Learning martial arts has been a teaching in structure and systems. No matter which style there was always an assumption for what you did and why.
With the blocks you assumed certain attacks, the attacks you assumed certain situations and the stances you took, enforced these assumptions.
Never did I question these assumptions, since they were "golden rules", and each system/style had it's own. Sometimes they would fit each other and at other times these would fill out voids.
By time I started to teach these techniques, I was using the same assumptions that were taught to me. But my teaching was moving from martial artist to more non-marital artist. People having their daily work in areas were physical confrontation was more a norm. They questioned my assumptions, moving my understanding of what is self-defense, and how can I teach people who need it for daily self-defense.
A lot of people working in areas of physical confrontation don't want to spend hours and hours doing techniques that have to be worked on for years, to be able to do self-defense. And waiting for a "black belt" isn't the goal. I started to look into how to minimize repetitions so my students could learn effective techniques that could easily be utilized; looking at how to do techniques that depending on natural movements. I also started looking into who else had been thinking about this, and what have they done. But it was a puzzle, each time I thought I had a piece in place, 2 or 3 more areas had a space to be filled. There was always areas with something missing or just some kind of information just "hanging out there".
This search brought me to Tony Blauer (Coach Blauer), reading it on the internet, buying his Highgear, the CD's and DVD's. It sounded good and had some possibilities. What I didn't realize was that reading and doing are 2 different things, something I usually told my students, but really experienced/woke me up the first time I participated in the PDR cert. with Tom Acuri.
It blew my mind. I thought I was working on a puzzle piece by piece, but found that I was working around one major piece: PDR/SPEAR - startle/flinch. Suddenly I found myself having old pieces of the puzzle falling into place while others just materialized by themselves.
The concepts of P.D.R/S.P.E.A.R just filled in a void, not pushing my knowledge away, but filling out many gaps. The Cycle of Behavior helping on fear management on too the physical drills(and the usaged of startle/flinch) giving a fundamental understanding and reference for future training.
The drills in themselves being small puzzles that can be taken apart and put together to fit the scenario you need to practice. Emphasizing Coach Blauers statement "The Scenario dictates all".
In every real life scenario the BG has to come to you, making what I think the encroachment drill the key drill to all drills. Where it's possible to think or act(or practice) tactical, protective and primal on all parts of the drill, and at the same time change angles of the encroachment or just letting the BG change his intent(on the drill or meanwhile doing the drill), gives many variations just based on 1 drill. Even two(or more) BG can encroach and still use the encroachment drill. Even on the technical side many variations can be practice, be it tactical, protective or primal, distance and CQF also are refined using a BG as the sharpening tool. Of course encroachment isn't enough, but the attack when the BG encroaches can differ depending on the scenario, given us other drills, like the bear hug drill or under lateral. And by putting the encroachment drill in front of the other drills, they come to life. And in that sense they become close to reality, and given us students the possibility to practice real self-defense based on real approaches or encroachments if you want :-)
With this Coach Blauer has helped me get back to where self-defense counts; for people who need techniques and principles that work for them. And I now can see my puzzle given sense, and looking forward to many good hours with Coach Blauers PDR/SPEAR.
With the blocks you assumed certain attacks, the attacks you assumed certain situations and the stances you took, enforced these assumptions.
Never did I question these assumptions, since they were "golden rules", and each system/style had it's own. Sometimes they would fit each other and at other times these would fill out voids.
By time I started to teach these techniques, I was using the same assumptions that were taught to me. But my teaching was moving from martial artist to more non-marital artist. People having their daily work in areas were physical confrontation was more a norm. They questioned my assumptions, moving my understanding of what is self-defense, and how can I teach people who need it for daily self-defense.
A lot of people working in areas of physical confrontation don't want to spend hours and hours doing techniques that have to be worked on for years, to be able to do self-defense. And waiting for a "black belt" isn't the goal. I started to look into how to minimize repetitions so my students could learn effective techniques that could easily be utilized; looking at how to do techniques that depending on natural movements. I also started looking into who else had been thinking about this, and what have they done. But it was a puzzle, each time I thought I had a piece in place, 2 or 3 more areas had a space to be filled. There was always areas with something missing or just some kind of information just "hanging out there".
This search brought me to Tony Blauer (Coach Blauer), reading it on the internet, buying his Highgear, the CD's and DVD's. It sounded good and had some possibilities. What I didn't realize was that reading and doing are 2 different things, something I usually told my students, but really experienced/woke me up the first time I participated in the PDR cert. with Tom Acuri.It blew my mind. I thought I was working on a puzzle piece by piece, but found that I was working around one major piece: PDR/SPEAR - startle/flinch. Suddenly I found myself having old pieces of the puzzle falling into place while others just materialized by themselves.
The concepts of P.D.R/S.P.E.A.R just filled in a void, not pushing my knowledge away, but filling out many gaps. The Cycle of Behavior helping on fear management on too the physical drills(and the usaged of startle/flinch) giving a fundamental understanding and reference for future training.
The drills in themselves being small puzzles that can be taken apart and put together to fit the scenario you need to practice. Emphasizing Coach Blauers statement "The Scenario dictates all".
In every real life scenario the BG has to come to you, making what I think the encroachment drill the key drill to all drills. Where it's possible to think or act(or practice) tactical, protective and primal on all parts of the drill, and at the same time change angles of the encroachment or just letting the BG change his intent(on the drill or meanwhile doing the drill), gives many variations just based on 1 drill. Even two(or more) BG can encroach and still use the encroachment drill. Even on the technical side many variations can be practice, be it tactical, protective or primal, distance and CQF also are refined using a BG as the sharpening tool. Of course encroachment isn't enough, but the attack when the BG encroaches can differ depending on the scenario, given us other drills, like the bear hug drill or under lateral. And by putting the encroachment drill in front of the other drills, they come to life. And in that sense they become close to reality, and given us students the possibility to practice real self-defense based on real approaches or encroachments if you want :-)With this Coach Blauer has helped me get back to where self-defense counts; for people who need techniques and principles that work for them. And I now can see my puzzle given sense, and looking forward to many good hours with Coach Blauers PDR/SPEAR.
