Why is Training so Important?
The short answer is that all skills are perishable, and if you don’t practice them you will lose them. This was most evident to me when my kids were little and my son was playing soccer. I used to play a lot of the sport and was pretty respectable player at one point. But when I tried to kick a ball to my son in a specific fashion that my brain knew technically how to do, somehow my body was not able to execute those commands to the rest of my body.
The fact that skills are perishable is not limited to soccer. In fact, lets look at the way we develop skills You’ve heard the term “muscle memory”. Well the muscles themselves to do not have “memory” but through practice, you can build the myelination of the nerves. The process of repeating actions builds this myelination, and the ability to replicate the action increase. The speed to act also increases. This is essentially a highly unscientific way of saying the more you do something the more you are able to repeat the process. This is why not only practice is important, but perfect practice.
Practice does not make perfect, but it does make permanent. The you train your body the more you ingrain a specific pattern of doing something. Well it really isn’t permeant but is it much easier to learn a new skills without the bad habits than correct bad habits.
Learning theory discusses time repetition and spaced intervals. You can look into all of that on the web. For me, it is simply put to practice a little bit every day. And if you have questions, practice what you know and bring your questions to your next training session.
One of my biggest concerns for teaching self-defense courses has been that if someone comes and takes a single course, and never practices again, have I really made a difference. Yes I teach principles and some techniques based on gross motor movement. I was encouraged after listening to a YouTube interview on Tim Larkin and to podcasts with with Tony Blauer that if I am teaching principles preferably starting with awareness and paying attention to your gut that I can increase the odds of someone not only avoiding a dangerous encounter but surviving on as well.
There are no magic bullets in the world of self-defense. Do not expect anything to work 100% of the time. This is also why I try to show more than a single method of “escaping” from someone.
For me, training is a place I get to focus on a single activity and is a virtual form of meditation. My training has gotten me through some of the lowest points of my life.
If I can help you down the path of martial arts, developing your senses to the world around you, increase your confidence, who you how to use a handgun safely and enjoy the opportunity to shoot at a range, then I have succeeded.
Please learn more about the training opportunities with Barnes Defense. It may just be what you have always been looking for. And it in the process, it prevents you from a bad situation, or gets you out of one, even better.
I, personally, train to make sure I am able to go home. I train for the discipline. I train for the increasing confidence it gives me. I train so that I can make a difference. But more than anything I want to train others so that they always have the choice to go home. Not to jail, not to the hospital, not to the morgue, but to go home in peace.