I took a long break from this blog. Before, it was known as TKD Fighter. Now, I’m returning to it, re-calibrating its purpose, and relaunching it as Martial Methodology. I’m focusing on the science of teaching and learning as it relates to martial arts — specifically Taekwondo, Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, and self-defense.

Where have I been, you ask? I was finishing up a Master of Education in Teaching & Learning, working full-time security, and trying to weasel my way back into the martial arts instructor game. Now that I’ve graduated, and I’ve slid my way back into teaching again, I’d like to share my research and hash some things out with the broader martial arts community…and Taekwondo guys are square in my sights.

The Problem with Martial Arts Instructors (and Instructing)

Martial arts instruction is fraught with tradition. Most instructors seem to teach as they were taught, without making any other considerations. Magical thinking and confirmation bias prevail, and objective methods of testing and developing newer and better teaching strategies are shucked in favor of the old, “reliable” methods.

The problem is, science has left these people in the dust. And most of them don’t even seem to know it. Motor learning, control, and educational research have shown that a lot of traditional ideas about teaching martial arts — or, really, anything — are at best bunk, and at worst counterproductive.

My beloved Taekwondo is still classified quite firmly as a traditional martial art…and traditional martial artists are the worst perpetrators this kind of head-in-sand resistance to better, more scientific teaching (and training) methodology.

With my newfound credentials and knowledge-base, I’m going to be tackling these issues head on. I want to do my part to destroy this magical thinking, and promote evidence-based practice among martial arts instructors. That’s why I’ve busted 2 huge myths pervasive in martial arts curriculum and instruction design:

2 Instructional Myths that NEED TO DIE!

Myth #1: General Transfer

Transfer is an extremely sticky subject. Just because you can dream up a million ways your drills or exercises could benefit your students, doesn’t mean that’s actually what’s happening. The way you, as an instructor, can logically see things coming together, is not actually how a student will learn or grasp a concept.

For Taekwondo people, that means that practicing formal poomsae will not transfer any skill or ability to the application drills that often accompany them. When you practice an applied movement from poomsae, you are functionally learning a whole new movement pattern.

Specificity is the name of the game here. If you want positive skill transfer from an exercise or drill, that drill needs to mimic your ideal application mode (e.g., sparring or self-defense) as closely as possible. The more general or abstract your practice is, the less likely your students will leave with any positive skill transfer from it.

Myth #2: You Need More Repetition

You do need to learn a technique or movement pattern in a compliant situation first. Yes. But that is just level 1. Once you’ve learned the movement, it gains you nothing on a functional level (i.e. application to sparring or self-defense) to spend most of your time perfecting that movement in isolation. You must start applying that movement, tactic, or strategy against progressive, active, unscripted resistance from an opponent. Simply drilling that move more against compliant or scripted opponents will gain you nothing. (It just makes you feel like you’re doing something.)

What’s Next? Concluding Thoughts

These myths are so pervasive that even instructors with good teaching methods sometimes fall prey to them, myself included. It’s important to know that what was taught to us, or what feels right, or what seems to produce results can be very deceiving. We need objective, scientific measures to test these methods, see which parts, if any of them, have merit, and to guide us in developing methods that do help us teach and learn martial arts better.

In the near future, I will be outlining, in detail (sources cited), what training methodology my research and practice has led me to. I believe, based on the evidence, that this training methodology — called aliveness by martial artists, and randomized practice by sports science practitioners — is not just a better way to teach and learn, but an entire epistemology by which to verify if your training will work in both sport and self-defense contexts.