Episode 709 - Training in Multiple Styles at the Same Time
In this episode, Andrew and Jeremy dissect whether Training in Multiple Styles at the Same Time is good or bad.
Training in Multiple Styles at the Same Time - Episode 709
Arguably, one of the most pressing topics in the Martial Arts world is how important training is. More specifically, can someone train in multiple styles simultaneously as MMA practitioners generally do? In this episode, Andrew and Jeremy dissect if Training in Multiple Styles at the Same Time would actually be beneficial or detrimental to martial artists. Stick around and join the discussion.
After listening to the episode, it would be exciting for us to know your thoughts about it. Don’t forget to drop them in the comment section down below!
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hey, what's happening everyone, welcome. This is whistlekick Martial Arts Radio today, Andrew and I are talking about training in multiple styles at the same time, or if you want to be kind of nerdy about it concurrently, it's a good word, stick around, we'll tell you everything that we think about doing that and when you should, and when you shouldn't. We are a couple of passionate, traditional martial artists. And that's why we do the things that we do here on the show. And if you want to see all the things we do as a company, because a company does more than just this show, and the company is more than just us go to whistlekick.com, you can find a bunch of stuff over there, including our store, which has stuff like apparel, and training equipment and programs, and cool stuff like that, plus more interviews, the code, PODCAST15, it's gonna save you 15% off, anything that you find over there. The show whistlekick Martial Arts Radio, it gets its own website, and it is whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. Because we keep things easy, we have well over 700 episodes, and you can check all of them out for free, they're on YouTube, they're in your podcast feed.
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Andrew Adams:
And this is not a black and white. It's always this case, but it often comes from the side of MMA guys who like to train lots of things at once. And traditional guys typically train one thing at once. Not that, not all the time. There's always exceptions. But in general, that's a fairly accurate summation as to where those two camps come from.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sure. I think, you know, this is the idea of mastery versus diversity. We've done an episode I believe it was called just that. Yep. And it gets complicated by the fact that some instructors, traditional instructors will not permit and I'm using air quotes, because you know, but whether or not they have the authority to do that is up for discussion. But they will not permit their students to train elsewhere while they are trading with them. Now, some of those instructors are doing it for nefarious reasons. I'm afraid you're gonna find a school you like better and you're going to leave and I'm going to lose a student, I'm going to lose money. For the purposes of this conversation, let's not worry about that. Let's worry about the legitimate concerns. And so let's articulate those. What are the concerns? Because on the surface, the more stuff you trade, the more you know, the better off you are.
Andrew Adams:
Yep, yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I think everybody would say like, if I have more tools in my toolbox, obviously, that's a better thing. So why wouldn't this dry issue?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. And if listeners have listened to the show for any length of time, they will likely know that both you and I are advocates of learning different things. And so one might think, well, this is easy, like, the guys are just gonna say you should do it. And that's the end of the discussion. But I think there's a lot of nuance to this, that people might not realize.
Jeremy Lesniak:
There wouldn't be an episode of that's how we felt. Yeah, it would be like the world's shortest episode. And then we do the outro also shown.
Andrew Adams:
But there are a lot of things to think about, you know, they that you know, and I have training in multiple styles. You know, I hold rank in multiple styles. I didn't train all of those styles at the same time, though. And I think that's an important distinction.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It is. So let's talk about where the concerns come from, because I think the benefits are fairly obvious knowing different things is good. Let's pretend it's cooking. Right, let's forget about all the semi political drama within the martial arts industry. If you want to be a really good French Cook, and your goal is to be the best possible French cook. You can be, are you going to spend time learning how to be better? I don't know, Polynesian cook? No, probably not. Now because it's going to have some it's going to muddy the waters a bit. And if nothing else, it reduces the time that you're spending practicing your craft. Yep. And I think this is the heart of the issue. If you want to be the best you can be at I don't know we tie spending a heck of a lot of time training Muay Thai. Makes a lot of sense. Seeking out different Muay Thai teachers, maybe you're competing in a Muay Thai competition for a whole bunch of years. And I think it applies in the same way to every other style. If your goal is to be the best you can be at that you want to invest as much time as possible into that? And, I think the part of the conversation that people often don't realize is as a beginner, training multiple files at once is incredibly difficult, and in some ways will be detrimental to trying to learn any of them.
Andrew Adams:
Unless those styles are vastly different. As an example, if you want to learn Muay Thai, as an example, and at the same time, learn judo. Those two skill sets are incredibly different. If you want to be trained in Shotokan, karate and also trained in Isshin-ryū karate at the same time. That is a recipe for disaster. And speaking from experience. Absolutely. As an exam, especially given that the forms in those styles, kata are very, very similar 95%. Would you say? Yeah, absolutely. And in one dojo, you would have to deal with this particular punch. I'm thinking of the kata Tekki Shodan. In the shoulder, the fists came straight across like a regular fest, so pubs down for both of them. But in my short and rude dojo, it's a vertical fist. So the palm is to the side, and you turn back and it's super, super, super similar, but still different.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's hard to switch in and out of those different mindsets. Correct. And I will admit that, you know, I've trained in a bunch of different schools, and I never had a difficult time learning a form that was completely unlike anything else. It was the ones that were 80% similar that I really struggled with.
Andrew Adams:
Yep, yep. But if you were training again, going back to my tie in judo, those two skill sets are different. And so going to your Judo class, you're not going to accidentally throw a sweeping leg kick.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You're probably not messing those two up when you're doing randori. So that kind of brings to light an element. You talked about those two different styles that you trained. Now, you learn a shorter calm first, and then transition into a Shōrin-ryū. So you were able to kind of unlearn some of those details of Shotokan, kind of put them on the shelf, put them aside, not because you didn't like them or didn't value them. But because you were focused on Shōrin-ryū. Yep. And once you worked through that, it was less of an issue.
Andrew Adams:
Yes. And I was already at my Shotokan club for 16 years, I was already a third degree black belt. Then I left. I didn't, you know, leave for any nefarious reason. I just moved away and joined a local new Dojo here in town. But I had enough of enough wherewithal to understand what I was learning because I had progressed to a certain level within one style. Jesse Enkamp has talked about this great analogy that I love about learning martial arts as a mountain and the top of the mountain is like [00:10:01-00:10:03], I put in the air quotes because I've ever really mastered anything, right. But when you're at the base of the mountain with if you're learning taekwondo, and you know it all around the base of the mountain, all these different martial arts, taekwondo, judo, Shorin-Ryu karate, [00:10:17-00:10:18] all these other ones, the distance between each of them at the base of the mountain is very far. And as you're learning taekwondo, you're marching up the mountain to get better at Taekwondo, and everyone else is marching up the mountain, and they're in their art.
And then halfway up the mountain, Taekwondo is now a lot closer to judo, or to all these, and you go up even more, and they're all closer. So I love that analogy, because I think it's very true, I think it's very, very valid. And I talk to my students about that quite a bit, always making sure that they know, I didn't come up with this, Jesse did. And so I am not a proponent of martial artists, training multiple styles. As a beginner, I, for me, it's right around brown belt level that you've got enough of an understanding of your own system, to then be able to, you already know how your body moves, you know how the style works, you can start to then think about how other ways other schools and styles do things. But you've got to get, in my opinion, a strong foundation first.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And I think that's kind of a line, do you understand the fundamentals of the art that you were training? Such that it is second nature, that your instructors are not saying, you know, we keep talking about this stance here, and you know, your weight distribution is not right, you know, you've been training here three, four years, you should know this, right? You really should be on the other side of that, you should know, your basic stances kicks blocks, right? Like, once you get there, then I think the door is open doesn't mean everybody should go through it, but the door is open for cross training. And, you know, that doesn't mean you know, you talked about moving and needing to go elsewhere. That doesn't mean that if you've been training, six months, 12 months and shotokan and you move somewhere, and the only option to Shorin-Ryu is that you shouldn't train, it just means that you're probably going to have a hard time. unlearning and relearning. Sure, because you've put in that time. But of course, you know, we go back to some fundamentals that we believe here, training is better than not training. Any trading is better than no training. Yeah. And there's likely to be some benefit that you may not even realize even after six or 12 months, you know, you may find that you've got a slightly different way of doing something that's perfectly acceptable in the new facility, the new school that your peers may not have.
Andrew Adams:
Yep, absolutely. But again, it's all about the why, if you are looking to do competitive MMA, whether it's amateur or professional, like training in multiple styles at once, is something that you're going to want to do. But it all comes down to the why.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I've also known people who have crossed trains, not so much for style, but for element. I've known people who have trained at this school for their sparring, this wall for their forums, this school for their weapons concurrently. And I think that can also work again, you likely need some foundational level of technique. It's probably in the three four year mark. Yeah, before that's going to make sense. But I've also known people who train at schools where sparring is barely a thing they do. And they, you know, they want to be better competitively at point sparring, or some other variant of sparring. And their instructor says, Yeah, you should go, you know, go to sparring nights down the road at such and such a place. Yeah, get better there. Yeah, I agree the three to four year mark is again around late green, brown, depending on the school that you're at.
Andrew Adams:
You know, I recently am starting up and I know you know, just Jeremy but a once a month training session here in town. And the session is only for brown and black belts are equivalent, right? Taekwondo doesn't use brown, they use red but if something equivalent and the concept is where we will have a different instructor every month teaching something new, you know, the first month is going to be a Goju go Judo instructor next month after I don't know, but it's going to be different each month and I've had a little bit of pushback from some people saying, hey, you know, I'm a green belt, I've been training two years, like, how come I can't come to this thing. And my number one reason is, in my opinion, you should get a firmer grasp of what you're currently learning, and not be expected to come this once a month and learn a different way to do it, and then have it mess up your training at your school.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Let's pull it back to the analogy that you made about the mountain. I don't know Jesse's analogy. I'm definitely the one that I heard it from first. And it may well be his. I've heard it in so many places now. And I really do like it. I'm just on the off chance that somebody out there knows who said it first, I don't want them to think that we're, we're ignoring that possibility. There's a point where as you start climbing, if things get closer to shotokan, and closer to monetization, it must mean that there is enhanced understanding and potential even with new techniques. So that means if you aren't making that progress up the mountain, you're missing out on things. You know, if I come to, you know, if I'm 500 feet up from base camp, and then I keep making all these lateral moves around, I'm not really ever moving up. Correct?
Andrew Adams:
Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I could go to intro classes for French cooking and Polynesian cooking and Spanish cooking. And is there even British cooking? That's a playful joke aimed at a few people I know that listen to the show that will likely message me and say hi. But if I keep going to the survey courses, yeah, I will know how to do the bare minimum and each of these different culinary styles. But no one's ever going to say, Man, Jeremy is a really good French chef or even chef, they'll say, you know, no matter what you give Jeremy, he can put together a meal that won't kill you. And it'll probably taste okay. Yeah, nobody's getting hired for that, nobody's being celebrated for that, no one is really admired for that. You're just you're grabbing as much as you can. There are times where that's relevant. But I think within a martial arts context, it's not really relevant. It's not, I don't think that's a goal. that benefits people. Yeah, you're on the same page there.
Andrew Adams:
I think so, you know, and to put numbers on it. And again, this is not a black and white thing. But let's say, you start in one school, let's say taekwondo. And it takes you six years to get to this level. And then someone else over here is doing Chicago, crowded, it takes them six years. But if you take your six years, and then move over shotokan, what took someone else six years, it's only going to take you three years. So you learned taekwondo for six years and shoulder con in three years. So that's nine years. But if you try and train both of them at the same time, it's not going to be nine years to learn both, it's going to be in my opinion, probably longer, you know, it might take you 10/11/12 years to get to the same level. Whereas if you had stayed in one thing for a while, understood that and then moved over to something else, the transferability of things is exponential.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm at a point now because I've trained in a variety of different schools, I've earned black belts in several different styles that I can step in as a white belt pretty much anywhere, and really start getting into the meat of what I'm trading pretty quickly. And while you know advanced rank and everything isn't really important to me, learning is sure. And so being able to take this language, we've used that analogy of language on the show quite a few times, you know, forms being home, etc. I can speak a bunch of different languages, ya know, they may have some overlap, think of the Romance languages, French, German, Spanish that are kind of similar. I've got a language that is similar to just about everything I could do. And that helps me learn it faster. Yep, I'm with you. So to summarize, training concurrently can make sense if it helps you achieve your goals number one, and number two is done in such a way that you are not devaluing the training you've already done by confusing yourself.
And I will say that they are maybe some younger students younger in terms of training age, not chronological age. Who doesn't understand this? Because they haven't been around longer. You might think, well, Jeremy, Andrew, I don't really get it like, what is it? You know, I train shotokan now, what is it about going to Muay Thai, and go into some Muay Thai classes down the street, and I've been training for 18 months, like I don't see the problem. Because there are some things you only see in hindsight. Yeah. And this is where trusting and speaking with instructors, and everything becomes really relevant. And I would encourage you to do that. That's something that's important, if anything we should add before we…
Andrew Adams:
I don't think so. Okay, that's pretty good. Awesome.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Well, thank you to all of you watching or listening. If you have follow up if you have feedback. If you have questions or comments. Post them, post them on the Facebook group, Martial Arts Radio Behind the Scenes. Email us at Jeremy@whistlekick.com, Andrew@whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. We're having two shows a week. And if you want to go deeper on this or any other episode, go to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. If you're willing to support us in the work that we do, you have a number of options, you might consider buying one of our Amazon books, maybe telling others about the show or supporting us at Patreon patreon.com/whistlekick. it’s a place for that. If it's upside down.
Andrew Adams:
I know.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oops. Oops, he did it again. If you're interested in having me come out for a seminar at your school, let me know we can see what we can do on that. And you've got the code PODCAST15 saves you 15% on anything that whistlekick.com. Guest suggestions, topics, you name it, we want to hear it. Let us know. Our social media is @whistlekick. I'm Jeremy@whistlekick.com. Andrew’s, andrew@whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. And that's all for now. So until next time, train hard, smile, and have a great day.