What is Jiu-Jitsu good for?

Please don't assume that Jiu-jitsu is only useful for self-defence, improving your health, increasing strength, developing flexibility, sharpening mental focus, training an army, learning to learn, falling safely, reducing stress, restraining drunken Uncles, improving school grades, developing patience, refining negotiation skills, letting off steam, learning about another culture, getting to know people, avoiding conflict, becoming more reflective, sharpening your reflexes, eliminating back pain, conquering fears, increasing self-esteem, and enhancing your problem-solving abilities just because they are the only things that happened to be on the list.

[Modeled on a quote due to Kent Pitman.]

You can start at any time

When fielding enquiries about my jiu-jitsu club I am often asked,"When does the next beginners' class start?" So I explain, "There is no beginners' class; you can start at any time".

Many people seem to be under the impression that most -- all? -- formal learning follows a stratified model, where there are beginners' classes, and then corresponding classes for each "standard". This approach gets drummed in at school, but it is not the only way.

In the system that I teach, we learn from each other, and we learn by teaching. It is no coincidence that we are part of a "Federation of Instructors"; through our training we learn to teach.

It is an old saying that you never learn something as well as when you have to teach someone else, and we harness this truth through pair practice. After the instructor demonstrates a technique -- for example a throw-- on an assistant, pairs of students -- typically of mixed standards -- practice it. One throws; the other is thrown; then alternation ensues. The raw beginner tries to grasp the basic movements; a more experienced student refines the details; a seasoned practitioner figures out how to apply the technique to partners of all shapes and sizes. The more experienced partner may give the junior partner tips (occasionally vice versa), and they both pick up details from each other.

So it is neither necessary nor desirable to have everybody of uniform standard in our classes.  Variety is the spice of life ... and of training.

Remember: You can start any time. Next step: Keep practicing.

Jiu-Jitsu is Adaptable

The Adaptable Art
Jiu-jitsu is usually translated as the gentle art, but other translations are valid. I particularly like the flexible or adaptable art as alternatives which help to fill out the meaning.

Jiu-jitsu is adaptable because in just about any self-defence situation it offers a wide range of techniques to hopefully dispel the threat.

If you only have a hammer(e.g. hit 'em in the head) or maybe also a screwdriver (head or groin?) there will be a narrower range of threats that you can deal with, and in more ambiguous situations a nuanced response may be beyond you.

Jiu-jitsu instead offers a wider range of responses via a huge collection of techniques, and limitless combinations. For example, in our system there are around 80 distinct restraint and control techniques, not counting variations. And restraint and control accounts for about 30% of our training.

Decision-making
Of course more techniques means more complex decisions. In a self-defence situation one does not have the luxury of planning! The art must be internalized to the extent that response flows from the situation with minimal thought. This requires long practice and regular training. The techniques must become literally second nature.

One useful exercise is to practice against common attacks. A partner attacks in a pre-arranged way and you respond. At first students of jiu-jitsu learn standard responses, but are encouraged to move on to a more reflexive form of practice in which initially the response (and later the attack) is not pre-determined.

Once someone has a couple years of training and has a reasonable grasp of a range of techniques, a great exercise is to take a pre-determined attack and not plan a full response to the attack, but just try some initial movement and see what flows from there. For example: If someone grabs my wrist, it does not matter whether I twist to the left or the right, I can continue to turn and apply an effective jiu-jitsu technique.

Over time the better initial responses should become ingrained through such training.

Principles
The syllabus is not just a bag of tricks, but rather embodies a set of principles in myriad ways.

In a real attack the situation will not exactly match what has been practiced, but the practitioner must nevertheless respond to the threat. In doing so (s)he will invariably deviate to a degree from classic technique, but will apply the principles nevertheless.

Application to every-day life
If I only have a hammer everything looks like a nail.

We all face difficult situations, often when dealing with others. If we only have one or two habituated responses we are very limited in how we deal with these situations, and will find ourselves with little or no choice. With no choice one inevitably feels disempowered.

By acquiring more options through learning, and becoming more adept at when and how to apply them, we give ourselves more options.

So even in the toughest situation, you can exercise choice. The more options that you can find, the better the chance that you will deal gracefully and effectively with the situation, rather than resigning yourself to endure it.

Now that's empowering!

Developing Social Qualities 2: Cooperation

To develop your martial arts skills, you will need more than willingness and instruction:

You need training partners.

There are -- at least -- three good reasons for this:

1. You need someone to execute the techniques on you so that you can feel how they work.
   
2. You need someone to execute the techniques on so that you can learn and refine them.
3. You need practice executing the techniques on lots of different people, so that you can make them work on anyone regardless of shape, size, strength or speed.
   

What is more, your training partners need you for the same reasons. So learning a martial art is a shared enterprise, and requires cooperation.

Assailants, Opponents and Training Partners
A person who attacks you with the intent of causing you harm is an assailant. To survive you will need awareness, presence of mind, physical conditioning and self-defence skills.

A person who is trying to defeat you in a competition is an opponent. To win you will need competitive spirit, knowledge of the rules of the game, and relevant skills and physical conditioning.

A person who is paired with you in a class is a training partner. To learn and develop you will need to work cooperatively (and also apply your patience, perception and intelligence) to get the most out of any class.

Working effectively with training partners will help you build the skills and qualities needed to face opponents and to survive attack.

Becoming a Great Training Partner
Want to get better at martial arts? Become a great receiver of techniques Then the best martial artists will want to practice with -- or demonstrate on! -- you and you will feel how the techniques should be done. You will learn by osmosis.

Being a great receiver means giving the appropriate degree of resistance or energy to allow your partner to execute the technique that the two of you are practicing as well as (s)he can. This will vary depending on the experience and skill of your partner. For example: If a beginner is trying to throw you, you will need to guide her into placing you into the correct position to be thrown. Do that with a black-belt and she will be insulted!

Working as a Team of Two
You can think of your and your training partner as a team of two, working together to make the technique work as well as possible, and figuring out all the details that make it work. Once you have the basic idea of the technique you can try little variations to see what effect they have, and how the technique can work against particular resistances or under varied circumstances.

Remember: Your training partner is not your opponent. Your partner will often play the role of an opponent or assailant -- as will you for your partner -- but you are both on the same side.

Your real opponents are ignorance and ineptitude. Your instructor can provide guidance, but it is up to you and your "team" to do the hard work.

By working constructively with partners with different personalities and levels of experience you will obtain many benefits, and become increasingly adept at the art of cooperation.

Developing Personal Qualities 2: Self-Discipline

I see the exercise of self-discipline as a composite of the following personal qualities:

• Drive
• Patience
• Persistence
• Imagination
  

Exercising self-discipline requires and strengthens these qualities.

Self-Discipline: Who Needs It?
If I find an activity pleasurable or interesting then I have no need of self-discipline to persist. It is when an activity is painful or boring that self-discipline comes into play.

Of course there is another option: Avoidance. A fair question to ask is, "Why am I doing this?" If the answer is "For a greater goal" (e.g. future pleasure, avoidance of pain, financial reward, ambition, helping out a friend, raising a child) I might just need to call on self-discipline to help me.

So I need self-discipline with respect to an activity when:

1. The activity is not pleasurable
2. I nevertheless have good reason to carry it out
   

Getting Smart about Self-Discipline
The first trick is to make the new activity part of your routine. For example, I brush my teeth after breakfast and before I go to bed. You can piggy-back other non-pleasurable activities onto existing routine. This makes them seem "nothing special" and you relieve yourself of the burden of "making time" to do something unappealing.

The second trick is to apply one's creativity to minimize the boredom or pain, and increase the interest and pleasure.

A third trick is to take advantage of the social effects of positive peer pressure. For example, in taking up a martial art such as jiu-jitsu, the major initial act of self-discipline is making it to class regularly (routine!) and applying yourself diligently. Once you are in class you will be swept along by the example of the instructor and senior students, and motivated to do your best by the desire to improve and to help your fellow students.

Case Study: The Horse Stance
In Jiu-Jitsu formal stances are typically used transitionally, and are learned in the context of actual application. For example, in this photo I am applying a reverse-armbar -- a restraint and control technique -- from a horse-riding stance:
From here I could take Adam down to the ground or move into a more mobile lock to better escort him to the local police station. Either way I would not need to stay in this position for very long.

By contrast, in training in a Chinese martial art such as Hung Kuen Chinese Boxing (a Southern Shaolin style) stance training -- i.e. holding stances statically for significant periods of time -- is a core part of training. Of all stances, the horse stance is generally regarded as the most fundamental.

Here is Adam in the orthodox Hung Kuen horse stance:

Now, anyone who has ever tried to hold a horse stance for a period of time will know that it is not pleasurable! In fact, folk law has it that the horse stance is a device best used by cruel martial arts teachers to test a student's commitment or punish him (or her) for misdeeds.

But: I have it on good authority that learning to hold a horse stance for long periods will significantly improve several aspects of one's martial art. [Apparently, it used to be the case that students of Hung Kuen first had to learn to stand in horse stance for half-an-hour before being taught any other forms or techniques!]

The Twenty Minute Horse Stance Challenge
So I have recently set myself the slightly more modest challenge of learning to stand in horse stance for twenty minutes. Given that most people will wilt in under a minute the first time they attempt a horse stance, this is a substantive goal which cannot be achieved by will-power or bravado alone. In fact, I aim to get the most out of the challenge by not purely increasing my pain-tolerance and will-power, but by learning how to stand more effectively and relaxedly in horse stance.

So this challenge fits the bill of not being pleasurable, but something that I wish to do in the service of a greater goal (developing as a martial artist). The exciting bit is that there will be other benefits that I will discover through the course of the journey.

Update (January 2009): For a different spin on stance-holding see Dojo Rat's post on standing meditation. He discusses somewhat less physically demanding stances, but longer durations. This comment by Jose de Freitas is particularly informative.

My approach
Most mornings I get up very early and do around 45 minutes of solo Chinese Boxing practice before breakfast work or family time.

While engaging in the challenge I do the standard warm-ups and then sit in horse stance for "a period of time". I do this immediately after the warm-ups to get straight into it and avoid the temptation to not work on the challenge today. It also contributes a degree of stability to my routine and allows me to feel purposeful (and a little bit virtuous).

At first my plan was to count a standard number of breaths to help estimate the time-in-stance and ratchet up the number of breaths on a weekly basis, but interestingly I found that with daily practice my breathing rate slowed down considerably. First benefit: Improved awareness of breathing and increased relaxation under the stress of holding the stance.

Every week or two I plan to time how long I can stand so that I can quantify my progress.

After completing the stance I do some other training activities -- typically empty-hand or weapons sets -- and intersperse these with other horse-stance related exercises, such as punching in a horse-stance or "holding the ball". I am also careful to train other stances a bit, such as cat-stance and forward stance. Second benefit: The other stances seem to be getting easier without particular effort.

You see, although I want to succeed in this challenge, the challenge is not an end-in-itself. I am interested to see how working my horse stance is affecting the other parts of my training, and what I can bring from other parts of my training into the crucible of the horse stance.

Although I have set a quantifiable goal -- a very Western thing to do -- the ultimate benefits may be more qualitative.

Pain
After sitting in horse stance for a while usually something starts to hurt. Having gotten through the simplistic "pain bad - avoid" attitude through years of martial arts training, I now distinguish between pain as a sign that something is wrong, and pain as a warning of imminent structural damage. In the case of horse stance it appears that the pain is telling me where I am holding tension and need to subtly change my posture. Third benefit: I am becoming more aware of habitual tensions and starting to work them out.

Update (September 2008): I have found that working with my breathing is a great help here. See my article on breathing, especially the part about breathing through your feet.

Boredom
Sitting in horse stance has started to feel less boring. By simply accepting it as part of my routine -- like brushing and flossing my teeth -- I do not give myself the option of avoidance. As my familiarity with the stance increases I am becoming more attuned to my body while in the stance. It is no-longer boring because there is so much to observe and learn.

Conclusion
Hopefully more benefits will ensue. I am enjoying the challenge aspect, and am looking forward to consolidating the benefits that I am already experiencing. In fact, horse-stance training is starting to look like a super-efficient exercise.

Finally, having blogged about this, I have made the challenge more real, and feel honour-bound to give it my best shot, but sensibly, and on my own time-table.

Hmmm, I think that I had better stop writing now and get back on the horse!