So last month I went to Europe (mainly France), and it dawned on me
how much trying to speak a foreign language is like training. I took classes in French in high school, and
at UCLA, and really haven’t had many opportunities to practice since then. I did a quick trip through Europe in 2012
and spent a total of 2.5 days in France.
I guess I did ok, was able to communicate enough to cab drivers and
train employees and get where I needed to go.
Fast forward a few years later. I met my current girlfriend, and found out
that she is half-French (US born). Her mom
speaks a mix of French and English to her. On occasion we’ll say a few words to
each other in French, but nowhere close to what I would need to become fluent.
Before this trip, I asked her to speak more of it to me, but still a few
phrases here and there aren’t going to have a long-lasting benefit. Two weeks
before the trip I started to watch French movies or put on French subtitles on
DVDs.
On this trip I met a lot of her extended family.
Some of her family speaks a little English, but some of them don’t. I’m now completely immersed, and only hearing
English when my girlfriend spoke to me. To my surprise and delight, a lot of it came back, and within a few days I was getting through 3 hour
family dinner conversations without hearing or speaking English.
Obviously there were many words or phrases I didn’t
know. But after hearing them a couple of
times, you start to recognize them. If I
stopped to ask what a word meant, I’d try to repeat it or use it later on. Sometimes it took a time or two, or other
times, I couldn’t remember the word for the life of me. Three, four, five times I’d ask what the word
for “faucet” was (robineille). It
wouldn’t stick. I was hearing it a lot when asking for water, and in Europe you
often get asked if you want it sparkling or flat / tap. All I could remember
was that it started with an “R”.
Eventually I’d start to remember it with some effort. Then after week 3, it started to come faster
and faster.
So what does this have to do with training? Whether it’s
learning a new technique or dealing with something in sparring, the learning
process is similar. If you’ve never seen a technique or get hit with something
new in sparring, it feels like it comes out of nowhere. You are unable to recognize the cues, or
remember the details that go into it.
The more you get exposed to it, the quicker recognition comes. You still might get hit by it, but now it’s
because you couldn’t access the solution quick enough. If you don’t see it for a while, you’re back
to square one. But with regular or constant exposure to it, recognition becomes
familiarity. After familiarity the
learning comes execution. Starting to do the technique better and better
against a cooperative partner. Once this is done, adding it into whatever flow
drill it can work in. Then comes pressure testing in free flow drills at slow
and faster speeds. And last comes
sparring and the trial and error of finding out how (or if) it works (or how to
defend) against an uncooperative partner.
Many martial arts practitioners never get to this phase with their
techniques. In sparring, you might get it to work or deal with it once in a
while, often, or at will. It might get
incorporated into your repertoire, it might not. You won’t know unless you
research it and go through the process. It might just become one of those
techniques you’ve seen that you teach to others. Which is also beneficial, because as
teachers, your job is to provide a variety of techniques since you never know
what techniques will work for each student.
It’s just like learning a new word or phrase in a language. Learn
a word, recognize it, understand it in context, try using it in simple phrases.
Move into more complex phrases and maybe later freely add it in conversation when you need
it. Similarly, social swing dances are
improvised, and adding a new move from a class into a social dance has an
identical process to sparring. Except
you can’t stop the dance. But we’ll get
into dancing in another post.
Until next time, keep training!
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