This question is specific to the systems and Krav Maga enthusiasts...How do you know you’re training the craft or learning “moves?”
The answer (simply put) is you won’t know unless theory is turned into application but who would really put themselves in life threatening situations intentionally?
Let’s start with the basics. Instinctive Response versus Trained Response.
Instinctive Response: An unconscious response. For example, a possum plays dead as its defense mechanism. A human typically shrugs and tightens the elbows proximally (into the rib cage) when startled (called a twitch response). For example try tickling a very ticklish child and you’ll see his or her unconscious reaction.
Trained Response: It is when a conscious action is applied repeatedly till it becomes the instinctive, somewhat unconscious and normal reaction. For example, driving. A person only gets better at it by doing it repeatedly and often. The novice sequence will sound a lot like: Unlock the vehicle, open the door, sit inside the driver seat, buckle the seat belt, insert the keys into the ignition, turn the key till the engine turns over, shift the gear out of park, release the emergency brake, etcetera, etc. The experienced sequence will be more abbreviated like: Get in the car, start the car, drive...
To me, when you’ve trained these specific movements and mastered the chronology of its importance in its full context from start to finish AND you consistently work towards improvements to these successions...THEN you are training.
Take 30 seconds and think of a self-defense technique and make it an easy one so you can remember and enumerate specifically what you do.
Got it?
All done?
So are you training or learning moves?
If your first movement does not entail working from a disadvantage and a twitch response, then these movements will fail you. You are doing moves. If your last movements do not include disengagement and reassessment of your surroundings then you are also doing moves.
To make a contrast, shooting at an outdoor range. If all you have trained to do is shoot at paper without the elements of before (from the draw), during (movement, reloading and addressing malfunctions) and after (scanning for other threats) then you won’t perform the shot as optimally when the other elements are introduced.
Regardless of where you train if you don’t train within the context of your life’s constructs (i.e. law enforcement, ccw, civilian) you are doing yourself a disservice. You are doing moves.
If you do not do this yet, add this methodology (of twitch response and disadvantages, all the way through to disengagement) to the context of your training and unlock new neural pathways into your training. Because if you do not...
You will know all the movements and theory but your lack of training will show and denote otherwise.
“Do what is hard today, do the impossible tomorrow.”
Mr. Noi