Group Class Hierarchy

My group class is progressing nicely. We've started some light technical sparring and I think it's really reinforced many of the lessons I've tried to instill in my students. Knowing that my students will read this, I still have to admit to a mild amount of frustration. As a group, this is easily the most intelligent group of guys (in terms of raw IQ) I've ever trained but their self-preservation instincts leave quite a bit to be desired. This has caused me to reevaluate the training process to a certain degree. Normally, when I'm training fighters, it's just a matter of teaching tools. The instinct for self-preservation is there. Only the technique or lack thereof is rough. But with my current batch of students, it's as if the instinct just isn't there so teaching the tools ends up being rather pointless because they don't have the internal impetus to use them.

Do I have to teach them the self-preservation instinct first? I'm not really even sure how to do that. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that only one of them has ever been in a real fight. But they've all taken their dings in the last few weeks and they hasn't been a substantial shift in their attitude which makes me think that it's probably my fault. We'll see what happens next week when everybody's a bit more sore. Hopefully then, they won't be so nonchalant about getting hit.

Another interesting thing is that sparring brings up with this group a dynamic I'm sure most of them are unfamiliar with. I always say that when a group starts sparring, you really get to see who's a bit (or a lot) austistic and who may have a touch of Aspberger's. When a group starts sparring, heirarchy develops and here in egalitarian San Francisco, we don't like to talk about heirarchy. I think that's a reason everybody is so out of sorts here. We're fundamentally animals and animals need a firmly established heirarchy to feel safe. In our attempts to deny that or pretend it doesn't exist, we fight our biology and that's generally a losing battle.

How hard you want to go in a sparring match is largely unspoken but definitely communicated. Right now, my guys are all to absorbed in themselves to really communicate with each other physically. Instead of being receptive, they are all focused on doing what they want to do. Hopefully, they'll get past that or they won't and that will ultimately determine their level of ability.

It's one of those counterintuitive truths that in order to fight really well, against a skilled opponent, you have to be open, receptive and sensitive. That's a hard thing for beginners to understand when they are still scared of getting hit, the pain, looking stupid, etc.

One of my teachers said to me once, "When you are no longer distracted by the pain, you can then begin the business of training." He was right. Pain, fear, being tense... all keep you from being receptive and reading your opponent properly. And if you can't do that, it doesn't much matter what you have planned after that.