Developing prowess in the Filipino martial arts requires access to quality instruction, hours of training alone and with partners, and a real dedication to improvement. It requires the development of coordination, timing, and a variety of other skills specific to the application of the Filipino martial arts. However, there is some low hanging fruit that can greatly approve your capability to apply Kali. This low hanging fruit is simply developing well-rounded athletic fitness.This is not ground breaking news, but it is significant. If you improve your ability to perform basic athletic movements (running, jumping, throwing, etc.), you will notice a significant improvement in your Filipino martial arts skills. If you develop strength, you will see it replicated in your strikes, takedowns, and other techniques. In fact, the stronger you are, the more force you can generate and the faster you can become.When we brought strength and conditioning into our school, we quickly saw dramatic changes in the students. They could hit harder, move faster, and spar longer without a degradation of skill. They developed more confidence and coordination in their movements with improved proprioception and balance. It was clear that the added strength and conditioning was an excellent support system for the Filipino martial arts. It made them better.Below are the basics of what we incorporated. Please note: The suggestions here are very general for fitness, but biased a little towards performance needs of the Filipino Martial Arts. The core of what worked for us includes building strength, developing power, and increasing the capacity for output. All three of these components are important.Build StrengthMore strength will help you hit harder. Strength is your ability to generate force. Whether you strike with a weapon or your empty hands, if you can hit with more force, you will increase the effectiveness of your strikes.To move faster, you need more strength. You must generate high levels of force to propel your body. Strength is required to generate high levels of force. By developing more strength, you will be able to generate more force and therefore move your body faster. Though there is a limit, in general, the stronger you are, the faster you can be. This includes faster footwork and faster strikes.More strength also translates into having better control of your opponent when you use locks, traps, and other controls. Though these are typically leverage based tools, if you are stronger, you have more margin for making the technique work, even when you are not at the perfect angle or position to apply it. Your strength will allow you to compensate more when your technique is not performed perfectly. Good technique is important, and there is no substitute for it. However, technique requires force. The more you have available to you, the more options you have. As the saying goes, stronger people are harder to kill.To build strength, find a well-rounded program that incorporates presses, squats, deadlifts, pullups, dips, and other bodyweight exercises. Barbell training combined with bodyweight exercises can be very effective at building strength. Focus on training that is designed for strength and athletics, not bodybuilding. There is a difference.Do your research. Make sure you are using a program that yields measurable increases in strength. In the beginning of your strength training, almost anything will work, but as time goes on, you need a well designed program to continue to see progress.Develop PowerPower will help you perform your techniques more effectively. If you hit someone with your stick, you want the hit to be effective. You want to be able to stop your opponent with really hard hits. To do this, you must hit them using power. Power is not only useful when performing a strike, but also when performing other techniques, like throws and takedowns.Power is the ability to produce maximal strength in minimal time. This means that you must have strength to have power. Once you have developed your strength to its potential, focus on reducing the time it takes to produce force. Reduce the time to develop more power.To develop power, use exercises that allow you to work on maximum force output and speed. Incorporate olympic lifts, jumps, plyometrics, medicine ball throws and other explosive exercises in your training. Be sure to develop a good foundation of strength before trying to develop power. Starting power training too soon will lead to injury as will attempting these exercises without learning the right form.To be able to produce power, develop strength in your core. The more stable your core is, the more speed and force you can use to move your limbs. In athletic movement, your core must absorb and transfer force through your body. Imagine how your arms and legs move as you swing a stick at full force. That force must be channeled from your legs, through your core, and delivered through your arm. If your core is weak, you will lose power during the transfer.Exercises for strengthening your core should focus on resisting spinal flexion, extension, or rotation. Plank variations, fallouts, ab wheel or barbell rollouts, single arm presses, single arm carries, and suitcase deadlifts are a few. These exercises can all be used to improve your ability to stabilize your spine during movement and therefore increase your potential to generate power.Increase Capacity for OutputThe Filipino martial arts include explosive movements performed at high speed. Strikes and techniques are executed in explosive bursts. In a very short period of time, you may deliver multiple full speed strikes, evade attacks with quick footwork, and maybe perform a throw or takedown. Especially if you consider being prepared for multiple attackers, these high demand efforts may occur several times back to back. This type of high demand physical effort should be developed with your strength and conditioning.To develop this level of output or capacity, you will need to take a specific approach to your training because of how your body fuels activity. Different types of physical efforts are fueled by your body differently. The way your body fuels a slow jog or casual bike ride is very different than how it fuels an all-out sprint, a jump for maximum height, or a really heavy lift. The different systems that fuel these efforts include the aerobic and anaerobic systems. Activities that are fueled by the aerobic system, tend to be more moderately paced, whereas activities fueled by the anaerobic systems tend to be very fast paced or include maximal efforts.For general fitness, a balance of training both aerobic and anaerobic systems is useful, but if you are training specifically for better performance in the Filipino martial arts, spend more time training the anaerobic systems. Performing the Filipino martial arts at full speed requires more use of these high output systems where you challenge your anaerobic thresholds. You should therefore train the same systems in your strength and conditioning. This training can translate into delivering more strikes at full speed before your arm tires, being able to continually apply explosive movement for several rounds in a tournament, or even having the energy to fight off multiple attackers.To develop this capacity, use a combination of interval training and high intensity workouts that are mostly 10 minutes or less. Circuit training, AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) style workouts, and other timed task oriented workouts that focus on completing your sets quickly (with good form and minimal rest) are some examples that may work for you. Include multiple maximal efforts with things like sprints, jumps, and medicine ball throws.As you improve, the thresholds of how fast, intense, and long you can go before breaking down will improve. This improvement will result in you lasting longer before fatigue ruins your technique when performing Kali. Ultimately, this means you have a better chance of winning a match and surviving a violent encounter.Additional Tips- Use exercises that incorporate general athletic movements. Do not try to make them resemble the movements of Kali. Though in skill specific training, this may be valuable, in strength and resistance training, this can actually mess up your mechanics.- Rather than focusing on developing a single muscle, think in terms of cultivating good movement. For the best results, use mostly exercises that involve multiple joints and muscle groups rather than isolating muscles.- Train to improve your weaknesses. Don’t get lost in getting really good at the things you like the most. The point here is to improve your performance. Having a functional balance of strength and conditioning to support your FMA skills is important for your performance.- Use variation in your training. To make significant improvement, you need consistency, but you also need variation. Progressively develop your strength and power, but avoid becoming overly acclimated to a single routine. Vary the exercises and routines that you do so that you can avoid leaving certain fitness aspects undertrained. When introducing variety, don’t give up your primary exercises - squats, presses and deadlifts.- Get help designing a program, and be sure to learn how to do the exercises properly. Bad form and overly ambitious programs can lead to injury and poor results. Remember you are looking for performance results, not bragging rights or self penance. A good program will allow you to measure the results.Though this is all very simple, it will give you an edge on your opponents and make you healthier at the same time. If you are not already doing strength and conditioning work, try it for a few months and see the difference for yourself.

Physical skills are only part of the skills that you need for self defense. You must have cognitive skills too.  One of the most important cognitive skills you can cultivate for self defense is situational awareness. What is Situational Awareness? Simply put, situational awareness is knowing what is happening around you.  It is knowing your environment and what events are occurring nearby.  In terms of self defense, situational awareness includes knowing what is happening, and knowing what, if anything, you should do about it. To do this, you must derive meaning from the circumstances in which you find yourself. Situational awareness is your perception of the environment and nearby events together with your assessment of how your actions will affect your immediate and near future. To make this assessment, you must first pay attention to details in your environment that may affect you.  After observing those relevant details, you must then determine if there is anything to be learned from that information.  You will use that information to predict what could happen next. In doing so, you must consider whether or not there is a threat to your safety. You can then decide what to do to assure a safe outcome for you. States of Readiness A common framework for understanding situational awareness is using defined states of readiness.  There are several models that use this method. They all can be used to help you channel your awareness and actions based on your circumstances.  The following method is used by the N.R.A. to teach situational awareness.  It incorporates four states of readiness - unaware, aware, alert, and alarm. Each state can be associated with certain circumstances and can help you determine what actions (if any) you should take.  Here are the four states with examples: Unaware - When you are at home, with the doors locked, you can let your guard down. You can take a nap, drink a beer, and listen to music with your headphones. This would be the unaware state, and in those circumstances, it would likely be ok.  However, if you are walking down a busy street while drinking a beer with your headphones on, or napping in the park, you are likely to have problems. You could be selected as an easy target and become a victim of a mugging. Aware - This is the state you should be in when you leave the house and go about your day.  This is a relaxed state, but in it, you are observant.  You take mental notes of the people and things around you. You have not seen anything to alert you that there is a threat, but you are paying attention to your environment in case there are any indications that you should become more focused on any potential threats. You cannot be daydreaming or talking on the phone to maintain this state, you must be paying attention to your surroundings. Alert - In the alert state, you may have recognized that conditions are favorable for something bad to happen. You are not only aware, but you are paying a little extra attention to something that looks like it could be a potential threat. You may have seen someone cross the street and start walking towards you. You may notice someone in the parking lot looking over their shoulder, then looking at you. In the alert state, you would immediately start making plans of action based on what the potential threat may do. If the situation escalates, then you already have a plan and can therefore act more quickly. Alarm - When you are in the alarm state, you have determined that the potential threat you noticed earlier is indeed a real threat, and you may have to act immediately.  If you noticed the potential threat in the alert state, you will already have a plan of action. You will simply be looking for the cue to take action. For example, you may have seen someone walking in your direction and decided that if they approach you aggressively, you will yell, “Stop!” and put your hands up before they get within 10 feet of you. You may have planned that if they keep coming you will create distance and move to their flank. These four states are on a continuum of attention and perceived danger.  In the unaware state, you are not paying attention to your surroundings because you feel there is no threat whatsoever. You are completely relaxed. At the the other end of the spectrum, in the alarm state, you are focused on a real threat to your safety, and the intensity of your focus is at it’s highest. Using Situational Awareness When analyzing the people and events that you see in your environment, consciously put yourself in the appropriate state of readiness. Your evaluation of the environment and the potential threats within will tell you which state you should choose. You may start with one state, then quickly move up or down to the next. If you learn to control the state that you are in, then you will be able to have a quicker understanding of your immediate options in any situation.  If you do not have that control, then you may fall into a state of panic, and panic is not a state of readiness. Situational awareness can reduce the stress of a violent encounter by removing surprise. Situational awareness can give you a little time to think. By recognizing the nature of the threat and the factors involved, you can at least begin understanding what threats confront you before the actual attack hits. Even if your awareness it only gives you a few seconds before an attack, you may at least have enough time to mentally brace yourself for what is coming. This mental preparation can reduce the freezing response and panic that comes from being caught off guard. This is important because it will give you a better chance of taking the action that you feel is the best choice. Knowing the state you are in helps you determine what to do next. The value of identifying the state you are in, or need to be in, is that you can quickly see, plan, and act on what you see. If you can classify your situation into any of the four states, then you will immediately have direction for your next action.  You may need to defend yourself right away, look for more information, or perhaps you can simply resume what you were doing before. Your initial actions are based on your current state. Situational awareness allows you to be ready to apply your physical skills. Moving from the unaware state to aware, alert, then alarm is like moving up a ladder. The higher up the ladder you are, the closer you are to taking action. When you see what is going on around you, notice there is a potential threat, then identify it is becoming a real threat, and start making a plan of what to do, you are getting ready to take physical action.  Having the information you gathered and evaluated through your situational awareness, you will already have an idea of what it is you must do. This is valuable because you will have already moved through the observe, orient, and maybe the decide stages of the O.O.D.A. loop.  The O.O.D.A. loop is a theoretical model of what cognitive processes you must complete for you to react to anything.  Once you have seen what is happening around you (observe), determined whether or not you need to do anything (orient), then decided what you need to do about it (decide), then you can apply your solution (act).  This action may be move, disengage, negotiate, strike, block, shoot, etc. - your self defense skills. Here are a few examples of situations wherein your awareness could help you determine what to do next. 1. You get out of your car to fill it up with gas when someone that you do not know, walks up to you.2. You are in the parking lot of a busy restaurant and bar.  A person who appears to be drunk and looking for a fight gets kicked out and is walking in your direction.3. You walk up to an ATM and someone nearby glances over both shoulders, then starts to approach you.4. You are in a convenience store, the front door opens. You look over and see someone entering while covering his face.5. You see someone in the mall pull out a gun. Though the severity of the potential threat may vary in each of these circumstances above, using situational awareness could help you navigate each one. Final Words Use situational awareness as your first line of defense. It’s your radar. Once you see something getting closer to you, pay more attention. See if you need to do anything about it. Situational awareness can help you see potential threats and take steps to avoid or prepare for them before they become immediate threats. Monitor your state of readiness.  Make sure it is appropriate for the circumstances.  Being unaware while walking downtown at night is not appropriate. Expecting sudden attacks from every shadow in your home is probably not appropriate either. Find the right balance of awareness so you can both stay safe and be functional in your everyday life. Situational awareness does not guarantee you will not be caught off guard. Nobody can be vigilant 100% of the time. A determined criminal can wait until he has the best opportunity to catch you. However, situational awaress can make it harder for someone to catch you off guard. Situational awareness is developed through training. It is not cultivated by simply reading about it or willing it to happen. Situational awareness is developed though practical application.

When studying Kali, learning in the beginning is easy. You just imitate those who are better than you. You drill to develop coordination through consistent repetition. Eventually, you memorize patterns of movements that become techniques. You learn to perform those techniques when your partner feeds you a specific attack. The process for learning this in the beginning is pretty clear. The tough part of learning Kali starts when you move beyond those basics. This is where things get fuzzy. It’s gets difficult when you have to coordinate your movements to attack and counter an unpredictable opponent. You have to see what is going on, decide what to do about it, then select and perform the right technique. It is hard because you must choose from a wide variety of responses, and in choosing the right response, you have to process several factors before you can decide. There may not even be one correct answer, so you must also weigh which potential solution or technique you will use. This difficulty is really apparent when you first start sparring. Many of the techniques that you can easily perform under low stress, no longer even come out. The problem is that you are either waiting for the right moment to apply a specific technique or just swinging your weapon and trusting that your reactions will take over. To be successful, you must have a combination of basic movement and more advanced problem solving skills. The trick is learning how to train for those more advanced skills. To learn those advanced skills, you have to change your approach to training. The approach of your training should change from drills that have one specific, correct response and clear standards of performance to exercises that require assessment, judgement, and decision making. In this higher level training, you move from basic scripted drills to application oriented exercises where you must read and interpret the actions of your opponent, identify opportunities, then take action. Below are a few points to help you determine how to make that jump in your training. Closed Skills - The Basics of Movement In the beginning of your Filipino Kali training, you should focus on developing precision, accuracy, power, and speed using repetition and controlled movement. Developing your coordination, consistent mechanics, and fluidity of movement are the primary objectives of your basic training. You must develop these skills as a foundation for more advanced skills. The foundational skills of Kali are mostly closed skills. Closed skills are skills performed in a stable, predictable environment, which allows the practitioner plenty of time to prepare their movements before execution. Closed skills are self-paced, have set patterns, and have a clear beginning and end. Examples of closed skills include actions such as delivering a smooth, accurate strike at a stationary target, executing a combination of strikes in the air, or stepping quickly through a triangular footwork pattern. Closed skills do not have to be adjusted to fit changing conditions, such as the movements of an opponent. Develop closed skills using fixed practice. Fixed practice is practice wherein you repeat movements over and over with the intent to make them resemble a particular model. Repetition is necessary to refine movement patterns. Once the movements are correct (they match the model), there is no intended deviation from the pattern. In training closed skills, focus on the replication of key points of performance that ensure proper execution. This would include points like maintaining proper elbow position while striking, turning the hips with a strike to generate force, and following through the target for penetration. In order to apply a technique successfully, you must have it embedded in your long term memory. Through consistent repetition and training using fixed practice, you etch the components of your techniques in your long term memory. This dedication to long term, a.k.a. “muscle," memory is a necessary first step to really being able to apply your techniques. With the exception of very simple techniques, you will not be able to apply a technique if your conscious mind is still trying to coordinate the movements of the technique when you need to apply it. This is why you must first develop the basic skills such as striking and footwork before learning to adapt them for use against a moving opponent. Open Skills - Perceptual and Cognitive Skills Once your basic skills are established and consistent, it’s time to work on higher level application skills. Your basic closed skills become the foundation of your techniques. In order to be able to apply a technique, you need the ability to adapt it to the dynamically changing position and movements of your opponent. This ability is comprised of higher level skills - the additional skills that make the technique work. These advanced level skills are mostly open skills. Open skills are perceptual, externally paced, variable, and interactive. Open skills require that you read and anticipate the actions of your opponent, analyze them, then adjust your techniques to fit the situation. Open skills are harder to develop than closed skills because they are used to solve problems. Closed skills are not designed for processing problems. With a closed skill, there is only one correct action. Contrary to closed skills, open skills are used when situations have more than one correct response. You may be faced with a situation where more than one technique can be used, and there may not be a clear best answer. You must weigh your options and make a decision to use the technique that you believe will give you the best outcome. This is when you must draw on the the higher level, open skills that you can develop though proper training. How to Develop Open Skills The method for training open skills is very different from that of closed skills. When practicing closed skills, you are mostly perfecting your motor movement. With open skills, you are developing your cognitive abilities to perceive, analyze and decide. This difference in objectives requires a different approach in training. Whereas closed skills are best developed through fixed practice, open skills are best developed through variable practice. Develop open skills with variable practice. In variable practice, one uses drills that allows the practitioner to encounter a variety of situations and solve a variety of problems. Variety is the key to training open skills. The variety allows you to repeat your basic skills in different contexts and a wide range of situations. Each training session will give you the opportunity to draw on your previous experiences, test your theories and observe the outcome of your decisions. Through experience with this type of training, you will learn to read, interpret, and adapt. When training open skills, focus on recognizing cues that will allow you make decisions. In order to respond to any movement of your opponent, you must first recognize what factors will allow you to quickly assess what is happening, decide what you will do about it, and then decide how to do that. Quickly recognizing relevant cues will allow you to complete this process faster. Training to recognize cues would include learning to read the tells of your opponent, recognizing the right position from which you can apply each of your techniques, and seeing open targets or weaknesses in your opponent’s capabilities. When practicing open skills, use drills that mimic real situations. By using drills with situations that are similar to those that you will encounter in sparring or in real life, you build a library of experiences that will serve as references for you when you need to make a quick decision or solve a problem. The larger this experience library, the more reference material you will have at your disposal. With training, this library will reside in your subconscious, and it will inform your intuition. Open skills require that you are flexible in your application of movement. In order to adapt a technique to the situation, you must be flexible in it’s execution. Good form is important, but being overly rigid will limit your ability to adapt. Under pressure, you must chose the technique that will give you the best outcome, and you must adapt that technique to the situation. You cannot memorize a technique for every situation. Situations are endless. You must learn to stretch and mold your techniques to fit many different situations. Mindset for Open Skill Development Have the right mindset for training open skills. Your mindset should be playful, curious, and experimental. Allow yourself to try new options and follow ideas that come to you. Only by exploring the material will you make discoveries. The right mindset with open skill training will help you cultivate your imagination and foster creativity. Creativity is what is needed to solve problems. Be willing to make mistakes. Open skill training includes a lot of trial and error. Take chances. Allow yourself to make mistakes. This is your laboratory. Test your ideas. This is an experimental process, and though it is not efficient, it has process related rewards. In fact, often in open skill training, the process is more important than the results. This is true because you are developing your perceptual and cognitive skills while you are looking for an answer. You are developing your problem solving skills along the way. With the right attitude, you will make useful connections and discoveries that will expand your understanding and skill. Final Words Balance your training to develop both open and closed skills. Mastery of basic, closed skills is critical to your success and should be continued regardless of your level of skill. You will not outgrow the basics. Continue to polish the basics with regular fixed practice. Include them in your warmups. For faster skill development, get feedback and analyze your performance. Because drills that develop open skills can be complex, it is very useful to get feedback from your training partners and your instructor. Your instructor will help you understand when you are making improvements and guide you in the right direction. Video is a helpful tool when looking for detailed analysis. Use the right training process for the skills you are trying to develop. Using the wrong approach to skill development will give you subpar results. If you introduce variation too early in your coordination training, then you will not develop smooth movement. By using the right approach, you will learn more, faster. Closed and open skills are on two ends of the same continuum. In many cases, your drills will include some aspects of both closed and open skills. Structure your training so that you progressively move from a focus on closed skills to a focus on open skills. A progressive approach will allow you to adapt your coordination and movement skills to your open training exercises. By following this approach to skill development, you will develop a strong foundation as well as your abilities to read a situation, identify opportunities, adapt, and act.

If we had more time to do so, many of us would spend more time training. Training for most of us is enjoyable. Putting in hours to improve our skills a little at a time is not a chore; it’s more of a pleasure. However, work, family, money, life can all compete for time that we would otherwise be training, talking about training, or, at least, thinking about training. Because of these demands on our time, we need to use the time we do have for training wisely. This is especially true as you climb to higher levels in the art.Once you have past the beginner levels of learning Kali, where everything is new and improvement is exponential, you have to be focused when planning your training. At the intermediate and advanced levels, there are so many things to train. It can be difficult to remain focused, and sometimes it is hard to measure improvement when there are many skills that you can develop. With a good training plan, you can progress in the skills that will make the biggest difference. By using performance profiling, a tool commonly used in sports and athletics, you can determine the direction you need for a good training plan. Performance profiling is a great tool for identifying strengths and weaknesses, and creating a plan to improve what matters the most. It is a method used to identify the most important skills and attributes needed to perform a sport or activity against which you compare your competency in each of those skills and attributes. The results of the comparison will show you what you do well and what you need to improve upon to have the ideal balance of skills and attributes.Performance profiling will help you adjust your training to focus your efforts on what key areas need the most improvement. When you compare your strengths and weaknesses to those skills and attributes that matter the most, you will get a score for each. This score will help you decide which of the weaknesses you will address first in your training.The score will also allow you to assess your improvements in those areas over time.After you have completed an assessment, then addressed the issues discovered in your training, you can reassess your skills / attributes and see where you have improved. Over time, you will establish a record that will help you see trends in your performance. Usually, this performance profiling is done by the instructor and the student together, but it can be used by the student alone. Here is a simple approach to creating your own performance profile. STEP 1 - Identify the skills and attributesTo complete a full profile of your skills and attributes, first create a list of the skills and attributes anyone would need to be great at Kali. In doing this, divide these skills among four categories. The four categories are: technical, tactical, physical, and psychological. Technical - This includes the specific techniques that are relevant to applying your style of Kali. It may include things like striking, footwork, locking, takedowns, disarms, counters to takedowns, etc.Tactical - This includes the tactics that are involved in applying your style of Kali. These are things such as faking, baiting, fighting outside, fighting inside, creating openings, etc.Physical - This includes the physical attributes that are needed for applying Kali, such as strength, stamina, speed, acceleration, power, etc.Psychological - This includes attributes such as mental toughness, emotional balance, and attitude that are factors in being successful in applying Kali.Try to identify 15 to 20 skills and attributes for each of the categories. After you have listed everything needed, narrow the list of skills down to the most important 6- 10 for each of the four categories. STEP 2 - Chart the skills and rate themFor each category, create a four column chart that will help you assess your skills. Column 1 - In the first column, include a list of those top skills and attributes you identified.Column 2 - In the second column, put a number from one to ten that is your perception of how important that skill is for an elite practitioner of the art.Column 3 - In the third column, rate yourself from one to ten in that particular skill or attribute.Column 4 - In the fourth column, subtract the rate you entered in the third column from ten, then multiply that result by the number you put in the second column.Step 3 - Evaluate your score and plan your future trainingThis will give you a score that you can use to evaluate the discrepancy between the skill needed by an elite practitioner and your current performance of that particular skill. The higher the number you get, the more important it is for you to address that particular skill or attribute in training or in mental preparation. Here is a sample chart in the technical category.   skill / attribute level of importance (1 to 10) self assessment (1 to 10) discrepancy score (10 - column 3) x col 2 striking 10 7 30 footwork 9 6 30 offensive entries 10 8 20 evasions 10 5 50 close range techniques 8 9 8 flow from one technique to another 8 7 24 In the chart above, the student calculated a score of 50 for his evasion skills. This score is calculated as (10- 5) x 10 = 50. Because this is the highest score of all the skills listed, this student should focus his training on improving his evasions. He then would also focus more on his striking and footwork skills. Please note, this is just an example. I am not suggesting that these are the top skills in this example. You must adjust the skills to be what you think are the most important for your art. Use the method above to create your own lists and charts based on your thoughts. Final WordsUsing this performance profiling will help you budget your training time to work on what you need to improve the most. By knowing exactly where you need to focus, you will avoid wasting training time working on skills that are not as relevant to your needs. If you use this performance profiling tool together with your instructor, you will get better insight on what skills are most important. You will also get a more objective assessment of your capabilities. If you do this exercise with your instructor, compare your self assessment with the assessment your instructor does for you. Discuss any differences in scores and make a training plan together. Having guidance and feedback from your instructor will give you more accurate and more useful results. When you finish your profile, make a training plan and stick to it. After 2-3 months, do another assessment of your skills and reevaluate your training priorities. Knowing that you are on track with your training will motivate you to work harder and make improvements sooner. Find the time to train, and train hard.

Whether you are looking for a teacher or striving to become one, there are a few traits that you should look for when considering what makes a great instructor. If you are looking for a teacher, then it is in your interest to find one that is best prepared to help you with your goals. If you are a new instructor, then your training is not done. You can now focus on developing teaching skills that will allow you to give the best training experience to your students.There are numerous qualities that comprise the makeup of a great Filipino martial arts instructor. Some should be given and others take years to develop. There are a few standards that should be prerequisites for an instructor. These are qualities such as professionalism, integrity, and care for the student. The focus of this list is to identify the top qualities that relate to teaching and developing skills and knowledge in the student. Here are 10 qualities to consider. A great teacher... 1. Is an authority on the art. Good teachers know the subject they are teaching, but great teachers are immersed in what they teach. A great teacher is an authority on the art because they have dedicated the time and effort to master the skills and study subjects related to the art. They are real subject matter experts. When they have a great depth of knowledge and understanding, much of what they know has been internalized. Because so much experience and knowledge has been internalized, they draw on more information, both consciously and subconsciously, when teaching you. 2. Is actively growing in the art / teaching the art. A great teacher has passion for the art, and is actively engaged in learning more, improving his skills and/ or improving his ability to teach the art. He is still captivated with the art and invested in it. Without that engagement, the art can lose it’s life and the student will suffer.The student brings excitement to training, but the teacher must also inspire the student to keep him driven toward his goals. This is especially true when training is tough and improvement plateaus. When the teacher is still active in the art, this inspiration comes naturally. The student will have a model to follow, and the teacher will have new insights to share. 3. Challenges you the right amount. You must have challenge, pressure, and intensity in your training to grow into a well rounded martial artist. A great teacher pushes you out of your comfort zone to improve your skill. He does not demand that you meet standards that are completely out of your reach or beat you down in a humiliating sparring session. He gives you the right amount of challenge to facilitate growth. He trains you to manage intensity with successive doses of it. He gives you room to stumble and fall under pressure so that you can learn and grow from failure as well as success. A great teacher finds the balance of challenge, pressure, and intensity that will be the right for mix each student. 4. Has experience teaching all levels. A great teacher knows how to teach beginner, intermediate, and advanced students. Teaching beginners can sometimes be very demanding on an instructor, and some of the best teaching skills can be honed by instructors who teach a lot of beginners, but a great instructor has experience teaching all levels.By teaching all levels, an instructor faces a wider range of teaching challenges, because of that, he develops more skills and tools for teaching. By being exposed to students who need different levels of instruction, ranging from gross mechanics and simple concepts to subtle nuances and tactics, an instructor will develop precise language and specialized exercises to convey those lessons in more effective ways.An instructor that is familiar with the path a student will take long term will be able to optimize each step along the way. This means he can help students avoid pitfalls and create habits that will complement advanced skills rather than lead to conflicts or dead ends in the student’s progression. 5. Focuses on application. The Filipino martial arts have a lot of great drills. Flow drills are dynamic and can really help you get into the moment when practicing them. By themselves, some drills can be really fun to practice, but drills are just tools for learning and developing skills. We have to progress towards application. A great teacher will not allow students to get lost in doing endless drills. He will use drills to advance the skills and understanding of the students. Ultimately, he will progress training towards applying the techniques, not just getting good at the drills. After all, though the training is part of the fun, we train so that we can do the art. 6. Can teach you both the technical details of the art and how to fight with it. Some people specialize in one or the other. A great instructor knows both. Sometimes students of Kali are really gifted at understanding, connecting, and memorizing all the technical details of the art. Often they are the ones who remember everything and help others when it is time to review. Other students are sometimes less concerned with the details, but they are good at sparring and enjoy the fighting aspect of the art more so than trying to learn every nuance of each technique.A great teacher has a mix of both of those characteristics and can draw from his understanding of the technical details as well as his understanding of how to fight with it. The technical details behind the art should reinforce its application, and training should make them simple and more accessible. Long flows and detailed series of techniques with numerable variations can sometimes become nothing more than a memory game. These types of training tools can be used together with application oriented training drills that make them valuable. A great instructor can convey the technical details of the art in a way that allows them to be internalized not just memorized. When the technical details have been internalized as a part of your natural movement, they will support you when you apply the art in sparring, force-on-force drills, and self defense situations. A great instructor knows how to bridge your skills from techniques and drills to real fighting skills. 7. Coaches you to improve your performance. A great teacher gives both positive and negative (corrective) feedback often. To make improvements, especially as a beginner, you need someone to help you see what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong. A great teacher sees what you are doing, identifies what needs to be corrected, and communicates that to you in a way that gets results. This requires good communication skills and the ability to analyze both your movements and your understanding of the material being studied. Without regular coaching and feedback, you will waste time and create bad habits. 8. Has an organized method of teaching, lesson plans, and a curriculum. A great teacher has a method for teaching you. He has a method for how he demonstrates, how he lectures, and how he uses drills that are designed to promote learning. He uses a particular method to teach, because he has found that it gets the best results.A great teacher plans what and how he will teach you. By planning, he teaches with progressions wherein new lessons build on previous lessons. This enables him to teach with cohesion and clarity, which allows students to retain more and understand more.A great teacher balances structure and discovery learning methods in a way that promotes learning that is appropriate to the student’s level of understanding. Beginners need more structure in order to grow quickly. Intermediate and advanced students need less structure and more opportunities to explore and discover the connections and subtleties of the art. To find this balance of structure and open ended learning and to be effective as a teacher, there needs to be a method, plan, or approach to teaching. All of this can be organized into a curriculum.A curriculum allows there to be standards. After teaching several students the same material in the same organized manner, the teacher can expect a certain level of proficiency from the students who undergo that same training in the future. This can lead to a set of standards that can serve to gauge how effective his teaching is. It also creates the opportunity for the teacher to refine his teaching methods and the curriculum content after testing them on many different students. As the teacher becomes more familiar with the progression through the material, he will also be better prepared to adapt the curriculum to each student. 9. Can teach the physical skills of applying the art, and the mental skills required to be successful. Learning Filipino martial arts takes a lot of time and work. Training sessions can range from light and playful to strenuous and painful. A great teacher will train in you the physical skills as well as the mental skills that you need to learn and apply the art. He will help you develop a successful mindset. He will teach you how to be mentally tough, not only for training and applying the art, but also for coping with life challenges that derail training or threaten your self-esteem and drive. He will teach you how to keep fighting, even when you appear to be losing. The best techniques in the world will not work without the right training and the right mindset. A great teacher will give you both. 10. Teaches you how to practice, how to learn, and how to grow. A great teacher not only teaches you how to perform techniques and how to do drills, but also, he teaches you the mechanics of learning. He teaches you how to analyze, how to cultivate skill, and how to explore on your own. He sometimes illustrates everything you need to know. Other times, he may not give you all the details, but he guides you to find the missing components. By doing this, he helps you develop critical thinking skills. Critical thinking skills will allow you to develop beyond just what you are given.Ultimately, the teacher should try to give you the opportunity to become better than him. He shortens your learning curve based on his experience. He helps you avoid pitfalls as you progress. He gives you guidance and resources that allow you to flourish. Conclusion If you are looking for a new teacher, first, vet the qualifications of the instructor and ensure that the art, style, and general approach is right for you. Make sure the instructor is capable of giving you the access and training you need to meet your goals. Then, take a deeper look into the qualities of the instructor and his programs. Remember, there is more than one way to teach effectively. Not all teaching methods or curriculums are obvious in their approach, but all of them will have some type of structure or planning behind them. Consider the ten qualities listed above and take a look at the program to make sure you will get the most out of your time.If you are a new teacher, still developing your teaching skills, see if the list above gives you some areas to improve. Many of the topics above include a lot of depth. The more you put into it, the more your students will grow.

A good self defense program is based on an observation of reality.  It is based on a practical understanding of potential threats.  By understanding a threat, we can develop a relevant defense. In developing your approach to self defense, there are many things to consider.  These considerations should affect your decision of what to train, how to train, and how to prioritize what you spend the majority of your training resources (time, energy, money) doing. Initially, it helps to identify what or who you are fighting.  The following three assumptions about who that is will direct your other training choices.  They are significant because they will frame your entire outlook.  The assumptions are: The opponent is armed.  The opponent is trained.  There is more than one opponent. The Opponent is Armed The majority of violent crimes in the US are committed with a weapon.  The US Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Criminal Justice Information Services Division reports the following for violent crimes in 2015: 57.8% of robberies were committed with a weapon 73.7% of aggravated assaults were committed with a weapon 95.4% of murders were committed with a weapon In all violent crimes reported above, the criminals used weapons more often than not. Of violent crimes committed in 2015, the highest percentage of attacks were aggravated assaults. Aggravated assaults account for 63.8 percent of the violent crimes in 2015.  Aggravated assaults are violent attacks that are intended to produce severe or aggravated bodily injury.  By nature, these attacks usually include the use of a weapon because there is greater likelihood that a weapon will cause serious injury. Crimes that only include the threat of a weapon being used are included in this category.  However, this fact does not minimize the significance of the high percentage.  We can consider many aggravated assaults as just unsuccessful murders, and murders top the list when it comes to weapon use.  Nearly all murders in 2015 were committed with a weapon.  This is probably because weapons are just more effective at killing than unarmed methods of attack. Because of the likelihood that a weapon will be involved in a violent crime, you should consider how this affects your training. Different types of weapons each have unique characteristics and threats. If you train with weapons, you will understand the dynamics behind their use.  By training with various weapons, you will be more aware of the potential dangers and additional risks that are presented when weapons are involved.  For example: Blocking a punch can be a sound and effective technique, but attempting to block a knife attack can leave your arms exposed to secondary attacks or incidental injuries.  If you have exposure to training with impact weapons, edged weapons, and firearms, then you will be a much more realistic understanding of how to defend against them. Techniques that work in an empty hands scenario may not work when there is a weapon involved. I have often heard the saying, "the weapon is the extension of the hand."  Sometimes this is interpreted to mean that your empty hands techniques are the same as your weapon techniques. Though, in theory, many of the techniques you learn to use against an unarmed opponent will also work against an armed opponent, often there are special properties of a weapon that make this untrue. For example: It may be advantageous to grapple with a single opponent in order to control him, but if that opponent has a knife, a different approach may be more likely to succeed.  This is because the situation is very different.  Different dangers are present when the weapon is introduced to the scenario. Understanding this will help you mitigate the risks that you take when responding to any attack. In your training, narrow down the techniques that you use to a few primary responses that work in both situations that involve weapons and those with only empty hands.  You may not know if your attacker is armed, but if your primary techniques work in both armed and unarmed situations, then you will be covered.  You will not be taking a gamble, and you will not leave yourself exposed by using a technique that only works in one situation, but not the other. Weapons can be deadly, even in the hands of the untrained.  Because the capacity for weapons to cause serious bodily damage or death is very high, formal training is not required to be effective with them.  A simple touch with a knife can produce a cut.  A single shot from a firearm can cause death.  Do not underestimate your opponent. Recognizing how dangerous anyone can be will force you to demand more precision in your training.  You will strive to prevent anyone from touching you or even getting close because, you know it could be deadly.  You cannot afford even one mistake, so the techniques you train must have a margin for error.  A high margin for error gives you a better chance of applying your technique effectively. Physical size, strength, and tempering can make a big difference in one’s ability to thwart an unarmed attack, but they are less significant in an armed attack.  A knife or bullet will easily penetrate the tissue of both the strong and the weak.  Your fitness and physical strength are important, but you must not rely on them as your primary advantage.  You need tactics and techniques that will give you an edge.  This includes learning to use positioning, leverage, stuns, distractions, and mobility to help you prevail. If you assume your opponent is armed, then you will not be caught off-guard if he is.  Your training will be more widely applicable to a variety of situations because you have selected techniques that are more versitile. The Opponent is Trained The huge growth in popularity of the Ultimate Fighting Championships and Mixed Martial Arts in the past two decades has made martial arts and martial arts training much more mainstream.  This shift in popularity has resulted in more trained people and more people who are familiar with techniques that can be used effectively for criminal attacks. A quick search on Youtube offers thousands of options for those who have no formal instruction.  It’s likely that more people are trained today than ever before, and that includes the bad guys too. Criminal gangs are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their training and are using military style training and tactics. In 2011, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Gang Intelligence Center determined that by 2009, members of 53 different gangs from over 100 different territories within the US joined the military to expand their operations and to bring the tactics they learned back to use in their criminal activities.  This includes gang members who were recruited by gangs and sent to join the military specifically with the intent of learning special weapon and combat skills. Just the experience of a seasoned violent criminal can make him much harder to fight.  Criminals hone their tactics as they repeat their violent crimes again and again.  A mugger may know, and have actually experienced, the majority of possible responses you, as his victim, may try when he attempts to rob you.  Do not underestimate this advantage.  Imagine: Your assailant has mugged one hundred people, but you have never been mugged before.  His experience far outweighs yours in this situation.  When selecting you as a victim, he is also selecting the ideal circumstances that would give him a win.  He is waiting until the best time when you are most vulnerable.  Your training should include education on common criminal mugging tactics, so you can be better prepared to avoid and survive them. Preparing for a trained opponent requires hard work and an earnest study of self defense.  If you assume that your potential attackers are trained, then you will push yourself to learn more.  To really prepare, you must understand and anticipate options that your attackers have.  You need to know how to limit those options and how to gain an advantage over your attacker.  You need to know your techniques well.  Know how they fail, and know how to stop them from being countered.  You need to know how to recover if your technique fails.  You cannot afford to leave yourself open by assuming your opponent is going to be unprepared for your defense.  Doing so would be a blunder. When you understand that your survival is actually a competition, then you will work harder to win.  The opponent is training to hurt you, you must be ready to stop him.  Every day you rest, he is training. You likely will not perform at your best when under the stress of an attack.  Even in training, where there is usually no threat of death, we all have bad days.  In order to really be ready for a trained opponent, you need to master and review your skills.  Do this so that you can still be effective, even on a bad day. Really, you should not only be ready for a trained opponent, but also for one who is bigger, stronger, faster, and more talented than you.  Focus on training techniques that will still work under mismatched conditions. Again this includes avoiding techniques that rely on your physical skills such as strength and speed alone.  Practice techniques that are magnified by leverage, position, and timing.  Use dynamic training to challenge your ability to apply your skills.  Do not assume your opponent is unfamiliar with what you may do.  Keep working hard to overcome the advantages such an opponent will have over you. This assumption is really about being ready for someone who is better than you.  If you prepare for someone who is also trained, you will have a better understanding of what you need to do, and you will have the right training to back it up. There is More than One Opponent Attacks that involve multiple assailants are common.  Hate crimes, the knockout game, and similar variants are often perpetrated by multiple offenders and can result in death of the victim.  Flash mob thuggery and rioting youth often pick victims who simply were in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Common mugging tactics often involve more than one criminal. Typical methods include one person distracting or luring the victim, while an accomplice then approaches from a blind spot for the assault. Terroristic and other deadly mass attacks with multiple participants are becoming more frequent within the US.  According to the Global Terrorism Database, collected by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, acts of terrorism, that are not state sponsored, have been increasing each year.  In 2015, there were 38 incidents labeled as terrorism in the United States.  These terrorist incidents resulted in 44 deaths and 52 injuries.  In 2014, there were 26 incidents. In 2013, there were 19 incidents, and in 2012, there were 17 incidents.  In just 3 years, the number of incidents more than doubled.  Though some of these attacks are committed by only one person, many terrorist attacks are committed by two or more attackers working together as a team. Because attacks that involve more than one offender are common, you should train to address multiple attacker scenarios. The threat of multiple opponents requires continuous situational awareness.  Assume that there are multiple opponents, and train your mind to continually look out for them.  Expecting multiple opponents will prevent you from leaving yourself open by giving 100% of your attention to just one attacker.  Train yourself to scan whenever possible.  Recognizing a threat early will allow you to be proactive.  If you are always looking for an additional attacker, then you are much more likely to see him before you are caught off-guard. If you look for tactics that work in both single and multiple attacker scenarios, then you can narrow your selection of viable techniques.  This narrowing will allow you to focus your training on the most relevant techniques and, therefore, help you get the most out of your training.  For example: With multiple attackers, you must be prepared to disengage at any time.  Facing off with a single opponent for too long will leave you open to being overwhelmed as multiple opponents surround and close on you.  Instead, you must stay mobile and, whenever possible, avoid using techniques that commit you to a stationary position.  Hit and run tactics will be your first choice over grappling or ground fighting tactics that may tie you up. Spend most of your time on the training that will create habits that help you in any situation. You still need a wide spread of self defense skills, including grappling, to be fully prepared.  However, by anticipating that any attack may include multiple opponents, you will then logically budget the majority of your training resources for those techniques that will serve you best. Conclusion There are many factors that should be considered in your self defense training.  The three assumptions above are important factors that will influence the mindset, direction, and content of your training.  If you start by preparing yourself for the worst case scenario, then you will be ready for anything else. Expect that your attacker is armed, trained, and supported by friends. Many people believe that they will never be victimized by violence.  They either believe that they don’t deserve to be victimized, so they will not be, or they think they can just avoid it somehow.  Don’t be like those people. Don’t live in denial.  Even if you try to avoid violence, it can find you.  Accept that you could be the target of violence and do something about it. You cannot control what others do, but you have control of what you do.  Study, train, prepare yourself. Don’t become complacent or put too much faith in your current state of training.  Keep improving your skills and understanding.  Find new sources for knowledge and perspective.  It’s a war, and if you do not continue to train and evolve, you will become obsolete.

We all seek ways to get better at our skills. We learn new drills. We add new techniques to our arsenal. We find new ways to test our skills. Learning these things can keep us excited about growth. However, learning new techniques and drills don’t always make us better or even more skilled in applying our chosen arts. A lot of our improvement comes from spending time cultivating the skills that we have already learned. It’s not so much about the techniques, but the quality time we spend practicing them. We need many repetitions and the experience that comes with those repetitions to get better. Initially, we start developing a new skill by training the body to move properly. With more repetition, we develop precision that allows us to control the weapon and be more accurate. Eventually, we begin to “feel” the right movement without needing to think about every detail. It takes a lot of repetition to make this happen. With all of this repetition, we learn subtle details about the movement that allow us to play with it. We learn how we can modify it and how we can connect it to other movements that we know already. This is how we commit a skill to long term memory and make it a part of us. This is how we make a skill available for use. This is the initial progression for mastering a skill. The Power of 500 The truth is, you need a lot of repetition and experience to make significant progress. However, how long that takes is up to you. If you change your training approach, you can also change your skill development timeline. How can we do that? Put simply: Do more now. Get more repetitions done in a shorter amount of time. If you approach your training this way, you will begin to notice improvements in hours vs. weeks, in days vs. months, and in months vs. years. Imagine this scenario: Someone challenges you to a fight, or maybe you just sign up for a tournament. You are scheduled to fight after two weeks. Both you and your opponent train to prepare for the fight. As a part of the training, you both decide to practice striking combinations with a rattan stick. You each start a daily routine. Your opponent decides to do one hundred strikes a day in order to prepare for the fight. One hundred is a good number for repetitions. Many people get bored after just fifteen or twenty. You, however, really want to be ready, so you decide to do five hundred strikes per day. Let’s look at how this unfolds:      After day 1, your opponent has practiced 100 strikes. You have done 500.      After day 2, your opponent has done 200 repetitions. You have done 1000.      After day 3, your opponent is at 300. You are at 1500. Who is going to win after 2 weeks of this? You both had the same amount of time (two weeks), but you trained much more in that same amount of time. If you both actually trained for all fourteen days, then your opponent would have completed 1400 strikes, and you would have completed 7000. This approach is what Grand Tuhon Leo Gaje calls "the Power of Five Hundred.” It’s more than just cranking out more repetitions than your opponent.It’s More than just the Total If you perform five hundred repetitions in a row of one movement, then you will develop much more skill in that one training session, than if you were to split those repetitions over several sessions. This accelerated development is not just from the numerical fact that you have done more repetitions. It is also due to the fact that when you do many repetitions in a row, you become more aware of the subtleties of the movement. As you become more aware and more intimate with the movement, you can refine it more. If you only do a few repetitions in a row, then you will have a harder time recognizing and cultivating the subtleties that could make a big difference in your ability to apply it. If you break up the repetitions across multiple sessions, you lose some of that intimate familiarity with the movement. This is true even if you just break up the repetitions into smaller sets, with breaks in between those sets, all in the same training session. After a break of even just one minute, you will have to work back into the state of deep awareness that you cultivated in the previous set. If you break up the same number of repetitions among different training sessions, then you may even backslide a bit between sessions, so it will take you longer to get back to where you left off. Try to do all five hundred, in one session, with no breaks. The actual number of repetitions does not really matter. It could be 300, 500, 600, 1000, etc. What matters really is the concept of pushing yourself to do a lot more repetitions in a shorter period of time. This approach is especially relevant when you are developing your coordination and familiarity with a new skill. Quality, not QuantityYou must stay engaged for the training to work. Your mind must be present and working hard during all of the repetitions. You cannot just blow through repetitions while your mind drifts. You must consciously practice with the intent of making each repetition better than the one before it. You must explore, analyze, test, reach, and adjust the movement in what Anders Ericsson, an expert in what drives human performance, calls deliberate practice. Deliberate practice is a method of using high concentration and self challenge to reach high levels of skill. The quality of your attention during practice is more important than the quantity of the repetitions you complete. Practice with quality being more important than quantity. Five hundred repetitions performed without you trying to learn from and improve them are almost wasted repetitions. You will get more out of only one hundred repetitions if you are truly engaged in them. However, with practice, you will be able to stay mentally engaged for longer durations. This mental stamina will allow you to perform more quality repetitions in a single session. Putting it into Practice When you start training in high volume, gradually work up the repetitions over a period of several days or weeks. Allow yourself time to recover between sessions. Warm up before your training. Stretch and mobilize your joints to avoid become overly sore and tight. Overuse injuries like tendonitis can be a big setback if you do not take the steps to prevent and manage them. Learn to recognize the warning signs you are over doing it and get rest when your body needs it. Apply the power of five hundred with the skills that will give you the most use. This includes your fundamentals. You can easily use it to improve your footwork and striking skills. You can apply it towards your biggest weakness and eradicate it quickly. Consider reducing the number of new skills that you practice in a session. Focus on making more progress with just a few things. Instead of touching on ten skills or techniques, devote your time to only two or three. This will allow you to dig deeper into the things you practice and benefit more from the depth of understanding that you develop. When you practice drills and techniques with a partner, do more repetitions before changing roles. It does not need to be five hundred for you to see the benefit. Instead of doing three repetitions, then switching roles with your partner, try ten repetitions, then switch roles. It makes a difference. Incorporating high repetition training into your regular practice sessions should not replace the other practice that you do. There has to be a balance in your training. The high repetition approach is for primarily for developing your coordination and stamina. You do need to learn new things, and continue to improve the skills you have already been learning with other training methods. Conclusion The value of this approach is that you can get much better at a skill in a shorter period of time. Apply this method regularly or simply use it when you are preparing to meet a specific goal or challenge. Get battle ready for a tournament or be unstoppable on sparring night. Prepare for a test or be just ready for anything. In short: Do the work now. Do more of it now. Dedicate yourself to improving your skills right away. Don’t think it must take you a lifetime to be good. Aside from the skill itself, you will develop stamina, discipline and grit. Now, pick up your stick. Go outside, and get to work!

One of the most important factors in your training to get right is reaction training. No matter how great your technique is, if you have not trained it properly, it will be useless. You must train the technique to be reflexive. You cannot rely solely on your conscious ability to analyze your situation and recall the appropriate technique when you need to act in fractions of a second. It is just too slow. Using a progression to train your reaction skills is the best path to your success. Here is how to get started:Coordinate the Mechanics Program your body to do what you want it to do. First, learn the movements related to the technique or response that you plan to make reflexive. Coordination and familiarity with the movements of the technique are the cornerstones of training for success in this. Your central nervous system must develop a clear map of what it should do when the time to react comes. Mindful practice and quality repetition together with a clear understanding of the right mechanics will get you there. With practice and repetition, your mind will create an internal profile of a technique so that you can access and perform it quickly. The more you practice and refine the movements involved in the technique, the more easily and quickly your mind can access them. After many repetitions, your mind will eventually consolidate all the individual motor movements that comprise the technique into a set. This set can then function as if it where only one movement. With only one trigger, all the related movements can be launched together, in sync. This is possible because the movements and their relationship as a set has been committed to your long term memory. Because the set is in your long term memory, you will be able to respond without needing to consciously remember all the individual parts of the complete technique. This is crucial. The more definition you can embed in that memory, the better your ability to recall it with precision. This process of motor learning and the result is commonly referred to as "muscle memory." Moving to reaction training too soon will not give you the best results. Take your time and really develop your coordination before moving on to reaction training. In order to take advantage of muscle memory, you must first create an experience that you can remember. If your central nervous system does not have a complete profile on your technique, then you cannot expect the recall to be very smooth or accurate. When practicing techniques under pressure, your training experience will often be etched more deeply into your muscle memory than it would be if there were no pressure. It is the stress and emotion from the pressure that causes this to happen. Your mind pays more attention when there is danger or challenge. This creates a more vivid memory. If after several repetitions under pressure, you do not respond the way you intend, then slow down and reduce the pressure so you can get it right. Otherwise, you may develop bad habits that are hard to undo. This is why you should give your mind a better chance of getting it right by working hard on coordination at first. Don’t obsess over the tiny details, but make sure you can repeatedly perform the movement correctly on command at full or near full speed before you focus on reaction training. Even after you have started reaction training, you should continue to improve your coordination. The better coordinated you are with the specific movements you are training, the faster you can perform them. Because of this, it is best to continue to practice your techniques again in future sessions to maintain and improve your familiarity with the movements. Identify the Cues for Reaction You need to know what to look for before you can react. To develop your ability to react, you need to know what is it about your opponent’s movement or situation that will cue you to the proper response. Design your reaction drills so that the cues are clear and you know exactly what the response should be. For example: One drill may require you to recognize a particular angle of attack. Another drill may require you to recognize a specific situation, such as when your partner’s weapon is down, or he is somehow exposed. The structure of your reaction training drills should make this very objective. Set up your drills so that you can focus on recognizing the cues, not exploring new movements or pondering theories. This clear structure will speed up the learning process. Once you know the proper cue or situation that you need to recognize, you can then focus on the tells that help you recognize it quicker. You must know what it is you are looking for, and you will have more success if you can recognize it quickly. To do this, refine your ability to recognize telegraphing movements that your partners present when they are preparing or just beginning to deliver an attack. These telegraphing movements, also known as tells, can range from changes of expression, movement of the eyes, shifts in balance, footwork, positioning, posture, etc. that present before the actual technique or movement that will cue you is performed. When you improve at recognizing these details, you will recognize the cues and telegraphing movements earlier. When you can recognize them earlier, you will have more time to process what is happening and more time to respond.Increase the Challenge Gradually increase the level of challenge in the reaction drills as you improve. You want to find a balance so that you are reaching above your current skill level, but still getting it right 65 to 85 percent of the time. As you improve, the level of challenge is increased to match your performance. Your performance will still fall into the sweet spot of the percentage mentioned above, but you will be doing the drill with more challenging. The gradual increase will allow you to progress successfully and progress further. Ride a wave of improvement as far as you can, rather than crash hard and struggle to get your technique right, even once. Use this gradual, progressive approach to adding challenge so that you can continually develop. There is a place for trying the impossible, but in most of your training, focus on what gets you the right results. Use the gradual approach. Increase the challenge in your reaction drills by modifying the following: Increase the speed of the attacks / cues. This will reduce the amount of time available to recognize the cue. It will train the student to process the information and act more quickly. This is likely the first adjustment you should include when adding challenge to a drill. Decrease the amount of time between the attacks or cues. This will reduce the amount of time for the student to get mentally ready for the next turn. When done progressively, this will allow the student to regain his mental balance and state of readiness more quickly and keep him in a higher state of awareness. Reduce or minimize the tells in the cue so that there is less information to recognize. When there are fewer or less obvious tells, the student will become more keen in recognizing the ones that are available. For best results, reduce them gradually, one at a time and test the results before removing another. To do this, the feeder must be aware of what tells he is presenting. This may include manipulating things like looking at the intended target, leaning or stepping to the side, raising the elbow, loading the shoulder, etc. Increase the number of variables or cues in the drill. If the student must make a decision that involves selecting the appropriate response, he will need to process more than one if / then sequence. This process takes time and practice. Usually, it is best not to include more than 3 variables at a time when first working on reaction skills. Above are just a few options that will help you improve reaction time and performance by adding more challenge and pressure to your training. Adjust one option at a time and wait to see progress before combining them together. Avoid introducing faking movements into reaction drills until a baseline of proficiency has already been developed. Though the end goal is to be able to operate under constantly changing, chaotic conditions, the programming of skill requires an organized process that starts simple. Once you are good at recognizing and reacting to the cues, then the added pressure and challenge of faking movements can be included. Don’t expect to transition cleanly from your slow coordinated practice to reacting smoothly within fast-paced reaction drills. Your skills will break down initially when you are under pressure. However, they will improve through practice under pressure. This is a normal part of the process. Don’t let it discourage you. ConclusionTraining for reaction requires a structured and progressive approach. Developing sound coordination and a good understanding of the cues and proper responses involved are prerequisites for reaction training. From there, success is all about the training method. By gradually adding pressure that allows you to reach just a little above your current skill level, you will make progress quickly, and you will continue to see improvement. Going too fast and too hard can lead to sloppy results and bad habits. We cannot rely on a huge leap of faith to get us from basic drills to live application in just one step. A sink or swim approach of going from 0 to 100 MPH and expecting our skills to keep up is unreasonable. Ultimately the goal is to use drills to bridge our skills up to the level required for application. Drills are tools that should be used to move you towards using technique that will translate to application in a live situation, not just something that will give you a win in the drill format alone. Adjust your training drills to support this point, and you will see useful results. Breathe life into your drills and get some good work done.

In more than 20 years of teaching the Filipino Martial Arts, I have seen many students grow from a fresh beginner into a solid intermediate student, then a seasoned advanced student and some on to instructor ranks. Because of this experience, I have been able to observe several trends in the growth a student in the Filipino Martial Arts. I have seen students go through various stages of learning, develop habits that support growth, and navigate life’s obstacles along the way. Through this, I have been able to determine what key factors result in the long term success of my students. When I start training a new student, I try to set him up for success not just in the short term, but for things that he will need years later in his training. This article includes a list of tips related to those factors. Many of the tips below are common sense, but they are all important. Most of them pertain to pursuing quality training, but some include things like mindset and study habits. 1. Find a good teacher and follow the advice of that teacher. Do whatever it takes to find a good teacher. A good instructor will take you on an efficient path for learning that will save you years of time. A good teacher will help you avoid developing bad habits. A teacher will also give you coaching and feedback. It is very difficult to identify what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong without someone with experience to help you. Most of your training time will likely be done alone, and you can use video, notes and books to help you develop, but a good teacher is critical for learning. Fly, drive, walk, save, beg - do what you need to do to get time with a teacher. An ongoing class is great for consistent growth and feedback, but you can also learn by taking occasional lessons with a teacher and working hard on your own. 2. Train Regularly The key to progress in learning Kali is consistency. Go to class often. Practice at home frequently. Visit your teacher on a regular basis. Several short, focused training sessions are often better than one marathon training session every once in a while. After your training, associations related to your skill development are processed in your brain when you sleep. Multiple training sessions, with sleep in between, will build more sound and complete associations in your brain. The process of touching on your skills over multiple sessions will help you refine and correct your movement and build a deep understanding because your mind has had more opportunities to process your learning. Unfortunately, your skills will degrade over time. If you wait too long between sessions, you may backslide and lose progress that you worked hard to gain. To keep moving forward, you must practice often. To avoid losing the edge on your skills, and just maintain what you have, you still need to practice even after you have learned something.3. Practice outside of class. Don’t rely on class time alone to develop your skills. Your time in class or with your instructor is for starting new skills, progress checkups, fine tuning current skills, getting feedback, coaching, and training guidance. After that, you must do your homework. Set a reasonable, weekly practice schedule that you can maintain and stick to it. You don’t need a lot of time. Even with 15 minutes, you can to practice one or two things. Invite your training partners to meet and review the material you both are learning. Time with a partner is essential in the Filipino martial arts. Not only can you practice the drills that require another person, but also you have more minds helping you analyze the material. You will grow faster when you have the insights of others supporting your own study. They will see things you do not see, and they will help you explore your own thoughts about the techniques and drills you are practicing. 4. Review the basics often. In the filipino martial arts, one set of movements has many applications, so spend a lot of time training, refining, and reviewing those movements. These are things like triangular footwork, basic strikes, combinations, and counters like umbrellas and other basic counterstrikes. Typically these movements are fundamental skills, those upon which your advanced skills depend. Without being competent in the fundamentals you cannot perform more advanced techniques. To keep your fundamental skills from degrading, practice them often. Incorporate them into your warmups. Take time to review the details and see if there is anything you can improve about them. This will make you better. Because many techniques rely on those fundamentals, just one improvement in the fundamentals will result in improvements in many of your other skills. 5. Swing your sticks and hit tires, a lot. Practice your striking frequently. Mastering a skill can take a long time, but if you can practice it more often, in a shorter period of time, you will progress faster. For example, instead of practicing once a week, practice once a day. The mileage may be the same, but you will get there sooner. Also, instead of practicing a striking combination 100 times in a session, practice it 500 times. Not only will you have the opportunity to make more refinements in one session, but also you will build more muscle memory, develop stamina, and even endurance as you do it. Hit tires with your sticks. By hitting tires, you will learn to hit harder and you will develop your grip at the same time. If you pay attention to the results you get from hitting the tire each time, you will understand how to generate more power with better body mechanics. As your arm gets tired, your body will find more effective mechanics for hitting hard without the force generated solely by your arm. 6. Pursue fitness and good health. Make your body and asset, not a liability. Your body must be ready to perform, it should not impose limitations on your ability to apply your skills. Workout. Develop strength, power, and endurance with a mix of strength training and metabolic conditioning. You need to get stronger in order to hit harder and move faster. Focus on exercise that is short and intense. Stretch and learn what it takes to help your body recover. Training hard in the Filipino Martial Arts may give you some exercise, but it is not enough for well rounded fitness. Eat right. Help your body and mind thrive. Learning requires a clear mind and good fuel. The right nutrition will help you with that. Just because you can function while eating poorly now, does not mean that you are getting away with it long term. If you are learning the Filipino martial arts for self defense, then you should also recognize that things like heart disease and diabetes are also threats to your life. If you are looking for way to learn and move faster, and be better at almost anything else you do, including the Filipino martial arts, then investing in your health is a great place to start.7. As you progress, include increasingly challenging reaction and sparring drills in your training. You need to be challenged and practice at the threshold of your abilities in order to get better. Drills that progressively allow you to improve your performance under stress will prepare you for application. Just remember, you cannot go from 0 to 100 miles per hour and expect your skills to be proficient. Make sure you have a basic command of the fundamentals before you include reaction drills and sparring drills into your training. Your movements need to have enough muscle memory behind them so that they will not completely degrade when you are distracted by additional variables and pressures from the drill. Start simple, then gradually add more pressure (more speed, additional angles of attack or other variables) as long as you continue to see your performance improve. If you cannot get the technique right about 60- 80 percent of the time, while under pressure, then you may need to turn the intensity down a bit, until you can. As you get better, you can turn up the intensity, but keep the success rate the same. Training in this manner will improve your competency under pressure and minimize frustration along the way. Incorporate sparring after you have worked on other preparatory drills that pressure you. I have often found that when students start sparring too soon, they usually do not have the skills needed to get the most out of sparring and they tend to develop bad habits that are hard to break. Don’t get caught in that pitfall. Work up to open sparring progressively while monitoring your success. 8. Develop the mindset you need to be successful. There is a lot to developing a winning mindset, but the right mindset will make a huge difference in your progress. Develop a love for the struggle it takes to make yourself better. Be patient. Improvements don’t always come at a steady pace. You will likely hit plateaus along the way. Don’t be discouraged. It’s normal. Don’t settle for good enough. Work on your weaknesses. Don’t ignore them. Make them your new strengths. Be tenacious. Issues with time, finances, injuries, life, will get in the way of your training. Find a way to keep going. Overcome obstacles that get in your way. Keep an open mind. You must continue to grow, no matter how skilled you are. Just because you have seen a technique or drill before does not mean there is nothing left to learn. It should be fun to learn something new, or find an opportunity to get better at something you already know. Find a way to enjoy the process. If you cannot find a way to be excited about training itself, it will be hard to keep going. 9. Set goals. Most of us have long term goals, but we often need some smaller goals to help us continue moving in the right direction and staying focused. Identify your big goals like "master the art," "become an instructor" or just "be badass,” then figure out some short term goals that will help you get there. Having goals that you can attain in one session, one week, one month, and one year allow you to see success along the way to your big goal. It not only feels good, but it will keep you motivated and let you zero in on what is important for you to be doing now. Use visualization to help you get there. If you can see your goals more clearly, then you will reach them more easily. Define your goals by writing them out, visualizing what they will look like, and imagining how you will feel when you reach them. This may include things like being able to react to basic attacks without thinking, being able to strike continuously without pausing between combinations, or feeling like your body is acting independent of your conscious mind. The more vivid your vision, the more likely you are to get there. You can model yourself after your instructor or someone who’s skill you admire.10. Keep a journal of your training. Write down what you learn. At first, it feels as though you will never forget what you learned, but after a while, the details fade. After many years, you may have developed a lot of skill, but you will have forgotten many of the drills and tools that got you there. If you ever decide to teach, a notebook with all your training drills recorded is invaluable. Even if you never plan to teach, a journal with the various drills and techniques you have learned will be very useful for review and refinement as you brush up on previously studied skills. Advanced skills usually depend on good fundamentals. Sometimes getting better at an advanced level is just improving your basics. In your journal, you can record your goals, log your training sessions, and note what you plan to focus on in your training. Adding your thoughts to each of these will help you keep on track and make regular progress. Follow the 10 tips above for learning Kali, Escrima, and Arnis above and you will be very successful. Talent in the Filipino Martial arts is developed through good training. Focus on your training and you will reach any goal you set.