"Energy" drills and real contact stick fighting

[bruiseseasily]

I have been away from Kali and JKD for almost nine years and have just started training again in the last few months.  While catching up on things, I have seen a lot from the straight blast gym guys and other mixed martial artist on functional combat and how many of the energy drills are a waste of time.  Many of their arguments seem to make sense, yet I still have a feeling that hubad and sumbrado have helped me in getting back the motions and flow of combat.  Further, I wonder whether some of the "functional" approaches lead to an early fast learning curve, but then peak (or even the long-term impact of so much contact over a sustained period - I know a lot of punch drunk old boxers).  I have really struggled with this issue and found the traping article by Crafty Dog on this site to be helpful in thinking about my training.  I would love to hear opinions from others, particularly those who have tested their training in real (or at least full) contact stick fighting (I have boxed and kickboxed competitvely when younger, so I have a little better feel for the tradeoffs there) .  Also, it has been several years since Crafty Dog wrote his article, so I thought he might have new views or additional points to make.
Thanks in advance for any help in thinking about these issues and how to adjust my training.

[Pat G]

HEY BRUISE,

IMO YOUR PATTERN TRAINING IN STICK FIGHTING IS COMPARABLE TO FOCUS MIT TRAINING IN BOXING / KICKBOXING TO TRAIN FOR A FIGHT YOU DO ALOT OF BAG WORK , FOCUS MITTS , THAN TRAIN WITH SPARRING PARTNERS. ITS ALL PART OF PROGRESSIVE TRAINING.
IT CERTAINLY HAS HELPED ME AND MOST PEOPLE I KNOW. BUT THE BOTTOM LINE IS PEOPLE NEED TO TRAIN IN THE WAY THATS RIGHT FOR THEM.

PAT G

[William]

Though I agree with alot of the so called alive or "functional training", it's not a new concept. They have just been good at getting it out to a wide audience. The Dog Brothers were not the first to fight full contact with minimal gear, but they have done a great job of showing the benefits to a wider audience and turn around alot of peoples ideas on training.

You hear alot of yaking about drills being no good these days, but I disagree. They have their place. They are good for teaching flow, footwork, offensive and counter-offensive mechanics. The problem arises when people get stuck in the drills and don't try it out in real time. Then false assumptions about combat effectivness are born. You have to get out there and see if you can make it work. it is you feedback for the drills and training you have been doing. Even if it's only on an occasional basis, at least you get a taste of reality to work from. A tool box full is tools is fine but if you don't know how to use them for real, you can't fix anything. Drills help you develop the tools, sparring/fighting shows you how to use them.

William

[K-Man]

I too, agree with Crafty and others about the benefits of 'energy' drills.... when done properly.

Check out our articles section to read further @ www.jkdfamily.com


Cheers,

K-Man

[Crafty_Dog]

Woof All:

  I just took a look at my Rambling Rumination piece on Trapping http://www.dogbrothers.com/trapping.htm and stand by what I wrote there.  I believe in trapping and use it regularly in my empty hand sparring.  I believe my stickfighting has been indispensible for me in developing the understanding of how to use it.

  Matt, Burt and the SBG crew were hanging out on the Inosanto Forum expressing their thoughts on all this and after a while I weighed in on behalf of Guro I.   I'll see if I can track down my posts there and repost them here.

  For me after a while the conversation turns into a "Tastes great! No, less filling!" kind of thing after a while.

  So, very briefly:

  I think the Dog Brothers have a pretty good track record of Alive training.   Top Dog, Salty Dog, many other of the Dog Brothers and I all have extensive "dead pattern" training.  

  I think I have a good record as a teacher of taking regular guys and getting them to where they do well at our DB Gatherings.  I use Dead Pattern training as PART of the process.   For me as a fighter and as a teacher, mastery of the weapon(s) for fighting is best achieved with training that includes DP training.   To achieve the highest levels, as noted by bruiseseasily, in my experience is most readily achieved with training that includes DP training.   Underlining the point further, some of my best fights directly called upon DP learning-- my seemingly spontaneous improvs were really but a recognition of opportunities that I would have missed but for this training.

Training DPs by themselves likely will not yield results.  It is also entirely possible to train DPs and suck.  It is also entirely possible to train without DPs and still suck.  If you get good results without DPs, great.  But there is no need or call to trash those who do use DPs.  If you trained DPs and are disappointed by your first efforts at fighting, then fight some more.

Woof for now,
Crafty Dog

[Glenn]

Hello fellow martial artists,

I've personally discovered practicing Kali flow drills ( downward and upward figure 8's) with a cooperative training partner improved alot in my own personalized truth in combat.  Not only it helped me in flow it also improved my overall stamina and endurance.

Peace,

Glenn

[Guard Dog]

Trapping and Energy go beyond what is taught in the fundamentals of JKD and Kali and the drills as just that, drills.  They are meant to give a person the understanding of situations but are not end all solutions to any one situation.  Bruce Lee himself even acknowledged this as it was the reason he created Chinese Kickboxing later to be simply coined ?Kickboxing.?  I use trapping every time I grapple and come into clench range stick or no stick.  While it is nothing close to the basic trapping such as ?Pac Da? it all leads off of what I have been taught and being able to feel the other person?s energy.  You also have to think out of the box when you ask yourself ?Do I do this?? or ?Is this useful.?  There are so many ways to throw a striking technique yet when we were first learning we were shown one fundamental way and were left to explore off of that.  A good example is with the round kick.  A teacher may show you how to do it and emphasize a TKD round kick with more of a snap where as later down the road you might lean more of a Thai based round kick.  You could then ask yourself, was learning the TKD kick useless?  Of course not, it helped you train balance, coordination, timing, etc.  I believe this leads into energy drills and trapping also.  I believe that all ?drills? train attributes and no one drill is useless.  It would be ignorant for any one person to say such a thing as it would only lead to improvement on their behalf.


Gruhn

[pau]

sup every 1  
sorry for my ignoranse   but what is  "Dead Pattern training"

[Crafty_Dog]

DP is the derogatory name some have for certain training methods such as sombrada, hubud, and for learned technique sequences etc.

Those of us who believe these methods have good use in our training have proudly and sarcastically taken up the name as well.