student’s goals are (outcomes), how students learn (sensory acuity), adaptability to help the students achieve their goals (behavioral flexibility) and, in order to communicate effectively, rapport.

Can instructors do their work without these pillars?  Sure, and they have for a long time using traditional methods.  NLP is a relatively new science, and it offers the potential not only for significant change, but of accelerating the process of change over the older methods.

Traditional instruction methods often rely on a one way street of pitching and catching; I throw material at you and it’s up to you to catch it or not.  NLP invites a partnership between instructor and student, an effective giving AND receiving. There are a myriad of constantly evolving tools that can be used for this, all driven by individual outcomes. This method is more properly called coaching.

A friend and instructor, Neil Ehrlich, a few years ago set up a martial arts school with a few unique concepts going on, and one of them was that we, the instructors, were now “coaches,” not Sensei, Shihan, Sifu, or Grand Master.  “Coach Neil, Coach Jimi, Coach Rick…” We coached to help each student succeed in achieving their goals.  For some it was competitive, others combative, others defense, others just recreational and fitness.

This coaching method of instruction is different from traditional instruction where there is only one way to teach, only one type of student, and only one outcome; the glory of my martial art, or myself.

Using NLP for martial arts instruction doesn’t lend itself well to an en masse approach with an easily followed instructor’s manual.  It’s been said before and bears repeating, not every skilled practitioner is a skilled instructor, they may know the material, but not the effective teaching of the material.

For Students.

On the student side, the individual can facilitate and accelerate the process of learning using NLP.

The Four Pillars apply:

  • Outcomes. Having a goal, knowing the Outcome you expect, and having a driving vision of it.
  • Sensory Acuity.  Receiving, storing, and applying of information important to your goals/outcomes.
  • Behavioral Flexibility. The ability to re-route, to take detours if necessary, on the way to your goals.  If something isn’t working in an appropriate time frame, change might be in order.
  • Rapport.  This is important. An easy definition is “friendliness” or “getting along.”  A deeper definition is: understanding, understanding others, and understanding yourself. It is also about trust and connection.  In a teacher student relationship, it is hard for a student to learn from a teacher they don’t like, or thinks aren’t liked by.  Why?  There isn’t sufficient trust.  If the instructor or coach cannot elicit trust from you, or you can’t give it to that person, move on.  The point here is to learn, to improve, efficiently and speedily, and lack of trust is an obstacle to that.  That’s right, you don’t have to automatically trust every karate/kung fu/martial arts school owner in the world.  Trust is earned, given, and shared.

Modeling.

Another helpful NLP technique is called “modeling.” It’s not quite imitation, it’s more applying from observation the successful behaviors, strategies, and practices, of someone’s exceptional performance.

This modeling is used as a higher starting point to achieving your own excellence.  Modeling acknowledges that we recognize a level of performance excellence or success we want, and we start our own process as close to that as possible, not from zero.  Modeling is a powerful tool in accelerating skill development and performance on the way to your outcome/goals.

As instructors or students, I hope you’ll consider exploring NLP and how it can bring you greater and speedier success in your personal and martial arts development.

Coach Rick

Coach Rick

 

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