Recently I was running a lesson with the Cambridge University Kickboxing Society and I was pointing out to two young ladies, part of the beginners course, how one was not hitting as hard as she could while performing a simple exercise.
Her partner was surprised of my remark and she stopped asking how I could tell she was not hitting “as hard as she could”. Surprisingly that was the first time somebody questioned my teaching in this way and I pondered for a few seconds before answering.
Many years of experience allow you to recognise and evaluate very quickly, within matter of seconds while a person is practicing martial arts, whether the he/she:
- Is Powerful
- Is Fast
- Is Well co-ordinated
- Has good reflexes
- Can bear strong attacks
- Has a good sense of fighting
- Her body mass and shape allows a certain level of power
As I listed to her the above, non exhaustive, list of features and mentioned my experience in years that exceeds by a decade her age she quickly accepted my comment and carried on training.
Many instructors like to feel powerful and imposing their dogmatic teaching to their students expecting them to simply trust and believe him/her. As my teaching is fully based on scientific principles everything can be explained and showed how techniques can be improved and fine tuned to deliver maximum efficiency and power.
So I quickly helped her partner to adjust her posture and angle of attack and within a couple of exercises she was hitting 30-40% harder. Physical fitness can be and will be improved by continuous training while the right technique will improve your performance in a very short time.
That’s what experience gives you.
I have been pondering if it is possible to be trained to recognise the fighting style and/or capabilities of an opponent and indeed if there is a kind of approach that someone can quickly evaluate an unknown opponent. This may apply only to sport fighting (in which you have a bit of time to evaluate your opponent) and not self defence situations. What are your thoughts on this matter? Is there a formula checklist to evaluate an opponent or is it down to gut feeling?
@George there are obviously things that naturally got learnt by experience. At the same time some issues and features can be noted and pointed out in a training situations. As it is demonstrable gut feeling is often just your subconcious that kicks in and tells you things before concious reasoning reaches it. In a self sefence situation things can be more difficult because there is very little time to decide.