No matter much or how hard you train, it's always possible to fall into a comfort zone. Of course, this must be avoided at all costs. Working at the same pace with the same people all the time can make even something like sparring a mundane routine. Pressure should be periodically introduced into your training in order to make sure that you're aware of what is working well for you and what needs more work. I've been guilty of this myself, so I've put together some changes you can make once in a while to switch things up. Stress (or eustress, instead of distress. Will be discussing that at length in a future project) should be introduced with pressure testing in order to train proper application. Everyone is comfortable at different things, but these are adjustments that work best for me. Hope at least one of these helps you in your training as well.
"Prepare for the worst, hope for the best."
Always work with someone better than you. This should be a standard for you. Working with someone that has more experience will automatically make you work harder and draw out everything in your arsenal. This will make it abundantly clear what techniques and principles are well ingrained and what needs work. Of course there are ways to challenge yourself against someone you know you can beat also. When working with someone less experienced, give yourself limitations in order to work on technique and timing. When working with someone you know is more advanced, your heart-rate might peak earlier than you're used, forcing you to deal with that. Also, with more experience, there's a good chance that they'll be pushing the pace as well, again forcing you to adapt. It's good for your development to have someone else take control once in a while (in practice only, of course). If you find that you're having a hard time stepping out of your comfort zone, especially in sparring, a better, stronger and faster opponent will do that for you. What's the worst that could happen? Nothing that you haven't had done to you before in your training, probably. Deal with it. You'll be happy you did.
Say it Out Loud
Without accountability for our goals, we create a circumstance where it's ok to fail. Commit to your goals by verbalizing them. If there is something you want to accomplish in your training (or life, for that matter), tell a friend or training partner what that goal is. It's really not even important if they follow up or even care, to be honest. It forced you to say what you want out loud, making you that much more committed to those results, even if it's just to yourself. This will also provide more reflection if you fail, as opposed to the temptation to just avoid that part of your training. You'll be more likely to solve what went wrong and will want to try again as soon as possible. For an even harder challenge, tell the person you're working against what you would like to try doing and you'll automatically have them resisting fully. Give it time and you'll eventually succeed. Determination and patience will yield the best rewards and you'll have accomplished a task under the hardest possible circumstances, making all future attempts much less stressful.
Draw Attention
This one always works for me. Having an audience or someone filming always gives me a little extra adrenaline, but often my best results. I've worked on instructional videos, video game stunt work, competitions and teaching classes and seminars and having a group of people paying that much attention to me still makes me nervous. This is great for training. Any scenario that forces you to deal with an adrenaline spike is a great simulation to how you'd feel in a crisis. The idea is to create the physiological conditions of a violent conflict, without the risk of injury (minimal risk of injury, at least). An extra bonus of having a friend or group watch you work is the feedback. Getting a third party source of information is terrific for what adjustments you should make in your training. The same goes for your sparring partners. They know what you did well and what you didn't, take advice from them and not your ego.
Analyze Yourself
I've always recommended that you film yourself training and I still do. This doesn't have to be done often, but every few months take the time to watch yourself work. You'd be surprised, as I often am, by what mistakes you make and when. You'll notice first what bad habits you have that stop you from doing certain things, but keep watching until you can spot the little things. By this I mean the small mannerisms that if you would have noticed from an opponent you could use to defeat them. Often, even when successfully execute a technique, we make a dozen mistakes along the way. Sometimes it's just luck that got us through and sometimes it's just inexperience on your opponent's part. Either way, if you knew you were doing that you'd stop right away. Sometimes taking a step outside your body and watching is the only way to notice these things. I also recommend only watching your footage after some meditation. Watch with a clear mind and a checked ego. You're not doing this to praise yourself, so it's fine to only look for the mistakes. It's ok to be frustrated when you spot them too; that's the whole point. As long as everytime you watch footage you're a new fighter, you're making progress. New mannerisms, new techniques and new mistakes are signs of evolution. If your ego can take it, the footage will keep you honest.
An Adrenaline Experiment
Recently, my friend Ben and I decided to conduct an experiment to see how it affected our performance. We've sparred each other countless times, under all kinds of different rules. Often simulating various combat sports rules in order to constantly change the context. This time, we decided to draw some attention to ourselves. Essentially, we combined all of the methods mentioned above. It started with setting a future date for our sparring "match" to take place, followed by two weeks of openly challenging each other and talking some smack. This got a lot of our friends' attention and, even though we were all taking it lightly, everyone started to anticipate a fight. This means we both committed to this and were now accountable. We also agreed to film the whole thing, in order to see how different we moved and fought. When the day finally came, I was a little more excited and my heart-rate peaked much earlier than usual. It was a great change and this small simulation took me a little out of my comfort zone, which lead to a harder-than-usual level of intensity in our hits. While icing my many bruises later, the footage showed me a normal amount of mistakes for what I'm used to, but they were completely different from last time I had watched myself. Overall, I'd consider the whole experiment a success. It was fun, safe and gave me results. Now I have a billion new things to work on. That's honest training.
Jordan Bill
Fight or Die
ScrapyardFighting.com
CombatSystema.com
Twitter.com/Scrapyard514
Youtube.com/ScrapyardMartialArts
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