Now that you've climbed the GREAT PYRAMID OF SELF DEFENCE and lengthened-- I mean raised the 4 PILLARS OF SELF DEFENCE in our previous post, it's time to move on to...

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THE TRAINING CYCLE

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CHAPTER 1:

TEACH, TRAIN, TEST, REPEAT

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The core of what we do involves a cycle of teaching, training and testing. These three all harmonise together to bring you up the Pyramid, and this cycle is really at the heart of how we accomplish our mission.

But before we dive in, let's have a look at something we only touched upon in the previous article:

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THE RAMP

As you can see, the side of the GREAT PYRAMID OF SELF DEFENCE is actually a ramp. I know - there's a lot going on in this architecture metaphor, but bear with me here.

The idea of the ramp is that it is a smooth transition on a skill by skill basis from the easiest activity you can do with that skill, to the hardest.

This usually means going through the training cycle on a certain skillset, so before we come back to an example of the ramp in action, let's have a look at what that cycle actually is.

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TEACH

The cycle begins with teaching. This is the first stage we go through for skills you haven't acquired yet and is your jumping on point for the ramp.

And like everything we do, it's centered on you (yes you, reading this).

Most people know about the 3 main learning styles - Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic (there's also a 4th one - Reading/Writing but handing out pamphlets in class got a little boring so we cut it).

Our pedagogy (teaching methodology) caters to all three: a silent visual demonstration for the visual learners, an explanation and clear soundbites for the auditory learners, and guided "dry drill" step by step practice for the kinesthetic learners.

Because everyone is a combination of all 3 styles, you'll get something out of each section.

Our goal here, and in the rest of the cycle is to get you to UNDERSTAND what you're doing and why.

Without understanding, you'd just be rote learning techniques - and it'd become very hard to remember what to do under pressure or when faced with a variation of a problem you haven't explicitly trained against.

But by understanding the PRINCIPLES and MECHANICS of what you're doing and why you're doing it, you can never really forget what to do because the solutions will just make sense to you. You'll find yourself making up new solutions on the fly based upon what you know and the specifics of the situation you find yourself in.

It's the whole give a man a fish vs teach a man to fish thing.

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TRAIN

Once you've learned the problem and the solution, it's time to train.

You can't just learn techniques and expect yourself to be able to execute them flawlessly straight away in class. And definitely not under the pressure of a real life self-defence scenario.

Self-defence is a skill, and like any skill you have to train it to improve - which luckily is a lot of fun.

This phase of the cycle is all about applying what you've learned, deepening your understanding through experience, and gradually increasing the challenge of executing the skill until it's at or past real life levels.

This is done with your training partner(s), and is where the bulk of the fun happens as you find yourself getting better and better at applying the skill you just learned.

For this, we have an almost infinite number of different drills, games and training exercises that follow the basic rule:

If the training activity is too easy, ramp up the difficulty. If it's too hard, ramp it down until you can return to the previous difficulty.

So while you might start off practicing against a single, slow, well telegraphed attack, once you get that down we might get the attacker to speed up gradually, or give them another option to attack you with - or get them to fight back a little bit more as you're counterattacking - you get the idea.

This means everyone in the class gets activities that are scaled up or down to suit where they're at in the moment, so you never find yourself bored or completely overwhelmed by an inappropriate level of challenge.

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TEST

The last phase of the cycle, and a trigger for highschool flashbacks, the word 'test' here is less about us judging you, and more about you putting what you've trained to the, well... test.

We finish off the class by putting what we've done in the contexts where you might have to use it - by doing scenario training and summary drills.

Scenarios are like little mini simulations - usually involving up to 10-15 seconds of talking - negotiating or de-escalating with an aggressor, where they might attack you with things you've learned to defend yourself against if you don't do such a good job of talking them out of it.

This is invaluable, because of all the little tactical details like distance management, awareness and attention, positioning and negotiation strategy have a chance to come out, and you can get some really great, practical feedback for the real world.

It also shows you how well you do in a realistic situation, which builds confidence in your ability to translate the skills you learned in the classroom to the street.

And if you make a mistake? No big deal. The knives are rubber, the sticks are padded and the guns don't actually shoot bullets, so you can learn from it, get the same scenario again straight away and have a chance to do things differently and see how it plays out.

That's just scenarios - we have a whole host of different drills we use to summarise your skills and give you a chance to test them, and that's not even counting Challenge Nights and Gradings.

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Taking the Ramp Up

Testing your skills also has a different meaning, which we'll get to in the next section, but for now let's go back to the ramp and see how this plays out.

Take the skill of defending against knife attacks for example.

We start by breaking that down into different types of knife attacks, and starting with the most common (and easiest to defend against) - circular stabs.

The very bottom of the ramp (the easiest activity in the skill) is to learn about the attack - watch a demonstration of the problem, the solution and have it explained to you, with the chance to ask questions of course.

Then doing a guided dry drill of the defensive skill is a step up - you're moving now and engaging with the bio-mechanics of the technique.

Of course, playing by yourself all the time is no fun, so to ramp it up, we get you to partner up and start slow. As you get better and better, the attacker will attack faster and harder.

But you're too good. It's getting too easy, so we can ramp it up by allowing the attacker to attack with different variations of circular stabs - anything they can think of.

Gotten to easy again? The attacker can charge in from a distance giving you the opportunity to kick them, but the decision to make - do you kick or block and punch?

And once that's easy, let's allow the attacker to dodge backwards against your kicks and try to burst in as you're putting your foot down.

Next stop? The attacker tries to grab your shirt and then stab - the possibilities are endless.

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CHAPTER 2:

ADAPT and INNOVATE

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Now back to that other meaning of testing the techniques - we don't just want you to understand the techniques intellectually - we want you to know they work.

So we welcome questions.

"Why do we do this?" "Why not do it that way?"

We love these types of questions because they show you're our favourite kind of student - an active learner.

I'll give you some advice: if you ever go to a martial arts or self-defence class and ask the instructor why you do something that way, only for them to tell you "that's just the way we've been taught" - be polite, but start searching for somewhere else.

There is a reason for everything we do, and if we find a better way of doing things? We adapt and innovate by adopting it.

This is a parachute selling business after all, right? If there is a better way to pack a proverbial parachute, we want to know it and use it before we give you your 'chute.

So if you have questions, we either answer them with actual reasons grounded in bio-mechanics or the logic of the situation, or we get you to test the technique.

For example: go slow, actually push through your targets and see what happens to the attacker when you apply force in your counterattacks (going slow stops you from injuring your partner).

Or if you have an idea about how to do things differently? Let's test it out (safely) and see how it goes!

We either find clarity about why we do the things we do, or we find a better way. It's a win-win, as long as it's done with a constructive attitude. (Leave your ego at the door, please).

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CHAPTER 3:

THE CHALLENGE CYCLE

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Like Russian babushka dolls, we have cycles within cycles.

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Our curriculum plan is organised into 8 week blocks. 7 Weeks of training, and then (que the dramatic music)...

CHALLENGE WEEK.

This is where we dial the fun up to 11.

Normal classes are replaced by two different types of classes:

• Simulation Class
• Challenge Class

Simulation class gives you the opportunity to go through a longer simulation hand tailored to fit your lifestyle and skill level, based on what you learned in the last 7 weeks.

These can take up to 2 minutes each, and we will literally rearrange the training space to simulate the environment the scenario takes place in.

We use details you give us about your life (what your job is, do you go out a lot, what are your hobbies etc) to create a simulation of a self-defence event that could be likely for you to experience, and then we play it out.

And guess what? You might not even need to throw a punch or a kick - if you can talk your way out of it and make the attacker feel like they don't want to attack you, that is 1000% a win.

That's the beauty of simulations, they're like scenarios' bigger and beefier cousin - a virtual goldmine of feedback on how you'd handle yourself in real life from awareness, to communication to action.

But wait, there's more...

After Simulation Class comes Challenge Class.

This is where you will undergo a challenge (duh) that pushes you in all 4 Pillars.

Think Tough Mudder, but without the mud and for self-defence.

I won't spoil too much, but you'll get to kick, punch and defend aplenty.

It's a real opportunity to push yourself and feel like you've accomplished something great afterwards, while bonding with your fellow classmates.

You know that feeling of accomplishment and bonding you get after going through a tough ordeal with some good people that are doing the same?

It's all yours.

And the best part? In another 8 weeks there will be another one, and you'll get to see just how much you've improved and just how much more you can handle.

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So that's the training cycle.

Eventually I'll write another article on the third big element of training with us.

Gradings.

(They're like super challenge nights, but on a weekend).

But for now, I'll let you process all the information we've just been through together above.

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Feel free to Contact Us if you have any questions about this article!

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Coach Arthur