What are advanced techniques in your art of choice?

[Van Canna]

If any ‘advanced techniques’ _as defined in the context of street survival...as opposed to a sporting event or dojo play where the ‘hormonal response’ is always missing_ really do exist…then you will find them outlined in Rory’s book…pg # 121 and 122.

He concludes the section

realistically, does your training address all six phases? If not, do the research or search the teachers who can help fill the holes.

It’s better not to fight at all. If you are a good fighter you still need to survive to access your skills. Even then, if you are not prepared for the consequences and turn to suicide or the slow motion suicide of drugs and alcohol, you’ve still lost. Learn the phases because no matter how skilled you are, failing at any of the six can end you.

The research by Siddle indicates that stress arousal has a direct influence on the optimal performance levels of skills, using various muscle groups.

Siddle writes that teachers of survival skills have the responsibility to provide students with techniques and tactics that may save the student’s life.

The primary concern should begin with an understanding and knowledge of human movement.

He points out that according to the Yerkes-Dodson law…’optimal arousal for efficiency decreases with increased task difficulty or complexity’

So it really is back to the KISS principle…simple movements and workable concepts performed decisively and efficaciously within the phases enumerated in Rory’s book.

[Joseph G Bellone]

Have to agree with Van Sensei and others.

There's no advanced or secret techniques.
Only simple ones you can execute under pressure at the right time. Keep it simple and you'll be better off. The problem with this is it doesn't "sell" well.

I've seen guys doing a crappy Seisan for 30 years. They couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag, but someone tells them to turn their wrist a certain way and "bingo" - they learned a "secret" from Mr. so and so - something they will never be able to execute under pressure and in real life - but they are the keeper of knowledge - thus "a secret" or an advance technique that they wear like a badge of honor.

The selling of secret techniques is a great marketing ploy to keep students and give them a carrot of "if they stay and train with me and pay me money, some manna from heaven will be laid upon them..."

They drink the cool aid, even though they are very smart people but the bottom line is it's easier to have cool aid to drink than working your ass off for something.

good training,
Joe

http://www.thestudywithin.com

[jorvik]

I think folks are all using their own definition of "advanced". Most folks who walk into a Dojo have no idea of violence, maybe never even been in a fight, then they go to a Dojo and after a time they have a blackbelt and they think they are tough. they may have never actually been hit in the Dojo, or done any full contact training.these guys need basice training..they can't do advanced because they aren't even familiar with basic.
Now you have the other type of guy who has fought, who knows what it's like to get hit and hit back.....when he goes to the Dojo, everything he learns relates back to all the fights he's had...and believe me he can do advanced..I know of one guy who can use back spin kicks in a real streetfight ........now that's using the definitions that most folks here are using.......buuuuut there are other definitions. one is "Advanced through progression"....when I punch I hope my punch is advanced, simply because I hope I have progressed beyond the beginner stages after so many years of training

[JimHawkins]

Yeah I guess there is advanced expression and advanced material.. Two different things...

The advanced material for us is the third form which used to be kept only for inside students.. The reason was in part because there are a few moves than undo or allow escape from the moves in the first two sets, which presents training problems as well as reasons to keep the last set from going outside..

[jorvik]

Jim
So what you are saying ( in one sense) is that it is superior knowledge rather than superior technique.
Although I suppose advanced technique could also be classed as a "Counter" to a move somebody tries on you

[JimHawkins]

Jim
So what you are saying ( in one sense) is that it is superior knowledge rather than superior technique.
Although I suppose advanced technique could also be classed as a "Counter" to a move somebody tries on you

I guess..

In general I believe in attribute development..

But in WCK there is a particular mix of things.. The first two sets teach use of a particular kind of structure, especially with the use of the elbow.. The third set among other things throws out the conventional use of structure because it assumes you have lost it and shows a way to recover position, and be damned with the original method. That's another reason it's not taught until later, as students will invariably use escapes to cheat and recover failed position instead of trying to have good position in the first place.

[jorvik]

Which I guess goes back to what Rory said about Structure.....although of course, within one's given art

[MikeK]

He points out that according to the Yerkes-Dodson law…’optimal arousal for efficiency decreases with increased task difficulty or complexity’

Van,
Thanks for bringing up Yerkes-Dodson. I've added information, including the original study, about Y-D to the Abuse of Hick's Law thread. I'll add more info about other terms there as time goes by.

Sadly most of what is quoted as Y-D is incomplete including the famous inverted "U" graph and that Y-D was about learning, memory or developing habits under various amounts of stress.

A problem with “task difficulty” as a critical factor in understanding emotion-memory interactions is that it is a subjective measure. It is therefore difficult, if not impossible, to operationally define the term “task difficulty” with objective criteria. Nevertheless, investigators over the past 5 decades have taken on this task. One of the earliest attempts to understand how task variables interact with performance was accomplished in a landmark paper by Easterbrook [103], in one of the most comprehensive and insightful analyses of how emotion affects cognition. Easterbrook assessed the influence of emotionality on cue utilization and the organization of behavior. He noted that strong emotionality “acts consistently to reduce the range of cues that an organism uses, and that the reduction in the range of cue utilization influences action in ways that are either organizing or disorganizing” (page 183). “On some tasks, reduction in the range of cue utilization under high stress conditions improves performance. In these tasks, irrelevant cues are excluded and strong emotionality is motivating. In other tasks, proficiency demands the use of a wider range of cues, and strong emotionality is disorganizing. There seems to be an optimal range of cue utilization for each task” (pages 197-198). Importantly, Easterbrook interpreted these observations as an indication that “the effect of emotionality on proficiency would depend on the complexity of the task studied” (page 187). Easterbrook emphasized that performance on only the most demanding and complex tasks would suffer a “disintegration” (i.e., severe impairment) as a result of strong emotionality (page 187; text in italics are paraphrased). He noted that there was an impairment in behavioral performance in complex tasks in response to strong emotionality because “the range of cue utilization is reduced in response to strong emotion” (page 197), and that “tasks requiring the use of smaller numbers of cues were facilitated by drive increments” (page 192).

Easterbrook's cue utilization hypothesis stated that with increased emotionality, there is a reduction in the range of cues that an individual can process. According to Easterbrook, if a task is complex, that is, involves attention to multiple cues, then performance will deteriorate under conditions of high stress. If, on the other hand, a task is simple, that is, involves focused attention to a single cue, as occurs, for example, with the “weapon focus” phenomenon (Christianson [29]; Safer et al. [104]; Pickel [105]), then performance will improve under high-stress conditions.

Easterbrook's approach towards identifying systematic relationships between cue utilization and emotionality has been fruitful in understanding how emotionality affects behavioral performance in people and rodents (Telegdy and Cohen [48]; Geen [106]; Cohen et al. [107]; Christianson [29]; Hanoch and Vitouch [72]). Thus, Easterbrook's cue utilization hypothesis and the original version of the Yerkes-Dodson law are complementary explanations for the finding that strong emotionality can enhance performance on a simple task and impair performance on a complex task.

We will return to the challenge of how to distinguish simple versus complex levels of task difficulty and how they relate to performance in a later section addressing the cognitive functions of the prefrontal cortex. First, we will review literature on the effects of stress on synaptic plasticity in different forebrain structures, and then we will present a physiological model which may prove to be of value in explaining how stress can impair memory and can also generate flashbulb memories.

I think Y-D and Easterbrook's work can show us why basics are easy to learn and why we have difficulty teaching "advanced" techniques and how to get around those difficulties.

[Van Canna]

"The festivities were brought to a conclusion by the judicious use of the age old secret technique of multiple head shots from a lead pipe. "

-the late Carl Cestari

[MikeK]

Well there is that...

[MikeK]

Yeah I guess there is advanced expression and advanced material.. Two different things...

I like the way you phrased that Jim.

And Van adds to that with the idea that for some advanced might mean more.

I agree, thus the reason why it is useful to define what advanced is and in what context are we talking ‘advanced techniques’ _

BTW…conditioned shins…I call that ‘advanced conditioning’ not ‘advanced technique’ and beginners do know the difference.

We must explain whether or not by ‘advanced techniques’ we mean more techniques than beginners, or more effective of what we have at the basic simple level that will make self defense work.

‘the brown belt Syndrome’ where you have so many cool ways to win and you get your ass kicked while you are weighing your options.

I think I may even have the reason why the ‘the brown belt Syndrome’ happens for some, and it's not about the number of techniques available but with still having them where they are still complex to the user. We also know that a lot of complexity can be trained away.

What is complex?

Therefore, one strategy with which to operationalize the distinction between “simple” and “complex” tasks is to determine whether the task involves a PFC-mediated component.

...complex tasks that require working memory, executive processing, decision making, and divided attention. Therefore, the extent to which the PFC is involved in a task and the degree to which the PFC is suppressed by emotionality are primary determinants of whether a task's arousal-performance curve will be linear or curvilinear

Here's a video that would make any technique seem advanced and certainly complex. The instructor is breaking things down into such detail that the student is forced to think about what they're doing.

http://video.yahoo.com/watch/1870378/6133715
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/1870228/6130263

Here's a good example of the move being simple for the instructor but he then makes it complex.
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/1870330

[JimHawkins]

I think I may even have the reason why the ‘the brown belt Syndrome’ happens for some, and it's not about the number of techniques available but with still having them where they are still complex to the user. We also know that a lot of complexity can be trained away.

And I would add that when you say:

"having them where they are still complex to the user", may also mean that the little man in their head knows 'it won't work'... Be it due to the move being flawed, the training of the move having been flawed, or simply that it hasn't been done enough...

And depending on the methods and training I don't really buy into the idea of mentally thumbing through a list of 'stuff' and then selecting one and, even worse, thinking about how to apply it.. Stuff like that will have been weeded out by the little man in your head most of the time IMO.

[JimHawkins]

http://video.yahoo.com/watch/1870378/6133715
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/1870228/6130263

Here's a good example of the move being simple for the instructor but he then makes it complex.
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/1870330

Man.. I really ain't fond of those kinds of moves..

One beat or half beat "techniques" where it's handled instantly--like snapping your fingers--is where it's at in my book, especially if you are talking the initial response...

IMO almost any time you have more than one "step" let alone moves with two, three or even more steps, which is really a time beat, it's problematic because the opponent will never, EVER be compliant and multiple movement timing assumes they WILL be compliant--eg movements one, two, the opponent's position/power is static throughout...

[MikeK]

I think I may even have the reason why the ‘the brown belt Syndrome’ happens for some, and it's not about the number of techniques available but with still having them where they are still complex to the user. We also know that a lot of complexity can be trained away.

And I would add that when you say:

"having them where they are still complex to the user", may also mean that the little man in their head knows 'it won't work'... Be it due to the move being flawed, the training of the move having been flawed, or simply that it hasn't been done enough...

And depending on the methods and training I don't really buy into the idea of mentally thumbing through a list of 'stuff' and then selecting one and, even worse, thinking about how to apply it.. Stuff like that will have been weeded out by the little man in your head most of the time IMO.

Right, it's not like you get into a confrontation and start going down a decision tree that includes everything in your head including which pocket your car keys are in and then starting at the top for each cycle of the OODA loop. People know lots of techniques that they use for mundane things each day and use them without thinking, some of them under stress.

Interesting idea about doubt, but I would say that's a part of thinking about the move rather than thinking about taking the other guy out. And IMO you're right that it's a flaw in our training and/or not enough practice to be comfortable with the techniques.

IMO almost any time you have more than one "step" let alone moves with two, three or even more steps, which is really a time beat, it's problematic because the opponent will never, EVER be compliant and multiple movement timing assumes they WILL be compliant--eg movements one, two, the opponent's position/power is static throughout...

I hear you, but every movement has more than one step or beats, but how many notes are in that beat (to use an iffy musical analogy)? In a way you can play notes, you can play chords or you can do both (arpeggios, etc). One very basic blading technique we teach could be broken down into many parts (notes) that include turning from the hip, pivoting on the balls of the feet, trapping the arm, hitting the elbow, etc. But all of this is done virtually simultaneously, like a chord, and we teach all of that as one move.

BTW, I've heard good things about the guy in the videos, Alain Burrese, and is actually one reason I used him. Even a guy that has this stuff down can end up presenting things in a complex manner.

[jorvik]

I still don't know what folks mean by an "Advanced technique"..............to be honest I've often thought that the way Japanese karateka stand with their hands hanging around their hips was an advanced technique, because if they fought any boxer worth his salt he would cream them .....maybe folks mean the one touch knockouts or the "sequential" striking.They would take a lot to work
Things like high kicks or spinning kicks aren't really that advanced, they are the things you can either do or not do.....I've known folks who can drop straight into a full box splits with no training and fire off the fastest highest roundhouse kicks after a month or two