You
need to give people what they pay for, and I'm not just talking about
money.
People
pay for things with time, effort and attention.
So
just what do people want when they walk into a place that offers
martial arts instruction? I've never met one who's said they want to
fight in the UFC, or to compete in a Karate tournament.
They
usually said that they thought it might be fun, or maybe that they
think martial arts are cool. Fair enough. I do a lot of things
without knowing what my goals are either.
If
asked to pick off a menu what they were after, I bet they wouldn't
list competition at all. More likely, they would say they want to
learn how to fight for “real”. Let's call that self-defence.
Shouldn't
beginner courses therefore be aimed towards self-defence if that's
what the majority of new students say that is what they are most
interested in?
I
recently saw a first-day new student at a sports-oriented Jiu-Jitsu
school. The very first thing they had him doing was attempting to
pass somebody's guard. He had no idea what a guard was, or why he
might want to pass it, or any clue as to how to pass it. It also has
absolutely no relevance to self-defence.
If
somebody grabs you in a parking lot, and there's a scramble, and he
ends up on his back with you wrapped up in his legs, it would be
crazy to try and pass his guard. You should start punching him in the
head, or perhaps a sprightly downward elbowstrike to his genitals.
The inverse of this is that if, in the same situation, you end up on
your back with the bad guy in your guard, you don't need to worry
about him passing. You need to be mostly concerned with him hitting
you with considerable enthusiasm.
Passing
a guard is useful, as is defending one, as long as nobody is allowed
to hit anybody else. In other words, in an orchestrated sporting
context.
My
guess is that if that new student doesn't promptly quit, he will
train for many months on various sport Jiu-Jitsu techniques that will
be useful in rolling with his new buddies. I bet that isn't his
objective. If he'd spent the same amount of effort and time and
attention and money learning a carefully structured self-defence
curriculum he would be much closer to his true objective.
So
let's imagine a hundred beginners coming in the door (and assuming
that the instructors don't die of shock). Out of those 100, there is
one guy whose dream is to win big tournaments. The 99 others are all
there because they heard it was fun, or good exercise, or good for
self-defence.
They
should be set up to train for several months in a program that
fosters success during every class, and that focuses on self-defence
rather than either on competition or on techniques designed for
better in-dojo rolling sessions. The techniques that are taught
should all be 100% street applicable, and simple to use. No flying
triangles or spider guard no matter how much the instructors like
those things. At the end of the course, students are given an exam
that tests exactly what they have been learning. Rank is awarded.
Of
the 100, perhaps the sport fancier has moved on, but most likely a
majority of the remainder will still be there. However, even those
that may have left will have a good feeling about the experience and
the school involved. Compare that with what happens now at a great
many locations. People leave injured, discouraged, and humiliated.
Most leave after having had a very negative experience, usually
within a very short time.
Having
100 people out there spreading the good word is itself worth all the
effort involved. With a decent curriculum, even those that quit early
will have trained in simple techniques that might save their butt
someday, which is what they really wanted in the first place.
Let's
say 50 continue until the belt test, and that half of these then quit
after receiving their shiny, new belts. That leaves 25 who make the
transition into the advanced class.
This
would be the proper time to introduce sparring and all its
conventions and rules. Sport competition can start being a component
in the lessons, along with everything else.
The
counter argument is that all that is what should have been taught
right from the beginning. Really? Do you seriously think that
teaching to the 1% that wanted sport is better than to the 99% that
wanted to learn how to fight for real? Perhaps you think it's the
exact same thing, in which case why not do it my way? If sport is the
same as self-defence, isn't self-defence the same as sport? I
actually think they're worlds apart, which is why I say teach the
component that is desired, first.
In
any case, after a few months a sport place will have catered to and
retained their 1%, while the beginner-friendly school has 25% still
on the mat. My guess is that most of the 25 who attempt the
transition into the advanced class will do so successfully. They
already have a number of skills useful to a beginner in sparring, and
already know that they don't suck, and that they enjoy their martial
art. It is an infinitely smaller jump to arrive from a beginner class
than it is to come in as an absolute newby. The odds of injury are
vastly reduced.
This
doesn't mean that every beginner-class graduate will suddenly want to
get involved in the next Jiu-Jitsu, or Judo, or Karate tournament.
The vast majority never will, which is also true of the vast majority
in traditionally structured martial arts groups.
How
many golfers compete? Are they expected to. Would you expect any golf
course to be successful if they managed to weed out every person that
didn't want to go pro?
I'd
like to say this is all my idea, but it's really the basis behind
Ryron and Rener Gracie's Combatives program. They figured this all
out in relation to their own school. There had always been the same
struggle that schools everywhere have to retain students. They build
a self-defence beginner curriculum, built a structure around that,
and rolled it out into the Gracie Academy down in Los Angeles. Their
beginner numbers soared, and once the first grads started moving into
the main group, so did numbers there.
I
don't know how many total students they have, but they run 9 beginner
classes a week, and they all run with 30-40 people in them. Assuming
that they all train twice a week, what would mean they have 150-160
White Belts. Their advanced classes are about the same size on
average, and they have 13 of those, which would mean a similar number
of students of Blue Belt and above. Who wouldn't want 300 students.
You
might say, “of course they have many students; they're Gracies.”
They only had a fraction that many prior to the introduction of their
beginner program.
...but
I think I explain it better...
“Meet
the training demands of the many, instead of the few. Most schools
have it backwards.” -paraphrased
from Rener Gracie
OK...maybe
I didn't explain it better.
They
have a video where they explain all this;
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