Resistance in training: earlier or later?

The martial arts is nothing like swimming. It is so much more complicated. it takes decades to become proficient at it. I do believe in teaching students how to deal with non-compliant attackers. However, to start that way early is to expect to lose most students before they begin to learn anything of value. It is hard enough to build confidence and skill. Keep trying to defeat every thing the student does, and you might as well just tell them to quit. I would not ask a first grader to write a 1,000 word report. They would not be able to do it. most would just give up. Those few that did try, would not learn much. They also would certainly not gain any confidence in their ability to get better.

Starting to resist a new student to early is like taking them to a bar and pushing them into a fight they are unprepared to handle. I've met a few instructors with this type of mentality. All of them did not have many students. None of them had any students that had good technique or understanding. all they became was brawlers that wore a Gi and a belt.

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I believe that resistance and some sort of pressure should be incorporated into martial arts training. However, if it is done too soon you might not develop the martial artist at a desired rate. Many would quit, give up think that they will never learn this. As student learns proper technique they realize that they have accomplished something. Then you add a little resistance. Once the learn how to overcome this you can add more resistance. This is how a good martial artist is developed.

Example using personal protection with dogs:

I have owned large breed dogs that I have been trained for personal protection. The first thing the agitator does is make some noise to get the dog to respond to it. Once the dog steps in front of the owner the agitator yells and run away. The dog wags his tale because of its accomplishment. The dog is building confidence and learning how to win. Then the agitator does something similar but does not run away until the dog barks or growls. Again the dog learns to win. Then the agitator comes again but doesn't run away until the dog snaps at them. This progression goes on until eventually the dog has to bite the sleeve. Later the dog has to bite the sleeve and not let go even though the agitator strike the dog with a stick or knees the dog. By this time the dog does not believe that it can lose. Instead of giving up the dog bites down harder until the agitator runs away or you have outed your dog. Many dogs if you were to apply too much pressure in the beginning or if you hit the dog when it tried to bite that dog would run and hide behind the owner. This dog would never be any good at personal protection. But when done correctly the dog builds its confidence and learns to win it can become a great personal protection dog. The same hold true with becoming a good martial artist. You build upon what you have learned and as you build you add more resistance.

Sorry it took so long to get to this question.

I think some sort of resistance needs to be there from very early on. If you don't start with some sort of resistance then the person is bound to adopt some very bad habits that need be corrected...if they can ever be corrected. A TKD instructor who was also a substitute teacher at the school I went to told me a story about when he was testing in Korea. They learned the Poomse here and perfected it. When they went to Korea to test they found out that had learned it wrong. The last part of the Poomse they were learning was actually a different one all together. That was a decade before he told me the story and told me that when he went to do this poomse he still had to keep in mind he had learned it wrong to begin with or he would do it the original way taught to him. His motto on life after this is "Practice makes permanent"

No one is asking these people to full out spar or bar room brawl from day one. Progressive resistance is key and the way you do a technique is not going to be done the exact same way for everyone based on mostly body type but also on who a person is and what they pick up on. If you forgo resistance at an early stage a person may try and block, throw or strike and find everything comes up short or completely off.

Another thing is, why wait? So many people are looking for self defense. This can be a persons main goal for taking an art...that is there right. I don't believe in rushing but I don't think it should take years and years to develop defensive fighting skills. If my TKD instructors had thought it should take so long to attain this application of the art, I would probably not be writing this answer to you now.

To me there is a difference between a counter and resistance and it seems like your old instructor there is probably teaching some counters to techniques along with the technique itself. To me that is not bad although I will sometimes avoid that if the technique is difficult or complicated because I want students to focus on just learning that technique first and nothing else. At the same time I also don't encourage resistance at first with my students and their training partners when learning something. I think it is better to learn the technique and develop your skill, feel and touch with it first and then for their partners to add resistance. I favor this approach because it keeps students from becoming frustrated and allows them to more fully learn a technique first as well as avoid training injuries and training accidents. Also many techniques require more skill, leverage, and speed which you acquire with repetition rather than force to over come resistance. In many such techniques if you are having to use strength or force the technique over the resistance of an opponent then you probably have not learned and developed the technique to a very high level and are not doing the technique as well as you could or should. This is evident when you see students muddling or fumbling through something rather than executing it with speed and a minimum of effort.

Teach the technique first & correctly THEN apply resistance.

Think of it in terms of Academics would you throw a student straight into advanced maths or would you teach him the basics to build a strong foundation on?

Of course it will annoy students when they find out they've been doing un-resisting techniques/forms & when Resistance is applied it isn't working, but they know the little inklings from messing with an un-resisting opponent. Anybody that does grappling knows that an inch rotation on a joint can make a world of pain difference.

So in time they will learn how to apply the technique to an opponent that pushes/pulls/thrashes etc & it will look messy but they have the basics in the bag & can build upon it.

Another eg do you think sparring two new white belts who've been taught 5 techniques in Judo would be a smart idea? as Aaron i think, said it would just result in brute strength to win. However give one of those white belts time to work on their technique against un-resisting opponents & slowly build it up, then he will most likely dominate the judo spar

Yes, you should be training with resistance from day one. That's the problem with martial arts these days. Things like forms should be taught LAST. They're just a way for teachers to memorize a ton of movements they might pass on someday. You should be drilling your techniques on resisting partners to learn how to apply them or striking bags/pads. Spend 10 minutes or so slowly working up resistance levels. By the end of class you should be working to apply them in live sparring/rolling against fulling resisting partners. That is the only way you are going to actually learn to use them.

This isn't swimming. Swimming your feedback is from the water. Your refinement is simply a matter of conscientiously adjusting technique as you swim. Fighting is built on a combination of deliberate action and fast twitch reactions that must be done is seconds. Your feedback is your partner, preventing you from doing what you want to do and attacking you back.

EXCELLENT QUESTION.... This has been a concern of mine for a while. I had similar issue with this in my own Aikido training.

I've seen students who were frustrated by the "uncooperative uke" situation. Some frustrated enough to quit because the didn't think Aikido could really work.

And I've also seen students develop a false sense of security in performing a technique BECAUSE their partners are cooperative in training. But if/when that student is put in randori (or worse actually has to rely on the technique in real world application), they learn they "can't" do the technique. All because they had never encountered real feedback and resistance in training.

My opinion.... As early as possible some kind of resistance training needs to be introduced. A method for learning to deal with the pressure of resistance. Wing Chun has Chi Sao. Tai Chi has push hands. Filipino martial arts have flow drills. Judo has its own randori. All of which are energy awareness exercises that teach the student to deal with energy/pressure/resistance as efficiently as possible.

And there should also be some education in the use of atemi. Both O'Sensei and Gozo Shioda have been quoted as saying that anywhere between 70-90% of Aikido is atemi. (In other words, a well placed strike can offset an attacker's balance and redirects his energy so a control or throw is possible.)

Most Aikido schools I've seen lack this kind of training for progressive growth for the student to develop the physical techniques, but also the psychological and reflexive ability to deal with a resistant partner/opponent.

The essence of Aikido is learning how to deal with the flow of energy while maintaining one's center. How is a student ever to learn this if they never experience real pressure? And this means the only students who ever get "successful" at their technique are the ones who have the brute strength to "make it work". Everyone else usually gets too frustrated to continue in the art of Aikido.

Good question. Be well.

I think that resistance training should come in a little later in their training. I am not saying to put it off until the students have been training for years, but at least six months before they begin full-on resistance training with the more delicate of techniques.

There is so much that a new student needs to learn involving their own body, and adding a resisting partner could lead to some pretty negative results. By that I mean, injuries.

While a new student is learning how to move their own body properly, and learning the proper use of leverage for joint attacks etc; their perception of their own strength will need to change as well. It is so much easier to create a joint lock, to throw somebody, or even to evade an attack and return an attack once full speed and proper body mechanics is achieved. There are so many new students in EVERY system that try to muscle through everything they do; and when they are learning proper mechanics but still trying to muscle through... well that only leads to injuries to the training partner. As common as injuries are in the martial arts world, I'd think to leave out the possibility of added needless injuries from training methods.

Another thing to add would be the sensitivity necessary in touch when applying a joint manipulation or choke. With chokes there are very small clues that will inform 'you' the choker, that you have succeeded in knocking out your opponent. However, there are many distractions, especially when it comes to any alive training and resisting opponents. If 'you' are not sensitive, or understand what to look for, then you could run the risk of causing severe damage to your opponent even to the point of killing them.

There is also the ability to use small joint manipulation for compliance that relies very much on sensitivity. Without proper training in the pressures necessary, and the pressures that would be excessive you could easily plow through a joint manipulation and break the bones, ligaments, tendons, etc. This renders the compliance null, possibly giving you excessive force for one thing, but it could also severely anger the attacker/opponent. People have indeed hit others with broken limbs and that is something you would want to avoid.

So that said of why I think resistance should wait, on top of making sure that some folks are clear of certain poor attitudes; resistance training is essential. There are many people who will say that they know a certain lock or move that they can perform every-time, flawlessly, but we should know better. There are many minor variations in a given situation that change the outcome of a simple technique very easily. There's the fact that you may have engaged in somebody who is able to use brute force to resist quite well your manipulation and now you will have to figure out how to get it by creating another distraction or switch it up to a completely different manipulation or strike.

EDIT - Thanks for that thumbs down G T ;)

Its important to understand the fundamentals of a techinque. You can practice it over and over again with a fully resisting opponent, and still not get it, because you don't understand the core technique of something. I would suggest getting down the technique, then start working with a fully resisting opponent. Then you can go from there, and decide what works for you and what doesn't.

Good luck

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