Chapter 54: Training -n- Practice

How often have you heard or read about how one“trains, practices and applies” there martial discipline, i.e., principled-based methodologies? I know if you are a regular reader here that you have read those three terms in almost all my stuff. Here is where I take my own assumptions and put understanding to them, something I may not have thought of,“our loud (proverbially speaking/writing).” 

Is there a difference between the two and I believe there is else I would not have used the two but here is where it gets a bit sticky, I assumed that I understood the differences and I assumed the reader did too. 

When I started reading Rick Wilson’s book about pointy things he said, “Keep prominent you your mind: Training is for learning and practice is for function.” Whoa, that is so good, so simply and yet it never occurred to me to distinguish the two because I assumed I already knew and understood the assumed students know and understand the differences as well. “Mistake!” 

Here is what Sensei Wilson said, “What I mean by this is, in the Training Drills I want you to take your time and do everything as described but also understand why you are doing it. Stopping in the middle of a movement in training to understand if you are in the strategic spot you should be is okay, because you are learning.”

Then he adds, “In Practice, you don’t do anything you don’t want to do in a real situation (i.e., stop before being safe, hand the knife back for another rep or help the bad guy up). In Practice, we are going for things to work. The principles are important. If a successful move had the principles but didn’t look much like what was described for Training, so what? The success of the principles was more important.”  

You already know and I can hear your mind saying, “He is a bit preachy,”but herein lies the conundrum that I preach, “Explain the details and be comprehensive.”I often write about excerpts that seem to lack understanding and since they are in the social arena with a huge audience you can’t expect or assume readers are going to understand what it is you are trying to convey. 

So, this is my effort to clear the air on the terms we all use often without actually explaining what we mean by them to those who are studying what we have to teach. 

It is so simple and Sensei Wilson says it well, or writes it well in his book, and it is something we all should NOT assume the student, reader or all recipients of our efforts - understands. 

Clarity is required in understanding for one small wrong can cascade into a system of wrongs subverting, changing and obscuring the very essence we all seek to understand martial disciplines.