Old school Training v Today's training

[Ade]

Hi guys what's your thoughts on training now to what it was in the 90's at clubs, do you think hardcore training has been liquidized due to different laws health and safety ,the claims department etc,
or do you think the level of training is the same as it was? Yes it does depend on certain clubs but more and more clubs are starting,if the training level wasn't experienced in the early days ,how could that training be passed on and taught. Thoughts please ty

[Mark Drake]

Hey Mate Great Question

I feel it has changed a lot due to health and safety etc.
Although there is better fitness and stretching routines out there than how we used to train years ago, because there is more knowledge and research into these.
But it is so easy for people to make a claim these days and also the insurance policies have plenty of hidden small print to get themselves out of paying out for Martial arts injuries.

Also I find the students don't want to push themselves how hard they did years ago.
And how hard we would have trained.
I know this isn't the same for everybody. There are always those who wish to excel, but I mean in general
????

[Ljgale]

I started training in 2003 so I'm going off some 2nd hand information here.

In aikido it certainly has changed. My understanding is partly due to health and safety (you go back 30 years and the aikido organisation I'm in was consistently training with live weapons), now it's almost all wooden.

Change has also been fueled by our doshu who has both looked at society and the people he's training.
His audience tend to prefer more intellectual training and less physical. He also believes that sice police have been introduced, it's much more likely we will get into trouble for using deadly techniques and therefore adapted our training to suit. I think this is ok for the majority providing that that those who want to be senior instructors are still taught at a higher level to maintain upper standards of the arts.

[Neilmccarthy]

I was training back in the 80's and it was hard! the club I trained in had a mentality of very physical every session. I often a session ended with puking!! I reflect on that training and today many of the exercise would not be considered safe. H&S is a good thing to a point. I know there are hard classes out there, so I am sure this is still available. Martial arts is an industry, so I see the majority marketing to the masses, so this hard training just does not appeal and most clubs would close down with loss of students! Finding a good club with safe training but hard is like winning the lottery!

[Jeremy]

Has anybody else trained with a group who drinks a little and eats a bit, shoots the shit and trains some more? I feel like a lot of Martial Arts must have started off this way and can be considered old school training.

When it comes to modern academies, the necessity to pay bills seems to change the way we train, as well as the prevalence of Martial Sports. The responsibility to mold young minds as well. As the years go on, every year, it seems harder to find a retail academy that prevails with old school methodologies.

It seems like schools at cultural centers that I have found tend to blend the modern and traditional well.

[armchairwarrior7]

It's necessary to adapt training to the needs and abilities and needs of the students. Good physical training requires an instructor to adapt the exercise to the student. Overtraining increases their risk of injury and setbacks as well as risking longer term health. Health and safety regulations work hands in hand with effective training practices. The brutal traditions of pushing proper further than was safe were grounded in a poor understanding of exercise science. Happily this is changing.

I would agree that there is probably an insufficient fitness training curve as people adapt to training, and so there is a trial high level students may not be as well trained as they need to be. However, this may be more a symptom of students looking to visibly progress quickly, rather than taking sufficient time to for body conditioning and memory to settle in. It is here that I fear the productisation of the martial arts might harm it's quality. People are simultaneously starting from a lower fitness starting point and expecting to reach a high standard quickly. Such things are not safely possible, and so there is pressure to cut corners and satisfied. It is this trend we should resist: we should insist that to reach a high level grade, students must demonstrate comparable fitness and competence to yesteryear, even if they have a long journey to safely reach that level.