Self-protection, hand-to-hand combat... A training group full of serious faces enters the hall and they talk about real violence, the street.
They train, seriously and with a clear conscience. The individual training elements are hard, but the implementation of the trainees suffers.
In another hall a group also trains for their individual self-protection. They work on individual elements that look very sporty, almost playful from the point of view of the training philosophy. Participants who have only recently started can find their way around the training group. The music sounds more like a summer party and you can even catch one or two participants dancing spontaneously between the drills.
Sometimes even the idea of competition among each other is aspired and one can achieve points within the wrestling elements to be seen.
With real force this training has no similarities at first sight. But the technical implementation of the individual participants also looks more targeted and superior at second glance.
"...it takes between 10 and 20 repetitions!”
“Scientists have recently determined that it takes approximately 400 repetitions to create a new synapse in the brain – unless it is done with play, in which case, it takes between 10 and 20 repetitions!”
(Dr. Karyn Purvis, Director of Texas Christian University’s Child Development Center)
Dr. Karyn Purvis looks at the learning behaviour of children and the findings of the experts confirm that these findings can also be applied to the learning behaviour of adults.
Looking at our training since 2005, it has changed.
Hard sequences in the beginning... are today more and more playful sportive sequences, which are put together step by step and finally revolutionized in simulations and scenario trainings under pressure.
It's interesting that with this way of training we can achieve much more different characters, get used to the training hardness and act under increased pressure.
...to improve our individual self-protection and to learn to protect ourselves from real aggression and violence.
Not every participant can develop under constant hardship and as realistic a training design as possible. There is even the possibility that participants who want to protect themselves from aggression and violence may bring aggression and violence into their everyday lives through wrong training design.
Regardless of which type of training you pursue and consider to be the right one, the development of the participants is always in the foreground. And this should never be overshadowed by the ego and the external image of the respective trainer.
Trainers must never measure themselves against how they present themselves or what they can do...
...but on the performance of the group.