Primer: Learning to fight: The 8 stages

[MorGrendel]

Primer: Learning to fight: The 8 stages

Learning to fight happens in stages, it is not an overnight process. Your fighting skill comes together in spurts, as your body and mind learn to act together in fluid movement. Fighting skill is more than just striking an opponent, it is also the footwork and degrees of motion required to make those shots effective. Often gaining fighting skill is like climbing a mesa, on top of a mesa, on top of a mesa, where your skill level shoots up rapidly and then plateaus time and time again. Sadly, the rises get shorter, and the plateaus get longer, but experience tends to temper those long in betweens. Martial learning is a hyperbola in many respects. You learn the most in the beginning as you develop muscle memory, and less towards the end as your focuses shift to more on what to do and less on how to do it.

Here are the stages as I see them:
Creation: At this stage you are creating a mental picture of a move, and imagining how you will perform it. Sometimes you think of the move on the spot, but in most cases the move is shown to you and you commit it to memory.

Memorization: At this stage you are teaching your body to perform the move. You teach the muscles to fire in a sure and repeatable fashion in the hopes your muscles will remember what to do in a moments notice. This will later allow you to string moves together.

Repetition: At this stage you are capable of performing a move with certainty. You do not feel awkward or off balance. You can strike a point repeatedly and with power.

Collection: At this stage you have begun to develop a rolodex of strikes. You can repeat a number of different moves, and have started to develop the movements necessary to pass from one strike to the next.

Selection: At this stage you begin to determine the appropriate strike based on the conditions around you. You also begin to develop timing and the use of lateral motion.

Specialization: At this stage you begin to string together moves and strikes into combination strikes. You also begin develop feints and drawing strikes to set up an opponent.

Exploitation: At this stage you can select the correct combo, or series of moves to create an advantageous situation. You also begin to utilize others in your unit, and combine their strikes into your combinations.

Realization: At this stage you are able to flow from one move to the next as opportunities present themselves. Also you are capable of starting and stopping combos at will, as well as adding moves to them on the fly. Moves are not remembered, or even thought about in a 1, 2, 3 method, rather strikes happen faster than thought.

Zen: Zen is less of a stage, and more of momentary brilliance. There is a heightened awareness, everything is fluid, and moves appear to just happen. You feel like a spectator, and not the initiator. Often you do not know it has happened until it is over.