Technique based training, Principle based training, Drilling based training.

This blog post is going to generalize a little bit, so bear with me.

Most schools that are any good do a combination of technique, principle and drilling based learning.

However there are still out of date schools around or teachers that are overly focussed on one method over the other.

But mostly for the sake of organization, I’m going to act like people strictly train in one way, when in reality it’s usually a combination.

TECHNIQUE BASED LEARNING

This type of training is memorizing a bunch of physical solutions to problems in fighting. Very much “If he does this you do this, or if you want this, you do this. This is how”

Pro: In the beginning, mostly everyone has to learn techniques. Unless you’re athletic and had a violent lifestyle where you survived encounters to utilize natural movement in a fight, most people have no idea how to actually fight properly other than throw haymakers. Techniques give an idea on how to do something.

Con: Fighting is dynamic, unpredictable, and brings out a primal side of yourself that can’t be solved by rote memory recall. Even if you rep a technique out many times, unless it’s trained more as an instinct in some chaos rather than rote repetition, it’s probably not going to work.

Moreover you actually don’t need very many techniques to fight. You need to know how to move and do basic strikes, basic grips and common methods of attack, but otherwise you don’t need to memorize much. Look at the art of boxing, it doesn’t have many tools, but they will wreck people with textbook memorization of technique. The same with Greco-Roman wrestlers, as they have techniques but mastery comes in the subtle intricacies of movement. Otherwise it’s pretty basic.

Technique memorization will only take you so far.

Principle based learning

Instead of learning a bunch of techniques, you focus on how they work. It’s understanding the base of how fighting works and the concepts behind them rather than memorizing random solutions to it.

Pro: You still learn techniques, but the principle is what is more important, which turns one technique into many. More over you make your own techniques or figure them out for yourself rather than just memorizing stuff.

Principle based training is the best way to make sure your students not only memorize a system, but know it holistically, they can often become teachers themselves through this method of teaching, and understanding physical training for fighting on a macro level.

I have a bias to prefer this method over technique based training.

Con: Some people think principle based training is the pinnacle of martial arts. But I personally know kung-fu and Aikido guys who think in terms of principles and are good martial artists, but they can’t produce students who can fight because the students have no techniques to see example of principles come to life, and even more importantly, the training methodology. There is a lack of grounding of the concrete that can happen with principle based training. Principles are the key, but they need to be made physical and they need to be put into context.

More importantly, principles are often context based. We’re not dealing with physics, the science of fighting is more imprecise and principles can be irrelevant in different contexts, and if you don’t know the context change, you can apply a principle where something else may be needed.

(Even some laws in physics change due to context, like Macro physical laws being changed in the quantum level and vice versa)

Drilling based training.

You put students through scenarios where there is movement, distance, broken timing and broken rhythms, and through experiencing those activities you learn to fight.

Pro: There are only so many right answers. While different fighting styles in martial arts exist for a reason, what straight blast gym calls “aliveness” often brings out what is fundamental to fighting. You quickly see in this context what works and what does not work.

Steve Morris says we learn by repurposing old knowledge, particularly primal stuff like pushing, throwing, lifting, climbing, running when put in different contexts and we figure things out. This essentially simulates the chaos of a fight in different scenarios, which then causes learning to fight. Often what is irrelevent or does not work is weeded out quickly.

More over you can in theory never teach one technique or even principles and still produce people that can fight. If you do teach techniques and principles, this is how to integrate them.

Con: Although it’s possible to drill with aliveness ways to let ‘weak’ people learn to fight, it very often can be overwhelming to people that are not athletic or tough, and often they can be put into a drill many times and learn nothing, often even having their self-esteem and self-worth broken. Some people need to be taught how to climb, swim, throw. Sometimes they need to learn techniques to put into the drill as a point of reference, sometimes they need the principles to know why the tools taught to them don’t work.

Sometimes you have to stop the damn drills and slow things down without broken timing or lots of movement, sometimes you have to get memorization(techniques) or isosteric and conceptual(principles) before you go full on physical.

Do it all.

As I said in the beginning, if you’re in a good school you do all three of these to different degrees.

I have a bias toward a combination of principle based teaching and drill based teaching together, as I have more than enough techniques as a frame of reference for principles and aliveness. That doesn’t mean I don’t have more stuff I need to learn or can learn. In BJJ in particular there are many techniques I need to know that I lack, and clinching in a gi.

But a good coach isn’t dogmatic on one method, they will oscillate between these three directions based on what you as student need to do.