Episode 763 - Martial Arts Instructors CAN be the Worst Self-Defense Teachers
In this episode, Jeremy and Andrew talk about why Martial Arts Instructors CAN be The Worst Self-Defense Teachers.
Martial Arts Instructors CAN be The Worst Self-Defense Teachers - Episode 763
It’s undeniable that self-defense or as Andrew says it, self-protection, is very different from what we learn in martial arts classes. Is it possible that Martial Arts instructors can suck at teaching it? In this episode, Jeremy and Andrew talk about why Martial Arts Instructors can be The Worst Self-Defense Teachers.
After listening to the episode it would be exciting for us to know your thoughts about it.
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Jeremy Lesniak:
A what's going on everyone? Welcome this is another episode of whistlekick Martial Arts Radio, the most prolific martial arts podcast on the internet. I'm not gonna say we're the best, some people say we're the best. I will undoubtedly say no one makes more episodes that we do. And you can decide whether that is a good thing or not, telling today's episode, I'm gonna put my hat back on today because a little spot right there from where my hat.
On today's episode, Andrew and I are going to talk about how careful trigger warning martial arts instructors can be the worst self defense teachers I've already got some people in Iran some of them are writing in agreements, some are raw can be and we're going to talk about this we're gonna talk about where that can be becomes relevant. Now if you're new to the show. I am Jeremy Lesniak Joan joined by my good friend, frequent co-host and all around great guy, Andrew Adams, Andrew.
Andrew Adams:
Oh, hey, Jeremy. How's it going?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Are those finger guns?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, finger guns. I have found that the world is a better place if you have frequent use of finger guns.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I like how our finger guns make blaster noises as opposed to something more conventional. Like ammunition?
Andrew Adams:
Oh, yeah. Anyway, because it's more fun to go pure. Because the world is also better with sound effects.
Jeremy Lesniak:
The world is better with sound effects. Try watching a movie without sound effects. What's weird is the sound can be on the dialogue but without the audio, like the music behind it and everything. Yeah, it's, it's gross. I don't like it. Anyway, this is already my favorite intro we've ever done. If you are new to the show, welcome. You're in for a ride. And some of that ride should carry you to whistle kick.com where you can check out all the stuff that we're doing, we do a ton of stuff. This show is probably the thing we are most known for. But there are so many other things that we do.
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Andrew Adams:
Probably yeah, yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So if you're new, you've got a lot of episodes, you can go back and check out. We intentionally don't tire episodes to periods of time, because we want the topics that we talk about to remain the term in the industry, so go check them out, and check out what we've done.
Every once in a while I get an email from someone, I just found your show. And I got back to the beginning. And I'm listening to all of them in order and I think man, good luck. That is a daunting task. It's taken us since we're in our eighth year. It is tough, actually.
Andrew Adams:
This will be your 760 something.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, okay. So even more. Yeah, even more. There's a lot we've done a lot of content. And hopefully, you like it. And hopefully, you like this episode. If you do buy some, check out our Patreon shout-out, and thank you to everybody who contributes to the Patreon you can get in for as little as $2 a month. $2 a month you're gonna get some behind-the-scenes stuff. Join our exclusive Patreon zoom hangouts and just overload it with a value which is why people don't leave.
All right, I think that's a long enough intro. We probably missed some things so that's okay, let's dive in. Andrew, martial arts instructors can be and I'm reading this intentionally so I get the words right. The worst self-defense teachers and there's a little bit of hyperbole with the word Most martial arts instructors can be bad self-defense teachers, even very good martial arts instructors can be very bad self-defense teachers say words.
Andrew Adams:
So this topic came to me when my good friend, Angie, and I were asked to teach a class on self-protection. Personally, and I've talked about this on the show before, I don't like the term self-defense, because it implies you're already involved in an altercation, you're defending yourself. So I like self-protection.
Personally, I picked that up from Ian Abernathy, actually. But there is a difference between learning martial arts and learning self protection, or what many people call self defense, ie, you know, even when you get into the actual defense part where someone is grabbing you, right, the techniques that you should be practicing and employing, in quote, self defense, are often incredibly different than how we learn them in martial arts class. And I think that's a very important distinction.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, I think, because martial arts, any martial arts system that I've ever seen, is set out to be something that is trained over a period of time with the vast majority being things that are expected to be trained for many years. I've never met anyone who says my martial arts curriculum is designed to be trained for two years, and then I throw you out. Yep. Never heard that.
And I think part of what that does is it leads to a valuing evaluation of complexity. That should be rooted in academic understanding, but instead is shoehorned into less academic circles, more practical circles. Here's the best example. Most of us know forums, we've trained forums in some way. And most of us have seen that somewhere in one of our forums, there's some manner of grab defense, elbow manipulation, joint lock thing that we're doing. And the first time you learned it, you went, Oh, that's kind of cool.
And then you started maybe to train it in with a partner and you went, Ah, okay. This is a lot more complicated than I thought. Is that what one should be building their self-defense or self-protection? toolbox around? Me? I would say likely not. And I know we're on the same page. No. And this is where people get themselves into trouble. Okay, we did an episode recently. What do we title that one? The ones that I'm thinking of, you know, the ones. I do know the one but I don't remember what we titled it. Can you? Do you have that handy?
Andrew Adams:
Was it the myth one? Yeah, yep. The myth is that bad training makes you worse.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So we talked about this, and this is Episode 755. Okay, this is not meant to be a continuation of that. But if you have not listened to that episode, you'll probably appreciate that episode. And actually, I think it's one of the best ones that we've done.
So I would encourage you to go back and check it out. Regardless. We know that those complex movements can work. Given enough time training. We also know that the more time you train anything, the more assuming you're training in effective ways, the more variability for which you can pull off that particular maneuver.
You know, if all the conditions have to be perfect, the first time you get it, you train it a couple 1000 more times, maybe you can pull it off when your weight is shifted and in a non-ideal way, you're on uneven ground. You've got the flu, you know, whatever it is, but it is those same movements, because we spend so much time with them, that a lot of martial arts instructors teach at self-defense classes.
All right, come in, I'm going to work with you for two hours. And I'm going to teach you these moves that work great. And you're going to feel confident and you're gonna love it. And a lot of times people leave those classes and they go What did we just do?
Andrew Adams:
What did we just do? Yep. And I also think that as, someone who goes to a regular martial arts class for years at a time, we will often, and I'm sure every person listening will have likely gone through this type of scenario where you have class and you're going to work, say, wrist grab, somebody grabs your wrist, and then they just stand there, and then you do whatever technique it is, right? And that's fine. And as you do that, hundreds of times through your years of training, you learn how to do it in different ways.
But let's face it, the majority of the time, change schmo, who shows up for a self-defense class, learns how to do that technique where someone is just standing there still and just grabs her hand and waits. Well, let's face it, if someone is going to attack you by grabbing your arm, what are they, they're not going to just grab your hand and say, Hey, I'm going to be a bad guy, they're going to be doing one of two things, they're either going to be grabbing your hand to pull you somewhere, or they're going to be grabbing your hand to hold on to you. So you can't get away, and they're going to strike you, right?
So within a martial arts context, when you're at school learning, for years, you learn how to deal with those other things. But if you have, like you said, a two-hour class, and you're only training when somebody grabs on to you and just waits there, that's not realistic as to what's actually going to be happening.
But a lot of martial arts instructors are so used to teaching students that they will be with them for years at a time, that they have the ability to teach those other things. And they don't think in this two-hour class, I can't teach my self-defense class as if it's a regular martial arts class, because they are different.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Now, most of the people listening will likely think, you know, your guru presenting this as if the majority of martial arts instructors don't recognize this fact. I'm sure they do. Some do. Let me offer a counter-example.
Andrew, this is the third year you've been involved in free training day, retraining day northeast, which as we're recording this, will happen soon. In fact, when this airs, it will probably have just happened the week before. And we had a great time, and you should have been there.
Andrew Adams:
One of the things happened.
Jeremy Lesniak:
One of the things that I have noticed, and I shared this with you and you now that you've been involved a couple of years, you've seen this too. We get wonderful, competent, long, lifelong martial artists to come in and teach. And every year, there are several who are there for the first time and struggle to teach what they are teaching, not to people who are strangers to martial arts, but to other martial artists who have been training for many years. If people have a hard time breaking, breaking down what they're teaching, other people already do something very similar.
They're going to have an even I would say, in most cases, a more difficult time breaking it down for someone with no understanding. Further support for this belief. Does anybody start teaching risk grabs, etc? On day one of a brand new martial arts curriculum? No, because it is more complex. Well, why don't we give them the stuff that is going to be most useful? Well, we want them to have time to learn skills and progress and to feel competent about what they're doing. Ah, there it is. We recognize in every way that we don't want to admit it, that most of what most of us turn to, for self-defense, and self-protection is inherently complicated.
And that's okay. If it is for you, but if you're going to teach it to other people, there are two really important concepts that need to be considered. And it's funny because most of the world knows I do some consulting mostly with martial arts schools, but I still have some clients that are not martial arts related. As an aside if anybody is interested in having me work with you and your martial arts school in a very affordable way. Consulting wise, booster numbers booster marketing, I can provide references. I'm kind of good at what I do. I love doing it. If you can't tell what I have this quiet.
We were finishing up a call and this is a client who provides a service and goes into homes. And they have a specific scenario where their receptionist heard some things in the background of a call while the appointment is being set up that was related to the service provider, and is making them uncomfortable. So we talked about this in a couple of different ways. The first-way being, trust your gut, right? Like that's number one, always trust your gut. But then number two, the body of information that I want to share with her is someone who, to my knowledge, has never done martial arts.
She's older, I believe she's in her late 50s, maybe early 60s, she's not as volatile, big, imposing person. She's not small and frail. But I don't think anyone would consider her a physical threat. The things I want to give to her are not okay, here's how you're going to manipulate this wrist. If you're grabbed. Here's how I want you to smash your face with an elbow for a reason that we've talked about on this show several times. Andrew, do you remember what that reason is? You know why I don't like teaching that stuff. When I teach self-defense. I don't remember. I know you've talked about it.
But I remember people wait too long. Oh, yeah, people wait, too, if all I have the tools I have available are going to cause injury, I'm going to make really, really sure that I've got the scenario understood that if I'm going to elbow you in the face, I want to make sure that I don't get it wrong and go to jail, or, well, this person just playing around. And because of that people wait.
So the things that I teach have to fit a few criteria. And I suspect you have your own criteria too and most of you out there have other criteria, it has to be simple. Meaning I can teach it to someone very quickly. It has to kind of go along with that and some people break it out separately, easily replicable, I need to be able to do it time and time and time again. And three, non-injurious meaning that when I do it successfully, that person is not going to go to the hospital. And thus, I am less likely to wait until the opportune time has passed. Are you ever similar?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Very, very simple, same exact same things, right? It's going to be replicable. Quickly, you know, not injured. I mean, nobody wants to go to jail. And the reality is, that might happen even when you're defending yourself, you know, bad things could still happen to you, if you quote unquote, win. So I would agree. The other thing I would, I would think about adding to this conversation is that, unfortunately, many martial arts instructors advertise and think of themselves as good self-defense instructors.
Not understanding that they're two different things. And I think there's a great correlation here. People who teach boxing advertise that they're teaching boxing, and they teach stuff that very combats adjacent, right, they're, they're teaching people how to punch and be in a, you know, in an altercation, boxing, but they don't go around saying that they're teaching self-defense. It's a great point.
You know, and I think it is very important for if you are a martial arts instructor, and you are teaching, quote, unquote, self-defense classes for women or whomever that you really take a strong look at is what I'm teaching in this two hour or even two day course. Is it really teaching self-defense or self-protection? And the answer could be yes, I think Tony Blauer is a perfect example, right?
Someone that he is teaching, how to defend yourself and self-protection. He is not teaching and I think he would be the first to admit he's not teaching martial arts. And so I think that's an important thing for people to consider.
Jeremy Lesniak:
There's nothing wrong with saying, yes, self-defense is an aspect of what we teach, but it is not our focus. Yeah, it is okay to say self-defense is something that we teach. But if that is the main reason you are here, we're probably not the curriculum for you, or we should do some training separately. You know, we can do some private study to help you get those tools faster. I would say that the average traditional martial arts student requires three years of training to take a noticeable step forward in their physical ability to defend themselves. Yeah, I was gonna say two to three years.
Now there's probably a much faster return in terms of awareness and confidence and other things that we talked about in Episode 755, which is why it's fairly quick for someone to gain confidence and to build awareness, and all these other things that forget the physical skills for a moment. But in terms of Yes, somebody throws a punch at me under pressure, my ability to have a better chance, a markedly better chance of defending against that. That is not overnight. That doesn't happen in a two-hour class. There's so much that goes on. If you've ever taught self-defense or had scenarios in your martial arts school, and there are people that you look around the room and they're bug-eyed and they need to go sit down, or they always choose that to go get a drink of water.
It's exactly why there's trauma there. And most of us have had at least low-grade trauma somewhere along the line that has some impact on what, why, when, how, etc. We defend ourselves. So the premise of this episode being martial arts instructors can be the worst self-defense, teachers. Let's end on a high note. Let's talk about how martial arts instructors evaluate their self-defensive teaching. And if they find that what they want to teach is not accurately reflected, reflected in how they teach, how they can make some changes? Yep. A good way to wrap up.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, I think so. I think it comes down to if you are teaching just your Joe Schmo teacher just teaching a regular martial arts class every week, 234 times whatever. I think that's fine. Yeah, I don't think you have to change anything. You don't have to necessarily evaluate what you're teaching and how you're teaching it. Teach whatever you want. I think the biggest thing that people need to evaluate is if they are teaching a specific self-defense class.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I think that's where it's most important. Absolutely.
Andrew Adams:
I think so. Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So, the evaluation process would be the same. If self-defense is something you are attempting to teach. The easiest way to test it is to have some high-pressure situations. And we've done some drills like that when we did a free training day out in the northwest. I think you were there for that block that I taught and you know, those are, those are not uncommon drills. Anytime someone has unknown stuff to respond to. It can be really valuable. And maybe we do an episode on some of these exercises at some point, actually, that'd be kind of fun, we can get maybe a small group together, and do some of these drills as a separate class. But you likely have your own, if you don't, that's a sign that there's an issue.
If you don't have drills that you do as part of your self-defense curriculum, or would do in a self-defense class or breakout class, then there is something lacking there, and you need to go find them. If the time spent training does not roughly correlate to improvement in those drills, meaning somebody has been there for five years, and they're just as good or bad at it as someone who's been there for a year. Broadly, right, you know, look at the breadth of your students. That is also an indication problem. People should be progressing as you give them repetition. If they're not progressing with repetition, the repetition is repeating the wrong things. What else? Well, how else might somebody know that they're missing the boat?
Andrew Adams:
I think just trying to make things as realistic, quote, unquote, realistic as possible in a safe manner, I think is the most important thing, you know, understanding what's going to what a perpetrator is likely going to do in a situation is just straight grabbed you by the collar, and then wait, there is not something that's realistically going to happen. They're gonna grab you by the collar because they're gonna hit you with the other hand.
Jeremy Lesniak:
If you find that what you were doing needs improvement. dramatic improvement, not Oh, I could make some adjustments here. Yeah, this makes sense. You know, I probably spent a little too much time on this drill and not on this drill. But if you're really if you're going, Oh, Jeremy, Andrew, I didn't realize that what I was doing wasn't really in line with the goals I have for the people I'm teaching.
Step one, you probably need a better understanding of violence. And what violence there is in a variety of books we've done a number of episodes over the years. We've done two episodes with Tony Blauer, we did an episode with Rory Word, those are two big names you can look at. We've had a bunch of guests that have written books on violence that listeners would likely find of interest.
Andrew Adams:
Some people likely got those books on free training day,
Jeremy Lesniak:
Some of them did. Shout out to the VIPs. I don't think you're going to find books that are a waste of time. A book on violence, maybe you're not learning a ton of new stuff in it. But I would say that's a good place to start. That's number one. And then number two, build from simplicity. If you consider the goal in educating your students, whether they be from a one-time seminar, or recurring students in a class, the goal of their Self Defense Education is a noticeable decrease in their risk.
Given any random scenario, their ability to pull off techniques should be as close to 100 out of 100 in the class setting as possible. And if it's not if they're not able to pull it out, 100 out of 100 Is there something better that they could write, I've said this before, and I'll say it again, the three that I am the first three that I teach, it's pressing in on the fingernail. For any kind of grab, it is pinching the inside of the thigh for any kind of hug. And it is pushing up on the nose for plenty of other things to break the balance. None of those are difficult to do. None of those are going to hurt anybody. And then the fourth one, if you need it, this one will hurt somebody scraping the bottom of your shoe down someone's ship.
Those are the first four things I teach. And people look at that. And they're like, that's so easy. Yeah, that's the idea. That's the point. That's the whole reason I do it. Did you want something more complicated that you couldn't do? What a life-or-death situation! Are you’re gonna have a hard enough time going? What should I do? Okay, I'm gonna push up on their faces. Okay, good. That's difficult enough to pull off. When you were afraid that you were about to die?
I think we're good. Awesome. All right. Now, as always, we invite feedback and conversation on these subjects. The best place to do it is in our Facebook group, whistle kick martial arts radio, behind the scenes, it is a private group, you got to join it. And if you join it, you'll have access to our conversations. Some episodes have more conversation than others, frankly, some of them do such an amazing job.
We were so articulate, and perfectly thought out at the things that we say people don't have any feedback on. I don't think that's the reason but sometimes we have episodes where people don't really have anything to say. But we always welcome it. If it's the feedback that you'd like to offer in a more private fashion, you can email us. I'm Jeremy@whistlekick.com, Andrew is Andrew@ whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. And if there's stuff for follow up, if there's stuff, you know, sometimes we have people listen, they're like, you know, I really want to unpack this aspect of what you said with you.
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