The two Big Lies Martial Artists Like to Tell

Martial Artist's Big Lie #1. I train 7 days a week, 8 hours a day for 25 years

Sure you do and I suppose those are magic beans as well?

When it comes to training, no one can lie like a martial artist. If they did it once, they did it all the time if they did it twice, they did it forever. If they trained once in January 2000 and again in 2005...that's 5 years of training! Listen, here's the truth about training: you can only do it in intense spurts for so long because your body and your mind can't endure prolonged intensive training. Let's take a step outside the wonderful world of martial arts and look at professional and elite athletes.

Athletes target their training for a competition or season. There is an off season, a preseason and an in season. An athlete wants to be a peak physical an mental condition at the time of competition. An athlete also wants to recover before preparing for the next event. Elite athletes, including college competition, have about 8 years. After that time your body will break down. The infamous Dan Gable Olympic Champ wrestler and former Iowa Hawkeye head coach stopped at the age of 23 because his body couldn't take the punishment of training. Now in his seventies he is held together by fake joints.

When someone tells me they train full contact or high intensity for a few hours a day seven days a week, I have to call bullshit. Either we have different definitions of full contact or your lying. Any work out of high intensity will tear you up over extended period of time. To tell you the truth, when I was putting myself through those types of work outs, the last thing I want to do is to post about it on the net. I did everything I could to forget them. It's only now that I can look back at them with the "those were the good old days" attitude. But I'm not going to lie, the only good part about training was when it was over.

Martial Artist's Big Lie#2. You must always train and practice

For the rest of your life? Doesn't there come a time where you've acquired enough skill. Hey, maybe you're not Bruce Lee yet, but maybe you don't want to be Bruce Lee, maybe you just want to be Brandon Lee. Ask a martial arts instructor if you need to keep training, the answer will always be YES (never ask a barber if you need a haircut either). But let me ask you, how is it that boxers still have a punch in their 60s and baseball players can still throw and catch. Not as good as when they were young, but it's still better than the majority of the population. The reason is simple: core motor skills like throwing or kicking a ball and swinging a bat or a club will stay with you for the rest of your life. The more simple the action, the less muscle memory needs to be created. Simple movements stay, complex movements deteriorate.

I know I can go out right now and kick a ball half way across a football field and I haven't done it in years. I also know that I can knock a dude's head clean off with an edge of hand and I do not practice everyday. Heck it's been months since I actually practiced an edge of hand! Simple movements become instinctive, complex movements do not.

Techniques in the Self Defense Training System like the edge of hand, chin jab, hammer fist, elbows, knees and stomps are all core strength and gross motor movements. I won't be able to do a jump spinning kick when I'm 60, but I will be able to knock someone out with a chin jab.

The fact is, you don't need 1/8 as much as training as you think you need so feel free to call BULLSHIT on the next keyboard ninja who blogs about how many years he's done something or another. Believe me when I tell you, the guys who actually go through that type of training are in no mood to talk about it.

Damian Ross
The Self Defense Company
The Self Defense Training System