J
Hi. One of the things that challenges many people, maybe even most people in martial arts is the distinct difficulty in measuring progress. Yep. With the exception of rank. Correct. And it is why I believe rank is used so frequently. As a yardstick, it’s a retention tool. It’s a motivational tool. But it’s also Well, I’m better than you because I have this number of stripes, or I’m this rank or whatever. When let’s face it, anybody who’s been training for more than a few years knows, that’s not always the best. Yeah, yeah, trick, I’ve known some absolutely wonderful people, you know, at lower ranks, that can outperform in a variety of ways, people that are even in their own school that are higher ranks, you know, rank is not always the best determinant journal that we don’t really have much else. So it’s what we tend to use. So should we just give up as a whole?
A
No, I mean, obviously not, you know, this episode came about, because we knew about it with a previous episode that was released a few weeks ago when we did the word association. And, you know, this, this concept of measuring progress came up. And it got to me thinking, you know, as an instructor, not just in martial arts, but in drumming as well, that, you know, I have students that I because I’m instructing and I see their progress level, can see how they’re getting better. But they don’t, because, for them, they’re playing every day. And the analogy is the same. When you see someone as a child, they don’t see themselves growing a little bit every day. But somebody who hasn’t seen them for a year, it’s like, oh, my gosh, you’ve grown so much. And they’re like, I don’t think I’ve grown because you don’t see it because you’re in it every day. And so, you know, I think being able to measure progress is an important skill to be able to have. And sometimes we need tools to figure out how to do that.
J
Yeah, I think being able to measure our own progress is a wonderful and important skill for our own self motivation. And really making sure that we are getting back from our training what we put in which I’ve said many times, you will get back exactly what you put in. And as instructors, whether you owe the school or not being able to help your students, for you and your students to be able to see their progress to be able to measure that progress, I think is really important. Let’s start with something that doesn’t happen very often in martial arts, objective metrics. Sure. There are some schools that I know of that will ask at various rank testings, you know, do this many push-ups or run this distance?
And I think it’s a missed opportunity. Because if you can do one pushup more today than you could a year ago, you are stronger by it. It’s just a fact. And I think testing is something that has a place outside of actual rank testing, just the ability to check how things are going. I think this has come up once on the show. I used to have my students in the kid’s class, how many kicks could they do? I think it was in a minute and then Yep, you did before and we were charting that and they loved it.
How many did I get last time? Oh, I did three more this time and they were so excited. Yep. You know, does that necessarily mean that the kicks they did were the best quality and that they were worth No, no. But it’s something that they can see that is definable and objective. The clock is objective, the standard that we used was objective. And they got better at something. Yep. And the excitement there, especially in the absence of other measurable elements was pretty profound.
A
Yeah, we do jump rope in our class. Okay, kids, how many times can they actually get to the end? Pretty, especially the little kids class, like, they might only get five. But next time they get seven, or they’re super excited?
J
What are the things that let’s try and come up with a quick list of things that could be measured in somewhat of an objective way?
A
So obviously, you mentioned strength stuff. So whether it be pull-ups or push-ups or sit-ups, obviously, those things stretching, flexibility, you know, I have? No, I’m working on my flexibility. So I have a place on the floor in my home Dojo where my foot goes against the wall, and then I stretch my legs as far as I can. And I have marked it out. And I’m working on getting a little further each time. So like, that is one that’s a great measurable that you can do you know, the wall is not going to move,
J
The wall is not going to move, you can put it you don’t even need the metric. I mean, you might want it if you know, putting down numbers on the floor or a tape measure. You just have a piece of painter’s tape. And okay, you can even write the date on it, you know, kind of like we all did, we all have our height measured. I think we all had that. Yeah, same thing. Same kind of deal. You know, you can measure if you don’t know painter’s tape doesn’t leave residue on floors, which is why it’s awesome.
A
Yeah. And so I think that’s one that’s pretty easy to work on. Objectively, being able to determine how much better you are at something.
J
Speed, whether it’s something like I said, you know, techniques in 60 seconds, or shadow boxing or whatever, you could also do something like, how many seconds of really intense shadow boxing can I do before I feel that I’m fading? Yeah, you know, and then that’s, that’s a little bit less objective, you’ve got to kind of check in with yourself, but it’s still along those lines. And it checks your conditioning. You could also if you wanted something that was truly objective in that space, you could measure out a run outside and see if you can decrease your time running that.
A
Yeah, absolutely. I’m trying to think of other strictly objective things that you can check. I guess I’m not coming up with any, you could do a form in time. Yeah, you could.
J
Now is the quality of the forum going to go down? Yes, yeah. But you will reach a point where you get so comfortable doing it so fast, that the quality actually comes back up a bit. So is our and I think it’s important to point out just because these objective metrics exist, does not mean that they encompass the entirety of what is a value? Like martial arts training?
What are some other things that we can cove.? Yeah, breaking. That’s as objective as you get. Either break it or you don’t? Four boards is more than three boards.
A
It absolutely is.
J
Here’s the next one. And this is the one that I think is of even more value. We’re doing it right now, recording
If you’re working on something, let’s say you’re working on a form. And let’s say, if you’re a new student, you know, I do better this week than last week. I did it four times. That’s all it took to get better for them. Notice I got better. But what about when you’ve been training for 5,10,20 years? 40 years? How do you know that something you’re working on is actually better? You have to observe it.
Unless you have your instructor right there with a brilliant memory. The best thing you can do is put your phone on a tripod, and record those forums, maybe once a month.
A
And then I’m killing myself that I didn’t think of it because for the listeners who may and watchers who may not know I’ve started a group that is devoted around doing forms for 100 days. And everybody in the group records themselves doing a certain form. It doesn’t have to be the same one for 100 days but record themselves doing a form posted to the group. And I have already used that to be like, you know, two and a half weeks ago, I did this form, I’m gonna, you know, let me look at two and a half weeks ago, let me look at today. And I’ve already done that. And I’ve seen that in others as well.
And you know, some people in the group or most people in the group are advanced students, and so have a number of forms. But there are a couple people in the group that are, you know, only been training for, you know, less than a year, so they don’t have a lot of forms, which is fine, there’s still have said to me, they’re getting a lot out of it, because they only have two or three forms, but they’re doing them every single day.
And it’s easy to go back and watch and see those things. If you’re a tournament competitor, most parents if you’re a child, or in my case, when I went to a tournament last year, my wife was there and video the whole thing. And I’m able to go back and watch that, and compare it to the videos that I’m doing now in my challenge group to be able to compare that, yeah.
J
Assuming you’ve been training for a while, you know, what your form should look like, you know, what your basics should look like, you know, when your sparring has improved. And so to be able to take snapshots, time capsules, of where you are in your training and compare them across some period of time is probably the best, pseudo objective way to measure your progress. You’re measuring your progress by your own standards. Correct watching your own stuff, now versus before, am I doing this better?
Yes, I’m doing this part isn’t as good. But this part and this part are better. So I can call that progress. If I could wave a magic wand. I think probably second or third on the list of things that I would want to change would be being more open to recording what is going on as part of training in martial arts schools.
I’ve mentioned this before, and I thought it was the most brilliant thing. I used to do parkour at a gymnastics gym. And they had to come off the beam. A camera on a 10 second delay a 15 second delay. So somebody would get up there, do their routine, they would come down, and then they could watch it. Just after they finished it. Yeah. Which was awesome. Because how often do you do it? And then you want to see it?
A
Right? I can’t believe I pulled that off. Let me watch.
J
Being able to correlate how something feels, with how it looks, is one of the most difficult things that we do not just as martial artists, but as human beings. Yeah, the term propria proprioception might mean something, knowing where your body is in space. It’s something that young children really struggle with. The more you watch yourself on video, not only are you going to see your progress, but you’re going to improve your progress, because you’re improving your understanding of how Thank you. This camera does not like when I move. It’s okay. I have to cover. Appreciate it. Are there any other ways? Those are the two biggies? I have to measure?
A
Yeah, I think so the video recording is huge. And then just you know, clearly defined numbers of things, you know, whether repetitions of things or in terms of stretching, like how far did you get, but there’s a number of there are a space that you can quantify.
J
There are other things you can do that I think are of less value, but are still a value competition. If you compete on a tournament circuit, you probably see a lot of overlap with the competitors in your division. And you probably have a lot of overlap with the referees in the chairs. So if you were consistently getting fourth place, and now you’re getting second place with the same competitor, same competitors and more or less referees, you’re probably better. So I’m not saying definitively I’m not calling this objective. There’s a lot of subjectivity there.
A
But it is more likely you’re improving, then you’re not. Yeah, rank falls into that category as well. If you are being promoted, you’ve probably gotten better.
J
And you might not notice it. You know, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this on the show. But when I first started competing and drumming, I went to my first competition ever, and I competed and I got last place. The next contest last place, next contest last place, next contest last place. And all of these contests had multiple events where I would enter both events and I would always get last place in the last contest of the year.
I went out there and I played in front of the judge, and I stepped off the field Old with this huge grin and the bagpiper that was playing for me for my solo. I know it’s called solo but I played with someone else who said that was a good run, right? So I’ve never played better. Never in my life if I played better than I played right now.
Some people like to sing better in the shower because there’s no inhibitions there, right? Never have I played better ever at that point. And I said, there were like six competitors, I think. And I said, I might not win today. But I’m not coming in last place, because that was freaking amazing. And then the results came out. It got to me.
A
Second last place. Last place.
J
Really?
A
Yep. And I was and this is listeners, this is absolutely a true story. And I was really mad. And I can’t believe that this was the case when I was in my 20s at this point. And I was like, so pissed off that I did so well. And my friend of mine came up and said why are you so upset? And I told him, this is the best I’ve ever done in my whole life.
I’ve played better. And I got last place. And he looked at me and said, yeah, but if you played better today than you’ve ever played before, then doesn’t that mean that you are getting better? And isn’t that what it’s about? And so there was progress there. Even though I didn’t “beat anybody”. I beat myself. And so the metric I always use now is did I perform better today than I did the last time.
So you know, I did a competition this past May. And you know, regardless of what I placed, I know how I performed. And the next competition I go to who knows when that will be. But my hope is that if I perform better than I did last time, maybe I will get last place. That’s okay. It just means everyone else was better than me that day. But if it control that correct, I can control how I perform. And if I walk off and say I did not perform as good as I did in May, well, then I lost regardless of if I get first place.
J
I think you hit on an important thing. And we can start to wrap with this idea that how you feel is really important. And your ability to determine where you are at and if you are getting better is critical. Not just the methodology, but the willingness and the openness to say, You know what? I thought I did, amazingly.
A
But I only got a little better. Yeah, which is okay, absolutely.
J
I’m going to challenge all of you. Most of us have a very unhealthy polarized way of looking at this, we are either incredibly self-critical. And nothing we do is ever good enough. Or I’m just here to have fun. Be willing to take a step in the opposite direction if nothing is ever good enough. Challenge yourself, I have to find at least one thing that I’m really proud of out of what I did today at class beta. It’s just a mental check.
A
If you’re just there to have fun, maybe look at some look at how class lends fine. One thing to say, you know, I would benefit from putting some extra time into this thing. Yep, leave it at that. At the Highland Games, we’re competing in drumming and bagpiping and stuff. I will often say to people after coats the other day, how did you play today?
And they’d be like, Oh, I took second. No, I think that’s how you were placed. I asked how did you play? How do you feel you played? I played and it was not so great. Well, okay, well, you give someone a workout or I played awesome. That’s great. You know, the number on the bottom of the score sheet is irrelevant to me.
J
There are two questions that I ask people when they step out of training or competition or anything you’ve heard. Question before. Did you have fun? Did you learn something?
"One of the greatest things in the martial arts is the transmission of knowledge to the next generation." - Tashi Mark Warner
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