intensity vs technique
Post by Paul Evans
Time in each class (which is usually one hour) is obviously finite, so you are always making a choice: emphasize technique or aggressiveness?
Of course, you can and should include both. No Krav Maga class is complete if you haven’t done at least one or two stress drills, and students should leave every class drenched in sweat. But at the same time, if all you do is stress drills, students can miss out on simple concepts that make their techniques more efficient (and, therefore, allow them to become even more aggressive). The simplest example of this is the student who is willing to punch aggressively and powerfully, but continually drops his hands while punching. At some point, we need to slow his training down to help him build better habits.
The opposite is also true: focus too much on technique, and your students become technicians who don’t understand the violent, uncomfortable, stressful nature of a real fight. This is a crime no Krav Maga instructor should ever commit.
So…we understand the dilemma. How to resolve it?
My solution is by no means the only one, but I find it workable. I oscillate back and forth in my lesson plans over the course of two or three months between aggressiveness and technique. While making sure that every class has elements of both, I will focus a little more on technique for a month or two, and then move toward more aggressiveness. I am conscious of the emphasis, and I plan for a transition from one end of the spectrum to the other. This way students in Level One classes (average time in that level is 3-4 months), get a healthy dose of both technical understand and stress training.
At our gym, we are just transitioning out of a technique-oriented phase into more aggressiveness (of course, I feel the need to restate that every class includes stress drills! It’s not a matter of omission, just emphasis). I just laid a challenge down to our instructors: I want to see who can generate the most “Oh-my-god-that-was-hard” comments from students. (The day after my challenge, one of our instructors made a brand new member throw up.) I will let you know what sort of results we see.
Let me know your thoughts on aggressiveness v. technique training!
Related posts:
