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.