MightyBands, home gym system

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Toughen Up Bitch!

Does this make you tougher? I was forwarded this youtube clip from a fellow WT colleague. Apparently it’s a lesson on making your students tougher – getting hit and hitting. Take a moment to watch this.

While the point of the drill is significant, I think this drill is more a waste of time and a bullying opportunity for the instructor rather than a teaching moment for the student. Yes there is some benefit to getting hit and to dolling out hits, but in the context of the drill, you only need a few minutes to get the idea.

If we’re here to toughen up the student there are plenty of more productive ways of doing this in my opinion. The definition of ‘tough’ is multi-layered as well and applies to more than just taking hits.

• Endurance challenge drills
• Intensity challenge drills
• Stress drills
• Circuit training

I’m not necessarily referring to weight-training or resistance training. It can also be used in the context of various wing chun drills as well. But the idea here is that it’s mentally and physically pushing the boundaries of the student’s comfort zone and just giving it his/her all.

Just receiving hits doesn't do any of this really and you can see the fairly slow pace/intensity of the drill..poor kid is just getting hit and that’s about all the value he’s getting out of it. I also think a good sparring session will be a great teacher here as well and also teaches the student how it feels to get hit and in a very unpredictable fashion.

It’s also high intensity and a test of endurance and stress – all at the same time. A few sparring sessions will teach you so much and very quickly. I really believe that, in the context of some wing chun schools, sparring is under-valued especially for students that have never done it before.

There are so many other ways to ‘toughen’ up and for some, it’s more mental than physical. What mental drills are ever taught or practiced? Many may wonder what this means.. Growing up, we suffer trauma as children – either getting bullied, parents being very abusive, injuries or accidents as kids, sickness, illness – all these factors have played into our belief systems, our confidence and our self-esteem which is expressed in our behaviours and possibly our lack of ‘toughness’.

Something to think about.

Until then.

3 comments:

Gary said...

kinda agree,, I like fighterman as a rule, but not sure if that concept of toughening up actually has any results down the line.. sure reminds me of larry, moe and curly joe tho, hahahahah

Gary said...

when I kickboxed, we used to do 'tough up' drills all the time. yo stand in front of training partner who circle kicks your thigh, for ex..you let it hit, then kick him back.. as you go on you step it up.. and try to not be the one to quit. also we did lots of aggressive body hits and 'cuffing' shoulders etc with gloves on.. my own personal opinion is two things help yo get 'tougher'.. pushing limits, like physical endurance, cardio levels etc.. and mostly day in, day out grinding away at training, esp if there are physical levels emphasised. Over time you get used to lots, you adapt to 'pain', and you move to increased load of training intensity. Having competitive goals seems to motivate a lot.

John Adam said...

Is boxing a martial art ?
jeet kune do vancouver

Popular Posts