Moving a Boulder With a Toothpick

Sensei Ryan Nicholls here, owner of, and head instructor at RKD Martial Arts, welcome to my Blog, Martial Arts Perth.

Its the start of a new year which inevitably leads us into a period of reflection and often prompts us to ask – “what exactly did I achieve last year?” Last year at this time you probably made a number of resolutions that you were determined you were going to stick to, but how many did you actually achieve? If you achieved one of your resolutions from last year, then you are in the minority, as most people will have given up on their New Year’s Resolutions before the end of January. I read a statistic that said that only 30% of resolutions get achieved. The problem with this is that it is not 30% spread across the population, this number is skewed upwards by those small percentage of people who set themselves ten or twenty new years resolutions and achieve them all. How is it that they can achieve so many when most of us can’t even achieve one?

The key to understanding why we give up so easy on our resolutions is in understanding human nature. Humans like consistency. It is a fundamental part of human nature that most of us like things to stay the same. Routine creates comfort and reduces stress. The problem with routine is that the results will never be different if we keep doing the same thing. In other words, if we want a different outcome, change is necessary.

The second aspect of human nature that sabotages our resolution efforts is that humans are procrastinators. By nature we will generally not do something today unless we have to do it, as it is far easier to think about doing it tomorrow… or the day after… or even next week. How many times have you put off doing something important by sitting on the couch and saying “I’ll do it tomorrow.” The problem is tomorrow it will become next week, and next week it will become next month, and before you know it a year has gone by and it never happened. Now this is fine if you like things the way they are; the problem is if you liked things the way they are you wouldn’t be making resolutions to change them in the first place!

So how do we get around our inherent nature when making resolutions? The simple answer is to make it easy for us to stick to. Studies into the psycho-social benefits of martial arts have shown that martial arts practitioners tend to show an increased goal orientation and goal completion mind set which extends beyond their training and into their everyday lives. So what is it about the martial arts that we can borrow when trying to achieve our own goals?

Martial arts by their very nature are structured in terms of short term, medium term and long term goals. When you first start training that black belt seems impossible to achieve but its the long term goal that almost every person starting martial arts has in mind. The steps to achieving that black belt are broken up into a number of short term and medium term goals. At every belt level you learn a number of techniques. Each individual technique represents a mini-goal to be achieved, and achieving each of these mini-goals is a small step to achieving the medium term goal, that of belt promotion to the next level. This constant orientation towards achievement in the short and medium term provides focus on an achievable goal rather than looking at something that seems almost unattainable. So how can we apply this to our resolutions?

First, set your major goal. A good goal should be realistic, measurable, have a deadline and be written down. “I want to lose 10 kilos by my wedding on the 30th of September” – this would seem to represent a good goal, assuming you have 10 kilos to lose; its unrealistic to lose 10kg in any time frame if you are already a healthy weight for your height, so make sure your goal is something achievable. Writing it down helps you to focus on your goal – an unwritten goal is nothing more than a wish.

Next, break down your goal into smaller goals. Now when I break down my major goal into smaller goals I usually make it so that the sum of the smaller goals is actually greater than the major goal. For example if my major goal was to save $1000 by the end of the year that would equate to saving $19.23 each week, but I would at least round that to $20 per week, and probably try to extend myself and set my weekly goal at $25 – that way achieving my goal week after week will provide a buffer for that one week where something unexpected happens and I am unable to meet my weekly goal. It is easier to install a buffer into your goal up front than it is to have to adjust all your smaller goals to achieve a short fall.

Next, make a list of everything that you can do to achieve your goals. Articulating the things you can do provides a mental prompt to actually do them. For example, if your goal is weight loss related you could park further away from the door at work or the shops and walk, you could take the stairs rather than the lift, you could have an apple rather than that chocolate bar for a snack, you could choose a salad over McDonalds for lunch, you could wake up early and go for a walk, you could go for a walk when you get home etc. Basically your list should be extensive because it is the sum of the smaller things that help you achieve your goal.

Take the list of everything you can do and plan which ones you are going to do and when you are going to do it. It may be a change that you make every day (taking the stairs instead of the lift) or it may be something you need to schedule in (taking a martial arts class). Most importantly, once you’ve made your plan, execute it! The single biggest killer is that people won’t even take the small step necessary to achieve their larger goal. There is a saying in the martial arts - "a black belt is simply a white belt who didn't quit". The only way to achieve your goal is to start, and never give up. As an exercise, review your plan every day and if you failed to achieve something on your plan, write down why – and don’t lie to yourself either, the major excuse you’ll find is “I was lazy” or “I couldn’t be bothered". Each day, make sure you have achieved at least one thing that moves you towards your goal. As motivation, implement a reward system for interim goals, or possibly even a penalty fine system when you fail to achieve something on your plan - anything that will keep you focused on the task at hand.

Finally, measure your results against your goal. If you don’t achieve your goal don’t be too hard on yourself. Ask yourself this (and be honest with yourself) – “did I do everything I could have to achieve my goal?” If you can honestly say “yes I did”, then perhaps your goal was a little unrealistic, if you could have done more, then that is a learning for next time. Importantly, if you don’t achieve your goal, focus on what you did achieve – if my goal was to lose 10kg by a certain date and I only lost 5kg, well I’ve lost 5kg which is a good achievement not something to get down on myself about. You want to make the process of achieving your goals a positive one. So by following these simple steps you too can have the goal orientation of a black belt.

Thanks for reading – until next week make sure you subscribe to the blog, and if you have any subjects you would like to see covered, post them in the comments section below.

Continuous Improvement in Self defence

Sensei Ryan Nicholls here, owner of, and head instructor at RKD Martial Arts, welcome to my Blog, Martial Arts Perth.


There are many aspects to self defence that I teach my students, but I wanted to look at one particular aspect for when the situation has escalated and fighting is necessary. The one aspect I stress with all my students is the strategy of continuous improvement. Given that the situations that could require self defence are too numerable to count, and that there is no ultimate technique or ultimate style to rely on, the one "perfect" strategy is that of continuous improvement. While the approaches to this strategy will vary as much as the situations themselves, the over-arching strategy of continuous improvement is the only way to ensure success in any self defence situation.

Continuous improvement simply means that from one moment to the next in any self defence situation, you are looking to upgrade your position relative to your opponent(s). If each movement you do succeeds in improving your position relative to your opponents, you are increasing the chance of your ultimate goal succeeding – that of survival.

A simple example is probably the best way to illustrate this strategy at work:

A situation escalates and I find myself in a straight line with two opponents - one directly in front of me and one directly behind me. They are currently out of range but close enough that if I engage one, the other will be upon me almost immediately. This is obviously a bad position for me to be in as I am unable to monitor ahead of me and behind me, meaning I could be blindsided with a king hit to the back of the head by the opponent I can't monitor. Rather than going for a one hit knockout and therefore only having to fight the one remaining, I choose the safer option of moving sideways, turning the straight line into a triangle. From this position I have line of sight to both of my opponents, and unless a third opponent jumps in, I can no longer be blindsided. 

The example above depicts something fairly simplistic and a simple movement has shifted me to a less vulnerable position. Assume I did something else, say going for that one hit knockout. As I throw my chi-focused, super-awesome, one hit knockout punch, my opponent does something unfathomable - he blocks it, and grabs me! I respond immediately and throw a second strike that catches him, but as I go to move something collides with the back of my skull and the world goes blurry, then dark. 

In the second example my strategy did nothing to improve my position - as I advanced forward to strike the opponent in front of me, opponent 2 closed distance. Even if my initial strike had been successful, chances are that opponent 2 would still be on top of me and I would have been struck. This wasn't a strategy of continuous improvement as I hadn't changed my position - I was still between two opponents facing one, with my back to the other.

Now if in the first situation there had been a door in that direction, and I had exited and ran, I have achieved everything a successful self defence strategy should. I had started in a bad situation. From one moment to the next I had upgraded my relative position, by getting out from between my opponents. Then by continuing out through the door (assuming they didn't chase me), I had achieved my ultimate goal - that of survival.

Regardless of the style of martial art you learn, continuous improvement should be the cornerstone of your strategy. Whether on the ground in BJJ or wrestling, in the ring in muay thai or boxing, knife fighting in eskrima, or a combination of the above in jujitsu, continuous improvement must be the strategy that formulates what you do next. While it seems a basic concept, a poor decision resulting in a downgrade in your relative position will usually be the reason that you lose. In competition, a loss is just a loss, and may provide motivation to train harder. In self defence however, a 'loss' can have far reaching consequences. 

Thanks for reading – until next week make sure you subscribe to the blog, and if you have any subjects you would like to see covered, post them in the comments section below.

Same sh*t, different spoon.

Sensei Ryan Nicholls here, owner of, and head instructor at RKD Martial Arts, welcome to my Blog, Martial Arts Perth.

Yesterday, my dojo hosted a workshop on the Filipino Martial Arts run by Grand Maestro Greg Henderson and Maestro Andrew Roberts of Diamondback Eskrima. GM Greg ran through a number of eskrima related activities before Maestro Andrew taught some pangamut (Filipino boxing) and dumog (Filipino grappling).

GM Greg Henderson demonstrating the unarmed aspects of eskrima

GM Greg has a saying I have heard him use a number of times, "Same sh*t, different spoon". What he means by this is that it doesn't matter what your martial arts background is, at their core, all martial arts have the same concepts. I once explained this same notion in a less concise way, saying that if all traces of martial arts were to disappear from the planet, as long as there remained a need (to defend yourself), that most of what was lost would be recreated in some form or another. The reason for this is simple - the human body can only move in so many different directions. The core biomechanical structure we have is the same for every single person on the planet. Until such time as we evolve beyond out current physical state, the core concepts at the heart of most martial arts will always be the same. Given this, it is ridiculous how much the martial arts is plagued by politics.

Maestro Andrew Roberts demonstrating some dumog

No Egos Martial Arts is a charity group to bring martial arts schools together, to experience different styles and techniques from other styles while raising funds for charity. As the founding members of No Egos Martial Arts, Diamondback Eskrima, RKD Martial Arts and Aus Wing Chun have a similar philosophy in relation to the martial arts. That philosophy is that all martial arts have something to offer and the politics that plague the martial arts are of no help to anyone involved. As a greater community the martial arts community should be embrasive of other styles, to learn from each other, and to paraphrase Bruce Lee, adopt what we find useful. Anyone who says that their style is the best is wrong, and an idiot. Many martial arts produce outstanding martial artists, but martial artists get old - someone younger, faster and stronger will always be waiting in the wings ready to replace you as the best. 

Participants from all styles at the FMA workshop

When you hear about a seminar being run in another style, see if you can go. Experience as much as you can within the martial arts rather than sitting in the bubble of your style - there is a whole world of possibilities out there and you don't know what you're missing out on unless you give them a try. Even if you only learn one thing, the cost of the seminar is worth it. Now not all seminars are great - I can recall a seminar I attended run by an American "Master" which was atrocious - his and his assistant's technique was sloppy, slow and completely impractical. It was choreography, and bad choreography at that. It was the only seminar I've attended that I thought was a complete waste of time and money. But you will occasionally take away an absolute gem of a technique, or just a different way of looking at something. In one of the workshops I have done with Royce Gracie I learnt a ground position that was perfect for the way I fight on the ground - it wasn't a standard BJJ position but was developed by Royce as part of his MMA experience. I've still never seen it taught anywhere else (except by some of the instructors who attended the workshop), and I wouldn't have learnt it if I hadn't gone to that workshop - that one position made the cost of the workshop worthwhile.

At the workshop yesterday a few of us had a go at the sport side of eskrima - putting on the armour and helmets and whacking each other with sticks. It is a far cry from the self defence aspects of eskrima, but it was a hell of a lot of fun! These types of experiences are what you miss out on when you close yourself off to the idea of other martial arts.


With our diverse community, there are seminars being run all the time in Perth, so leave your politics at home and experience what other martial arts have to offer - you'll be a better martial artist for it.

Thanks for reading – until next week make sure you subscribe to the blog, and if you have any subjects you would like to see covered, post them in the comments section below. 

The Decision Making Loop and Response Training

Sensei Ryan Nicholls here, owner of, and head instructor at RKD Martial Arts, welcome to my Blog, Martial Arts Perth.

I wanted to look at the decision making process, commonly known as the OODA loop. In any given situation our brain goes through a number of steps in order to formulate our response to that situation. This decision process is an ongoing loop as each new piece of information requires us to go through the decision cycle again. Understanding how the brain processes information is a key point in self defence. If you understand the decision making process you can use it against your attacker, as at any moment in a self defence situation your attacker is going through the same decision process.

The Decision Cycle is known as “Boyd's Cycle” or the OODA loop. Colonel John Boyd, a US Air Force pilot and military strategist identified that combat is essentially a time based problem, and that those who could complete the cycle fastest in the constantly changing circumstances of a battle would usually gain a tactical advantage. There are four steps in the OODA loop – observation, orientation, decision, and action. These steps aren't a new concept and have been known by various things when discussed by various people, but OODA is the generally accepted standard.

Observation – this phase is where the brain gathers information. It sees your opponent, you in relation to your opponent, and the surrounding environment.

Orientation – because the brain can only process so much information at one time, it can't make a decision based on constant stimulation and must choose a moment in time on which to make a decision. Orientation is that moment in time, and represents the interpretation of the data gathered during the observation phase.

Decision – Exactly as it sounds, this point is where the brain chooses a response to the stimulation received.

Action – the final part of the OODA loop, action represents the brain giving the body a command, and the body acting on that command.

Not all stimulation is seen

While OODA is the generally accepted standard, when talking self defence I prefer to change the first two phases to Stimulation and Interpretation, as I believe these terms better explain the decision cycle in a self defence situation. I prefer stimulation because not everything in self defence relies on you being able to see and observe in order to gather information. An attack from behind may be preceded by footsteps that we hear (auditory stimulation) or failing that, our first indication of an assault may be the feeling of someone's arm around our neck (tactile stimulation). So rather than our input merely being observation, it may be any one of our senses, or any combination of our senses that provides the initial sensation that stimulates our nervous system and provides the necessary input against which we must make a decision. As a result, I refer to the decision making process as SIDA, not OODA.

While on the subject of stimulation I want to add one other sensory perception into our stimulation bunch and that is of our sixth sense. The sixth sense; often called ESP or Extra Sensory Perception; is a cue that isn't received through the five known senses of sight, sound, smell, taste, or touch. ESP is known by many names – gut instinct, gut feel, women's intuition, psychic perception, and much has been written and researched over whether or not it actually exists. Reading over numerous accounts of violent crime you will see one common theme – the victim sensed or felt that something wasn't right before it happened but chose to ignore this feeling, telling themselves that they were just being paranoid.

I'm not going to debate whether ESP exists or not but I will say this – if you feel that something is wrong, then something is probably wrong; do not wait for that feeling to be proven right. Treat any feeling as if it were fact and act upon it immediately. I can not emphasise enough that self defence is about making the cautionary assumption, and this includes assuming that all gut feelings are correct.

Interpretation is fairly self explanatory as it more closely describes what the brain is doing with the sensory information received in the first step. Interpretation is where experience becomes paramount. The brain takes all of the sensory input and searches through everything it has seen and done in order to tell us exactly what is happening. If your brain has no experience against which it can provide reference, it can't provide any context. While it is different to the adrenaline fuelled fright response, people can experience a number of types of freezing associated with the decision cycle due to lack of experience or, as I like to refer to them, "WTF was that?" moments. In order for us to go through the decision cycle as fast as possible we need context. Context enables our brain to interpret the sensory information and provide us with detail with which we can make a decision. Without context our understanding of the situation is limited and our decision and subsequent action may be inadequate.

Experience provides your brain with reference points with which it can determine exactly what is happening. The more reference points you have the faster your brain can provide an interpretation from which you can make a decision. Without these experiential frames of reference, your brain cannot resolve the stimulation received and has no way of providing an interpretation from which to make a decision, and freezes until more stimulation is received. In a self defence situation, that additional stimulation is usually in the form of pain.

While most inexperienced people get stuck at the interpretation stage, most people with moderate amounts of experience get stuck at the decision phase. They understand what is happening, they're just not quite sure what they should do, or even worse, they know three things they could do and can't decide which one is right. This is another freezing point in the decision cycle.

The decision phase actually involves two stages: solution analysis and solution selection.

Solution analysis – in this step the brain takes all the parameters provided by the stimulation stage, the interpretation of what that means from the interpretation stage, and devises a number of solutions that could potentially solve the problem. This is also where experience can assist the decision making process because if we have experienced this situation before (and particularly if we have solved this situation before) we will have a much smaller number of potential solutions to choose from.

Solution selection – this is the actual decision, where the possible solutions that could solve the problem are assessed and one course of action is chosen.

Action is the final stage of the decision cycle. It is the execution of the technique chosen during the decision phase and is the step in the decision cycle that most martial arts and martial artists focus on. We train our punches so they are fast and powerful, our kicks so they are balanced and strong, and our blocks to be solid and always ready to protect us. We hone our techniques so they are fast and effective. Training action is useless if you never get to it. If you freeze at any of the three preceding phases of the decision cycle you will never get a chance to execute your perfected technique, or any technique for that matter. Because of this, it is in your best interest to ensure that response training is part of your training regime.

Repeating and refining technique is an important aspect of training to make it second nature, but it is only one part of the speed equation to make actions faster, response training is the other. Response training is how you train the complete decision making process. Rather than trying to execute a specific technique in a given position (from a predefined attack), response training requires the attack to be random and the response to be unscripted. For example, rather than having an attacker throw a cross punch and having the defender execute a defined response (a specific block, lock, throw etc, which is what we do in technique training), response training requires that the attack be random and the response from the defender be spontaneous. This trains your brain for random stimulation, interpretation, solution analysis, solution selection and decision action – in other words, the full SIDA process.

In early stages of response training the attack may be limited but still random (for example, hand techniques only) and the response can be limited as well (any throw). As your experience increases, the randomness of the attacks should be increased too, until ultimately, there are no limits on what the attack could be or how it can be initiated.

Now in response training it doesn't matter that you can't remember the name of the technique immediately or even if you remember it at all! The attacker and defender aren't characters in a video game who must call out the name of the technique as they execute it! What matters is that you can execute a successful technique when you need it. Be aware in any of your training what it is you are training. Perfect technique with poor response will render the technique ineffective as will poor technique with a lightning fast response. Ensure that you train technique as well as response – both are necessary in a self defence situation.

If we look at an example we can demonstrate the full SIDA loop in relation to self defence in action.

1. While walking down the street late one night I see a man 10 metres ahead reach into his jacket. As he pulls out an object I see it reflect some light from the street light (stimulation)
2. My brain thinks, “that is a weapon” (interpretation)
3. My brain says I can stand and fight or I can run, and decides running back the way I came is the best solution (decision)
4. I run as fast as I can (action)

If you look at the example of the SIDA loop, it clearly indicates a situation where a decision was made on incomplete information. In that situation I saw the flash of light off an object. What that object was was unknown, so the decision I made could have been completely unjustified, or it may well have saved my life. All I saw in that example was a light flashing off of something and I erred on the side of caution and interpreted that to mean it was a weapon. It could very well have been a mobile phone or a cigarette case, which made my subsequent action over the top. However, if that reflection had been off of a gun or a knife then that action was the best thing I could have done. Self defence is about making the cautionary assumption – it is always better to assume hostile intent and be prepared for it than it is to assume passive intent and have to react when hostile intent becomes apparent.

Lastly, on the subject of action and reaction there is a saying that states that 'action is always faster than reaction'. The reason for this is simple, one person's action provides the stimulation for a second person to start the decision cycle, so a person who initiates an attack is on step four of the decision cycle (initiating their action) which triggers the second person to start step one (stimulation input). While the whole decision cycle may only take a fraction of a second, in a combat situation a fraction of a second can make all the difference. It is sometimes why a pre-emptive strike may very well be the best defensive action to initiate. As Colonel John Boyd identified, combat is a time based problem where a tactical advantage is available for the person who can complete their decision cycle fastest. A pre-emptive strike puts your opponent into a defensive state and means their brain has to react to your action, rather than the other way round, giving you the time advantage in this particular combat situation.

Thanks for reading – until next week make sure you subscribe to the blog, and if you have any subjects you would like to see covered, post them in the comments section below.

Government Regulation in the Martial Arts

Sensei Ryan Nicholls here, owner of, and head instructor at RKD Martial Arts, welcome to my Blog, Martial Arts Perth.

I wanted to look at a topic that comes up regularly within the martial arts community, that of Government regulation.

Government regulation is a somewhat dirty topic in relation to martial arts – proposals for instructor licensing requirements, member registration, criminal background checks, weapon licensing and registration, and industry accreditation have all largely fallen by the way-side. Efforts to introduce industry standards have been largely met with a great deal of resistance from the martial arts community and filed in the too hard basket by government agencies.

In Western Australia, apart from laws governing combat sports in relation to events there are no specific laws or regulations that apply solely to the martial arts industry. Apart from general safety and health regulations, employee legislation etc; in other words, legislation that applies to all businesses; there are only two pieces of legislation that really affect martial arts schools. The first is the Working With Children (Criminal Record Checking) Act 2004. Basically, this Act provides that anyone working with children must get a Working With Children Permit which is only issued after a background check on the individual in question. As such, it isn't martial arts specific as all individuals that deal with children in certain capacities must have this permit, and not all martial arts schools will require it (not all schools cater to minors).

The major piece of legislation that effects many martial arts schools (but again, not all) is the Weapons Act 1999 and its subsequent amendments. Obviously it doesn't effect all martial arts schools as not all martial arts schools train in the use of weapons. The biggest area that this legislation effects is in its definition of 'prohibited' and 'controlled' weapons. Basically, prohibited weapons are those weapons that are completely illegal such as the balisong (butterfly knife). Controlled weapons are those weapons which require a lawful excuse to own and carry, and include most martial arts weapons such as swords, sai, tonfa etc. Under the Act, owning the weapons for martial arts practice is a lawful excuse, and carrying them to and from the dojo is a legitimate reason to be carrying them. Thankfully, Western Australia; unlike our Eastern States counterparts; hasn't gone stupid and enforced ridiculous licensing requirements on simple martial arts weapons.

Various Martial Arts Weapons

Why do I say that it is ridiculous to have weapon licensing requirements for martial arts practitioners? Simply, it is a hassle that gives the illusion of protecting the public while creating an unnecessary headache for the martial arts community. First, most major martial arts weapons are relatively large and difficult to conceal – it is fairly difficult to walk down a street with a katana, yari (spear), or naginata (a type of staff with a blade affixed to one end) without being seen. Second, the biggest kitchen knife I own is longer than any tanto (martial arts knife) and only just shorter than my wakizashi (a short sword), but they don't contemplate regulating kitchen knives - my brother is a chef and hauls a plethora of various sized razor-sharp knives to and from work every day! Third, baton weapons (eg tonfa or hanbo), chain weapons (eg manriki) or combination baton/chain weapons (eg nunchuka), are essentially just sticks and chain links – items readily available from your local Bunnings. In the hands of an experienced martial artist it won't make any difference whether it is a genuine martial arts training weapon or the first item they get their hands on (an improvised weapon) – anything can be a weapon. I think Western Australia has it right – legislation that walks a good line between community safety without impeding legitimate purpose.

WKA - one of many Karate regulatory bodies

Apart from the above pieces of legislation, the government has generally left the martial arts industry to itself. Many martial arts have their own regulatory bodies, but there is often more than one body for each art. Often, countries may have their own body, which is affiliated with a world body, and multiple versions of these too! Take karate for example – karate has the A.K.F. (the Australian Karate Federation) which is the Australian member of the W.K.F. (the World Karate Federation). Karate also has the I.S.K.A. (International Sport Karate Association), the JKA/WF Australia (Japan Karate Association World Federation Australia), and individual style associations such as A.K.K.A. (the Australian Kyokushin Karate Association). Some of these are art related (the JKA for example) and some are sport related (the AKF for example), and as such some are inter-related – for example the JKA/WF Australia is also affiliated with the AKF and WKF. On the downside, these associations and federations are oft times entirely self serving, and are set up to provide an air of legitimacy. Even worse, sometimes they are simply a cash grab by the people involved – a registration or annual fee is paid simply to use the name.

Individual regulatory bodies have their own rules and requirements for membership which again, isn't standard across the industry. Bodies independent of style have been set up in an attempt to provide an over-arching self-regulatory body to keep government from introducing regulations and to liaise with government on industry issues. Although these bodies sometimes do good work, they also have a tendency to be self-serving. One particular organisation for example publicly states that it supports the move for a Uniform National Prohibited Weapons Legislation, where a martial arts instructor must acquire a 'Prohibited Weapons Permit' (like the one currently in place in Victoria) in order to teach weapons. Why would this particular organisation support this move? In Victoria in order to acquire a permit you have to be an “accredited instructor”, and guess which organisation is one of the only sources able to provide accreditation? This particular body goes further than this – they are actively lobbying government to require all martial arts instructors to be accredited in order to teach.

Personally, I object to any organisation that is trying to implement a “one size fits all” blanket to the martial arts industry. Many other instructors see through the rhetoric and spin provided by these bodies and realise that, at heart, they are nothing more than a power grab. These interest groups have no desire in ensuring that the community is protected from shonky practitioners, they just want to be able to roundly proclaim they are the “peak” body, and require that all instructors have taken their accreditation course(s). They even believe they have a mandate to implement this requirement! Unfortunately, a number of martial arts instructors looking at ways to establish their own legitimacy have become associated with these groups, paying them money to do their accreditation courses. If you are an instructor establishing your own school, don't look to these bodies for accreditation, you don't need it! Most of these associations are the martial arts equivalent of the A.C.L. (the Australian Christian Lobby) – they lobby hard, purport to represent everyone who could potentially fall under their umbrella, and make vocal claims to have the best interests of people at heart. In reality, they are trying to steam roll their own agenda onto everyone despite being a minority voice. Make no mistake – most martial arts instructors and schools in Western Australia are not accredited by, or affiliated with, these organisations and want nothing to do with them.

So given that Western Australia lacks a regulatory system for the martial arts industry and doesn't want one implemented, how do we protect consumers against the people who do one year of martial arts and then open their own school, or worse, read a book or watch a DVD and then open their own school? Truth be told, the greatest way to weed them out is through market forces. People with questionable training backgrounds and teaching ability tend to succumb to their own ignorance. Somewhere along the way their credentials will be questioned, usually by someone who knows better. If that doesn't happen, usually the product they are selling will fail to impress – there is only so long a charlatan can hold an illusion for before it begins to fade. In the short term, these people may be able to impress with understanding of basics, but in the long term their lack of skill and experience will show. Like any good or bad business, word gets around, and people who are offering an inferior product tend to go out of business.

Just one of thousands of Martial Arts courses available on DVD or in book format

If the instructor or business owner is quite the snake oil salesman, they may be able to stay in business, attaining new students as the older ones leave in pursuit of new challenges and better instruction. But does this actually require regulation? Someone who has a years worth of training will generally only have a years worth of material to teach unless they do further training or start to make stuff up (hence my warning in a previous article about offers of attaining a black belt in a year). During that year, the stuff taught may actually be quite sound though will probably be limited in scope and understanding. When a student stops being challenged by the content or starts to feel their instructor has nothing further to teach them, they may naturally move to a new instructor who does. There is no inherent time frame that a student signs up for at the start - “I want to train with you for the next 20 years” is not a phrase I have ever heard from a beginner in any school. Teaching relationships naturally come to a conclusion when the instructor no longer has anything left to teach the student. As an example, in the free style system I trained in, after my 4^th dan, my instructor and I agreed that he had nothing left to teach me. Although the system had dan levels beyond 4^th we both felt that there was little for me to learn in those dan levels beyond what I had already accomplished with setting up my own school, and we parted ways. There was no expectation on my part when I started that I would even reach that far – in fact, I had started that martial art to kill time until I decided what I really wanted to do. The fact that I stayed for over 10 years was because I enjoyed it and felt I was learning new skills through most of that journey.

The other issue with government regulation in relation to the martial arts, is who decides what can be accredited as legitimate and what can't? With traditional martial arts, who determines which ones can and which ones can't be included? Do we include Silat but leave out Taekwondo? Do we include Muay Thai but leave out Sambo? Do we include Goju-Ryu Karate but leave out Shotokan Karate? With modern freestyle schools, how do we determine school by school whether one is legitimate while saying another is not? If all styles and systems can be deemed legitimate, then what is the point of regulation?

If we go beyond styles and look at the credentials of individual instructors, who makes the call of what is deemed valid? Do we require all instructors to be at least 1^st dan? If we did this we run into the issue that I wrote about a couple of weeks ago – belt levels across styles are not comparable. Do we then go by years of training experience and require everyone to have been training for at least 5 years first? Again we run into the issue that time in the martial arts isn't the same as experience – a person could be doing 5, 1 hour long training sessions a week for 5 years or they could have been doing 2, 1 hour long training sessions a week for 10 years. The 5 year example has more hands on training experience than the 10 year example.

If we can't go by style or school, and can't set experience standards, do we look at an individual's technique? Who would judge what is good technique and what is bad technique? Anyone judging would have a natural bias to authorise technique that resembles their own, and label others as illegitimate. In a universe of infinite variation, how do we say one person's method of self defence is right, while another person's is wrong? Watching how other styles do some things I have disagreed with their method but very rarely have I believed they were just completely wrong – less effective yes, but not completely wrong. Why should one person or committee; who have vested interests in the outcome; be able to rule one way or the other? And if it was someone or a group of people with no vested interests (someone who doesn't practice martial arts), they would be in no position to make that call.

In essence, government regulation of the martial arts industry creates more issues than it solves. When it comes to consumer protection, Australia has a robust court system to settle individual grievances. Most grievances will never go that far, with consumers generally doing what they do best – talking about their experience. Word-of-mouth is a powerful tool and many martial arts schools live or die by word-of-mouth recommendations. In marketing, they say that a customer who has a good experience will generally tell 2 people, but a customer who has a bad experience will tell 20 people! This is, and always should be, how the martial arts industry is regulated – by consumers of the service provided.

Thanks for reading – until next week make sure you subscribe to the blog, and if you have any subjects you would like to see covered, post them in the comments section below.

Playstation Theory and Throwing Technique

Sensei Ryan Nicholls here, owner of, and head instructor at RKD Martial Arts, welcome to my Blog, Martial Arts Perth.

I wanted to look at a somewhat playful, yet informative, way of explaining the process of executing a throw that I have called “Playstation Theory”.

Despite what my students hope, Playstation theory does not involve choosing your favourite character from a Playstation game and modelling your entire fighting style after theirs. Despite the fact I wear a red gi, I have not modelled my fighting style after Ken from Street Fighter (I don't have the blonde hair to pull off that look and I can't hadoken no matter how many times I've tried). You will not find any Heihachi, Nina, Jin, or Kazuya (Tekken) clones vying for power on my mats. There are no Kasumi, Ryu or Ayame (Dead or Alive) wannabes being all ninjery and disappearing in bursts of cherry-blossom petals. And thankfully, there are no Mitsurugi, Taki or Maxi (Soul Calibur) weapon's masters searching for the ultimate weapon. No - “Playstation Theory” is a theory I use to describe the process by which a person's body will go through when executing any throwing technique within the syllabus at my school, RKD Martial Arts. Why is it called “Playstation Theory”? There are four major stages I emphasise in any throwing technique and these four stages are represented by the four face buttons on a Playstation controller – Triangle, Circle, Square, 'X' which is how I derived the name.

First, a clarification. A lot of people in martial arts use the terms 'throw' and 'take down' interchangeably and make no distinction between the two. I like to differentiate between the two as the theory of executing a throw can become muddied when a take down that is labelled as a throw doesn't seem to follow the same theory application. The difference between how I define each one is in the method of bringing an opponent to the ground. I define a throw as requiring an application of force that moves through a circular motion around a central point (usually the opponent's centre of gravity) to break an opponent's structure and balance. I define a take down as an application of pain to break an opponent's structure and balance, for example, a locking technique that forces an opponent to the ground. As a result some techniques that are often referred to as take downs I refer to as throws (double leg take down for example), and some techniques that are often referred to as throws I refer to as a take down (many Aikido throws for example).

The definitions I subscribe to of a throw and a take down can get a little confusing when it contains elements of both. This can be the case when looking at combination techniques that combine locks into throws – generally, I find with these techniques that the lock is assisting the throwing technique but it is not the pain of the lock that brings the opponent to the ground, it is the motion of the throw. I find if you look at what ultimately broke an opponent's balance and caused them to hit the ground you will be able to identify whether it was a throw or take down. It should also be noted that with minor adjustments, some throws can have a take down version, and some take downs can have a throw version.

Now back to Playstation Theory. As I said above, the throws that I teach all have four major stages, each represented by one of the buttons on the face of a Playstation controller. The buttons and their associated stage are:

• Triangle – entering/receiving
• Circle – application/redirection of force
• Square – balanced and stable finish
• 'X' – follow-up technique

The face buttons on a PS control pad

Entering/receiving is represented by the Playstation's Triangle button. The triangle itself represents directed movement – an arrow indicating a direction we must move or a position we must get to. Regardless of which one we use (direction or position) the underlying message is the same – we must move to get to a certain position in order to execute our throw. Even techniques where it appears we receive an opponent directly have subtle receiving movements (stance changes, positional shifts, weight distribution etc) that are necessary for the throw to work.

Considering that all throws are position related, entering or receiving is often the most difficult aspect of applying a throw. Certainly, once you take throws out of the static application stage where you are first learning the throw (a static attacker providing very little resistance) entering or receiving becomes the most crucial skill in executing any throwing technique. In shiai, a form of free practice where students start in grips and vie to throw each other (like in Judo), we are able to look at the difficulties of trying to enter a position for executing a throw while an opponent is trying to counter what we are doing and throw us. This is generally how Judo throws are mostly trained, though in training in Judo this is referred to as randori and is not limited to throws. At my dojo we use the term shiai (shi meaning 'to test' and ai meaning 'gather' or 'meet', so taken together shiai is 'a meeting or gathering to test one another') which Judoka's use for competition, simply because we use the term randori in regards to a different form of practice. The next stage, moving from shiai to free sparring where an opponent may also strike and kick to prevent being thrown, the difficulties in entering and receiving become quite apparent. At this stage, particularly against a similarly skilled opponent, the importance of good entering or receiving technique becomes paramount to the execution of even the most basic throw.

Application or redirection of force is represented by the Playstation's Circle button. The circle represents the circular motion created by the application of opposing forces on the body. All throws must have these two opposing forces for the circular motion to be created. For a basic example look at tai otoshi (body drop), a throw where the leg creates a tripping point but does not move through a sweeping motion. The upper body generates a force to carry the opponent over the tripping point, and when their leg makes contact with the tripping leg, a force is generated in the opposite direction. These two opposing forces create circular rotation.

The red arrows show the opposing forces that create circular rotation in tai otoshi

In an apparent contradiction to the above rule, there are some throws that only appear to have one application of force. This is because the second force is not being generated by the person executing the throw, but one of two other sources. The first source is given momentum. All throws must have some momentum which is either produced by the person executing the throw or the person being thrown. For example, an opponent charging at you has given momentum and may only require a tripping point in order to execute a throw, whereas an opponent standing still requires impetus (a force to generate momentum) in order to be thrown.

The second of the two sources is gravity itself, especially in a fairly static situation where there is relatively little momentum (either given or induced). Where it appears that a person's balance has been broken and the person has hit the ground with application of a single force and without the use of a pain compliance technique, gravity will usually be providing the second source. Going back to year 8 science, gravity is accelerating you towards the ground at 9.8 metres per second – as soon as a force starts to remove your base, gravity starts to accelerate you towards the ground. Think of it this way: the act of walking is a series of controlled falls. As you lift your foot and start to take a forward step your body unbalances and starts to 'fall' towards the ground. It is stopped by you planting your base (your foot) and rebalancing, before you lift your other foot and start the process again. When a force acts upon your leg in some way and prevents you re-establishing your base, you fall to the ground. So a single force acting upon the right location, at the right time, can use gravity as the secondary force in order to create circular rotation.

A strong and balanced finishing stance is represented by the Playstation's Square button. Although it is a fairly basic concept, it is often the one that I find people fail to do most often. As a result of failing to establish a strong and balanced finishing stance many people are unable to take advantage of their throw, or worse, sometimes end up throwing themselves as well! Most common though, they end up in a position that is vulnerable to a counter attack by their downed opponent. There are a number of reasons for this:

1. Too much strength – people will often try and compensate bad throwing technique by using more strength. A well executed throw shouldn't require an exceptional amount of strength, it is the reason throws work for smaller people. Bad technique coupled with excessive strength usually has the thrower trying to avoid tripping over their opponent or worse, on the floor with their opponent.
2. Bad positioning – sometimes a thrower will try and execute a throw when they aren't quite in the right position for that throw. Throws are fairly position specific and it is quite difficult to execute a good throw when you are out of position. For example, someone trying for an ogoshi (hip throw) may not have moved in close enough leaving a gap between their body and their opponent's body. Bad positioning is the major reason why someone with otherwise good technique will try and compensate with strength.
3. Bad posture – this can apply to a number of different aspects that usually affect a person's structure and therefore, their capacity to execute a throw. Things like position of the feet (too narrow, too wide, too linear), or having the centre of gravity move outside the base (leaning into a throw for example) all come within this area.

Apart from the damage a throw can cause it usually provides a major positional advantage from which a fight can be quickly ended. The most important function that a strong and stable finishing stance provides is a stable platform from which to execute a follow-up technique. As such it is imperative that when performing a sacrifice throw technique (any throw where you go to ground to take your opponent down) that you immediately move to a strong and stable position from which to execute your follow-up technique. Too many times I see people execute a fantastic sacrifice throw only to remain laying on the ground next to their opponent!

The follow-up technique is represented by the Playstation's 'X' button. This is probably the easiest of the four major steps as all the hard work has been done prior to this step. Never-the-less, it is imperative that students are reminded to press their advantage and finish the fight – this is self defence after all! The follow-up technique can be anything appropriate to the position and situation at hand – a striking technique, a kick, a lock, kneeling on an opponent's throat – whatever works!

So there it is, the Playstation Theory of throwing – Triangle, Circle, Square and 'X'.

Thanks for reading – until next week make sure you subscribe to the blog, and if you have any subjects you would like to see covered, post them in the comments section below.

Martial Arts Myopia

Sensei Ryan Nicholls here, owner of, and head instructor at RKD Martial Arts, welcome to my Blog, Martial Arts Perth.

In this topic, I wanted to look at a somewhat common phenomenon in martial arts that I call “martial arts myopia”.

If you've trained for any length of time you will probably be aware of martial arts myopia. Most martial artists experience it in their early years of training before they know all the 'rules' of their style. So what is martial arts myopia? Martial arts myopia is the act of pretending a technique doesn't exist because it isn't taught in; or doesn't fit; your system or style. Usually, it gets justified with an explanation that; even as a lower belt; you know is hogwash and doesn't sit quite right with you.

Now I should differentiate between martial arts myopia and technique specificity. Some techniques are easier to perform when your opponent is in a specific stance or they throw a particular technique and are trained for that specific stance or technique. For example if I am stepping through for a tripping technique on my opponent it is much easier to target the leg that is forward or closest to me than it is to target the rear leg or the one that is furthest away from me. Inevitably you will have a student step into the wrong stance and ask the question, “well what would I do if they did attack me this way”? My standard answer to my students is I'd do a different technique and usually indicate a different throw or take down – one that is relevant to the position my opponent has presented. An unacceptable explanation to a student is “No one would ever attack that way” or numerous variations to that effect, as clearly, your student just did. Martial arts myopia is not the same thing as technique specificity.

Some martial arts have a natural degree of martial arts myopia built into them. For example, grapplers (BJJ, Judo, Greco-Roman) have a tendency to ignore striking, and strikers (Muay Thai, Taekwondo, boxing) have a tendency to ignore grappling. This degree of inbuilt myopia is not an issue when training for competition as it is within the boundaries of the rules – you are not allowed to strike in BJJ, Judo or Greco-Roman Wrestling competition and you are not allowed to take your opponent to the ground for submissions in Muay Thai or Taekwondo. In the case of boxing it goes a step further with only punching techniques being allowed (no kicks, knees or elbows) and only to limited targets (above the waist).

And illegal 'reap' according to the IBJJF

Inbuilt myopia is a big issue however when something seemingly should be allowed as it is within the style, but has been ruled out of use in competition due to its 'dangerous nature'. I discovered this while training BJJ – a rule introduced to BJJ in 2011 means that you can't 'reap' your opponent (crossing the leg across the opponent's body that could potentially torque the knee). It is supposed to be there for competitor safety but all it does is allow opponents to capitalise on the fact you aren't allowed to block their body – in other words, it often means that a competitor who has got themselves into a bad position can't be punished for it. I'm sure there has been a few knee injuries from the position, but any more so than joint injuries elsewhere? Are armbars or kimuras banned for their potential danger? No – because if you took out everything that was potentially dangerous you'd have nothing left. It seems ridiculous that the IBJJF (International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation) would single out this particular position for exclusion, and most BJJ practitioners that I have trained with agree. A poll on BJJ 4 Life's Facebook page echoes this distaste for the rule - at the time of writing 114 people had said reaping should be illegal in competition and 950 had voted that it should be legal.

Inbuilt martial arts myopia does become an issue in those martial arts when it is ignored in relation to self defence. I have heard the arguments on both sides of this debate – a kickboxer told me a grappler would never get close enough to take him to the ground, and a grappler told me he'd have a striker on the ground, unable to strike and submitted in seconds. I said to both of them the same thing - “Yeah because that strategy works so well in MMA competition, no one has ever tried that before.” It is one thing to have confidence in your ability, it is quite another to naively believe something when countless examples exist of that strategy being unlikely to work, especially against someone trained in that discipline. If you've never tested your hypothesis, how can you be so sure?

Another situation that happens quite often with martial arts myopia is the difference between an experienced attacker and an untrained attacker. How often did you, as a beginner, throw a punch or attack with a training knife in a manner that meant you hit your partner, only to be told your attack was 'wrong'? How can an attack; especially one thrown on instinct with no training; be 'wrong'? Isn't that what you're more likely to encounter on the street rather than someone trained to attack 'correctly'? I have been told in the past that the reason for this is because the correct technique is more efficient, therefore if you can counter the more efficient technique you can counter the untrained technique. There is some merit in that view – it is certainly harder to counter a properly thrown right cross than it is to counter a wild swing, but when you bring a blade into the situation its a whole different game. If you ask ten untrained students to try and stab you in the chest, you'll probably get ten different stabbing techniques. They will all have elements in common but they won't be the same, and usually can't be dealt with with one ultimate technique. If you ask ten trained students to do so, you might get three – if they're all your students and have been learning the same thing, all ten may do the exact same thing! The point being, training to deal with inconsistent or 'incorrect' technique should be a part of your training as it will not be the same as dealing with 'correct' technique. When it comes to dealing with an attack, no attack is wrong – pretending it is is a case of trying to fit your world to your training, rather than training for the possibilities of the world.

The major problem of martial arts myopia comes when looking at a self defence based art that then introduce technique limits. I hadn't been doing a particular martial art for very long and was sparring with a red belt, someone who had been doing the martial art for quite a few years. In the middle of the sparring round I executed an axe kick which involves lifting the leg up and snapping the foot down upon the opponent's head/face or collar bone area. I hadn't been taught this kick and it was just instinctual for me to throw it. My opponent had never been on the receiving end of an axe kick before. Despite a number of years of training under his belt this was something new to him and it didn't look like any of the kicks he had experienced in the past. He was completely caught off guard. He managed an instinctive block, but it was ineffective and the only saving factor was that I pulled the kick and didn't follow through. I immediately took advantage of his momentary freeze and stepped in and threw him to the ground. When he got up my opponent said “You can't do that we don't do axe kicks in our style.” To which I asked “Why not?”

An Axe-kick thrown in a K-1 Tournament

“We just don't,” was his reply.

I said, “Well I know how to do them, and I'm going to use them. You can pretend they don't exist but it probably just means you'll keep getting hit by them.”

My response may have been arrogant and even rude (I was young and full of myself), but I had made a pertinent point – why ignore a technique when it is possible that someone may use it against you? Isn't it better to look at everything and therefore develop a greater range of experience? I should point out that I was sparring with a purple belt a short time later and did the same thing – rather than saying I couldn't use the axe kick he encouraged me to do so, saying that “no one else in the dojo kicked like I did so it was good practice for them.” When I told him that the red belt said I wasn't allowed to use them because they don't exist in our style the purple belt echoed my sentiments saying something a long the lines of, “There is no rule that says you can't use techniques from other martial arts and it is in our best interest to experience as wide a range of techniques as possible”.

Quite a number of schools have rules forbidding students from cross-training in other arts. I have never understood these rules and am always dubious about any school/instructor who would impose these limits on a student. Instructors make claims that it pollutes the art etc, but frankly, these are just lame excuses. The only reason that I can see for preventing a student from cross-training is that they might like the other art better and leave, or worse, realise that the art they had been studying was completely bogus. I've seen this happen – I have a couple of students who joined my school while also studying a particular karate style. After a couple of months all of them had given up on the karate style realising that their training in that particular style had been a waste of time (note that this is not a denigration of karate – I have a karate black belt and believe the training was useful).

On the flip side of cross-training, a friend of mine holds a black belt with a Taekwondo style in Perth and was kicked out when he even mentioned the possibility of cross-training in another art! He knew that his current style had limits and wanted experience in elements he felt were missing from his training to date, but he still wanted to continue training in the art that he loved. Even as a black belt who was teaching classes for free his instructor had kicked him out for merely suggesting that cross-training could be useful. Oppositely, when I started studying Shaolin kung fu, another of the students realised that I had training in other martial arts and asked if I had obtained permission from our Sifu. I had told our Sifu on the first day that I joined that I was training elsewhere but I wanted to do some training in Shaolin kung fu and he hadn't cared.

At my school, RKD Martial Arts, I encourage my students to cross-train if they want to, but with one caveat – if they learn a different way to do something that they feel is better than the way I teach it I want them to tell me and show me. I only know what I've been taught, what I've experienced and what I've learned from that experience. I make no claim to know everything. I still cross-train in other martial arts for that very reason – I am always looking for a better way to do things and have no qualms about learning that from one of my students. I personally believe that cross-training is one of the best ways to reduce your own martial arts myopia and to expose you to different techniques and strategies. For example, my ground fighting has changed as a result of training in BJJ – I learned better ways to achieve the same result I had achieved in my taijutsu ground fighting training. As a result of this I have changed the way I teach ground fighting to my students. As my skills in BJJ increase further, I will most likely continue to evolve the way I teach ground fighting.

Apart from style intrinsic myopia, look back at the times you have experienced true martial arts myopia, where you have been told "we don't do that" or "you can't use that technique". Have you since learned a method of dealing with that oversight? Did you have to cross-train or even change martial arts to do it? Does your school allow you to cross-train in other arts, and if not, what reason are they trying to sell you? Finally, have you ever been kicked out of a school because you chose to cross-train in another art?

Thanks for reading – until next week make sure you subscribe to the blog, and if you have any subjects you would like to see covered, post them in the comments section below.