How we train the Neurological System.

I'm sure that the title sounds a little suspicious. It's not meant to be that way but the truth is any physical activity that you do touches your neurological system, especially martial arts. Knowing this truth I embrace the fact and openly explain it.

As stated before, everything that you do, in one way or another, trains your Neurological system. How we train your NS is that we:

1. Address the most common attacks on a regular basis with the same response. As we repeat this training the same way your NS (composed of your sensory organs, brain, spinal cord, and miles of nerves contained in your body) builds memory. The more you practice this same technique the same way, the stronger this Neurological pathway becomes. The stronger it becomes, the more automatic the response comes. The more automatic this response, the faster and more powerful it becomes until it becomes automatic, powerful, and effective.

   
   

2. Understanding proprioception. Proprioception is the unconscious ability to sense your body's position, movement, and orientation in space without using vision. We teach our students to use the sense of touch to make their responses are faster. We talk about this openly with adults. Even though we don't articulate it often with kids, we still cover it. This is so important because the sense of touch is . Touch is roughly 28% to 34% faster at triggering motor responses than vision, largely because touch pathways in the brain are more direct.

   
   

3. Reading body language. I have been training in martial arts for almost 34 years. in that time I have sparred (in many types of sparring) Hundreds if not over 1000 people. I have worked as a police officer. I have observed thousands of fights/sparring matches/attacks. I have trained anywhere between 1300 and 1500 people. I have also dedicated countless hours studying this subject. Out of all this experience, I have observed that 90% of people do 90% of the same things from attacks and defensive reactions. They also do the 90% of these things the same way. With enough experience, you can almost predict what 90% of all people will do.

   
   

4. Center chest concentration. One of those mistakes that 90% of all people make is that they watch the eyes or try to watch everything. When watching the eyes, you loose sight of the feet and can get almost mesmerized of locked into watching the eyes. Trying to watch everything is too distracting and slows your reactions. Divided attention and tunnel vision are both detrimental to fast reactions. We teach a soft focus on the center of the chest. What this does is it frees you from hard focused tunnel vision and divided attention. The soft focus on the chest allows you to use your peripheral vision which allows your NS to work faster as it is not bogged down with cognitive thinking.

   
   

5. Mushin. Mushin is a Japanese word that translates into "mind no mind". It is the idea of being aware without being overly focused on anything. When you are thinking about what you are doing, your reactions will always be playing catch up. When you free your mind your body will be free to act.

   
   

6. Training awareness of similar techniques. Many martial arts techniques have multiple applications such as the Chokes, blocks, punches, kick, et. al. We teach our students to know how to use these techniques in multiple ways. This magnifies the effect of the training of your NS.

   
   

7. Training flow from technique to technique. Often one part of a technique is very similar to another part of another technique. This creates the potential for flowing from on technique to another, which is essential for self-defense.

   
   

8. Stress inoculation. This is the hardest part. it is also the part that most people rush. Stress inoculation at an intense level often causes more harm than good if done too soon or too hard. Stress inoculation should be done slowly, in pieces, and in various intensities. Stress inoculation should be done for two reasons. Stress inoculation reveals weaknesses and what techniques and reactions have become ingrained in the NS. In our system we have four levels of inoculation. We also use a belting system for multiple reasons (another blog). Our levels of inoculation correspond to belt sections. Low Level (first year) This is just basic movement, reactions, and offenses in a very controlled manner. This is the first three belts. Medium level (Second year). This is the same as before but the pace is slightly faster and the techniques are slightly harder (next three belts). High level (Third year). Again...just a slight jump up (next 4 belts). Intense Level (fourth year). Again...just a slight jump up (normally black belt level or before). We take 4 years to reach a high level of Stress testing. Normally our high level if not medium level would completely overwhelm most beginners.

So you can see that I take the responsibility of training your NS very seriously and safely. If you are training somewhere else and you feel that you are not getting the training that you deserve or are being endangered too soon, I encourage you to look elsewhere.

Be Blessed,

Chance