My search for the ‘perfect’ technique

ENTER THE JOURNEY

I started my martial arts journey in my late teens. My earliest experience with combat arts was dabbling in Israeli Martial Arts (Krav Maga) and good old fashioned Boxing!

One afternoon after school I showed up for boxing and it was sparring day. There was a prospect in our group that was turning pro soon. On this day everyone in the gym had to gear up and do rounds in the ring in order to help him prepare for his upcoming fight.

I had some experience sparring by then, and I hated every moment of it. I was always scared, apprehensive and struggled getting used to constantly getting hit. I knew I wanted to learn how to fight, and so I always forced myself to toughen up and push through. After watching a few rounds, it was my turn. I had sparred this particular individual before. The last time he left the ring without even breaking a sweat. I left with a cracked nose and a headache.

The 1st round was a rocky start as usual , but during the 2nd round something just clicked. Suddenly I was catching him and countering him with my left hook. It was a strange out of body experience where I didn’t consciously do anything, yet my body took over and just knew what to do. I would catch him off of his cross or faint low and catch him clean in the head up high. I was finding openings and hitting him all the time. During the last 30 seconds of the 4th round I caught him as he came in and my hook connected with his chin. His knees buckled just before he wrapped me up in a clinch and pushed me up against the ropes.

After the sparring session I felt invincible! It was the first time I felt that I could not only learn to box, but actually be good at it! Our coach pulled me to the side and told me ”Good job today Joubert, you landed nicely. But we have to fix your technique and work on a few details. You were making some mistakes but we’ll work on it next week.” I remember driving home with my stepfather and thinking about what the coach said. It felt like I was landing almost every single time and I got the better of him? What was there to fix? But after some reflection I decided to humble myself and listen to my coach. If he says I have a lot to work on, I’ll go back and do as he says.

TRANSITIONING TO MMA & KICKBOXING

Fast forward a few years and I had entered the world of MMA, specifically I had started training Striking and Jiu-jitsu under South Africa’s 1st BJJ Black Belt, who happened to also be the first person in the country to teach Muay Thai in the late 90’s. This led him to become a pioneer and open up the 1st Mixed Martial Arts gym in the country. Having a background in boxing definitely helped me transition into other striking arts, and I was picking up new skills quickly, but with this came a new set of problems. My new coach’s approach to doing the left hook the “right way” was completely different to what I was initially taught up until then. By trying to unlearn “bad habits” and focusing on new habits I would get caught in a vicious cycle.

It would usually follow the following pattern:

• I would start by doing shadowboxing first, focusing on all the little details and feeling of the movement.

• Then I would move over to the heavy bag and try to get pristine technique and power. After the heavy bag I would transition to mittwork or the speedball and eventually focus on executing the technique during live sparring.

• If I sparred with someone who didn’t have the same level of experience I found that I could pull off the technique with close to perfect form the way I drilled it. I could pay attention to my hand placement, the bend in my arm, palm facing down, pivoting through the foot and hips and bringing my hand back to my chin for defense after an exchange.

• However, every time sparring would get a bit too intense, or I would be facing someone with good game, my technique would fall away again and my hook would spontaneously emerge. It would come from weird angles, sometimes I would pivot, sometimes I wouldn’t, sometimes my hands would be up, sometimes they would be low. Sometimes I would throw close and in the pocket, other times it would loop and be thrown from the outside range.

• Afterwards I would berate myself again for not doing it “correctly” and not staying diciplined enough. At the next training session I would be back at it again with the shadowboxing, bag work and mitts focusing on drilling, drilling, drilling - hoping that the next time it would finally stick.

This pattern and training method had been ingrained in me and for most gyms it’s the exact way coaches teach; Get the student to drill the details, test it in sparring and have them try and work it live, give them feedback on all the little mistakes and put them back on the mitts or bag to drill it again. It sounds like the perfect recipe for feedback and improvement.

But here was the problem, every time I would break away from the correct way of doing a hook in sparring I would be MORE EFFECTIVE. I would land more punches, find novel and clean openings and be more precise, usually outworking or countering my opponent. People would even comment afterwards and say ”Man that sneaky left hook of yours!” Yet I didn’t execute any of the details I was focusing on the bag or mitts.

WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?

Turns out that the scientific field of Ecological Dynamics has not only caught up with this exact phenomenon, but can clearly and scientifically explain why this happens. This is not a boxing problem, nor a combat sports problem, but touches on the fundamental way behavior emerges and how we as human beings learn movement skills.

INTERNAL & EXTERNAL FOCUS OF ATTENTION

The most recent scientific literature on behaviour and motor learning categorizes an individuals attention into two categories:

Internal focus of attention: Attention turned inwards towards your own body. Where your left foot is, where your hand is facing, are you pivoting and rotating your hips and where you place your limbs, weight etc.

External focus of attention: Focusing on external cues and information you can perceive outside of your body. In almost all combat arts your attention is on the other person (External) . In striking an example of external focus of attention is looking for the openings you’re opponent gives you to hit.

Here lies the problem. You only have so much attention and bandwidth to work with. In stressful or high performance situations you usually have to prioritize internal or external focus. It’s almost impossible to focus on both simultaneously. Furthermore studies have found that individuals that have an external task focus, tend to perform better as it leads to better self-organisation.

If we look at most sports and movement based activities, it’s interesting to note that all of these activities are trained in models with high internal focus of attention that are usually presented as the theory, details and mechanics you must master. Yet when it’s time to actually perfom the activity in a real live manner the environment demands external focus of attention.

MYSTERY SOLVED

Once I read the research on internal end external focus of attention, everything made sense! Every time I would drill the details of my left hook (Internal FOA) I’d be able to execute it perfectly as all my focus would be on MYSELF and my own body. Yet whenever I would spar, the environment would be too fast, dynamic and unpredictable. It’s almost impossible to simultaneously focus on everything you have to do, whilst also focusing and reacting to everything your opponent is doing. At a certain point you have to choose what to focus on. Once I started solely focusing on the my opponent (External FOA) my body would self-organize and my results would improve.

This once again reinforces the idea that there is no perfect technique. The only thing that matters is how effective you are, what you are paying attention to, and if you are getting the results and outcomes you want.

If you can pass the guard in Jiu-jitsu 9/10 times against multiple different partners even though you ignore “details” or the “right mechanics”, no coach on the planet could reasonably tell you you are doing it incorrectly? They just want it to look the way they want it to or for you to do it their way.

As a coach I had to completely change my view as to what my actual role is as a teacher. It’s not about getting people to do techniques, drills, movements and mechanics the way I want them too. It’s about letting them find the right way to do it for THEM. And then guiding their attention towards the things that will get to a desirable outcome. So far it’s been going great and my left hook hasn’t suffered since I finally gave up on my search for the perfect technique.