How to Get Strong Through Play

A play-based approach to martial arts training can be a powerful tool for developing strength and overall physical fitness. By incorporating games and challenges into training sessions, martial artists can engage their bodies and minds in a way that promotes natural strength development. For example, obstacle courses designed to mimic real-world combat scenarios can help build explosive power, agility, and endurance. Additionally, partner drills that involve grappling or striking can improve strength and muscle tone through dynamic resistance.

Furthermore, play-based training fosters a sense of fun and excitement, making it easier for martial artists to stay motivated and consistent with their training. This increased engagement leads to greater effort and intensity, which ultimately translates to faster progress. By focusing on skill development and creative problem-solving within a playful context, martial artists can unlock their full potential and achieve significant physical and mental gains.

A Playbased Approach for Martial Arts

A playful and creative approach to movement and learning can significantly enhance one's skills as a martial artist by fostering adaptability. When practitioners engage in movement play, they are encouraged to explore different angles, rhythms, and techniques without the constraints of rigid structures. This freedom allows for experimentation, promoting a deeper understanding of movement mechanics and the principles of martial arts. By embracing spontaneity, martial artists can discover new ways to apply their techniques, making them more versatile in various situations.

Moreover, a playful mindset helps to reduce the fear of failure, which can be a major barrier to effective learning. When practitioners view challenges as opportunities for growth rather than threats, they open themselves up to a richer learning experience. This shift in perspective encourages a willingness to try new movements and concepts, leading to unexpected discoveries and innovations in technique.

As martial artists cultivate this sense of play, they become more resilient and resourceful, qualities that are essential in both training and real-life applications.

Additionally, incorporating creativity into martial arts practice serves to strengthen the connection between mind and body. Engaging in imaginative movement not only keeps training sessions stimulating but also encourages mindfulness and presence. Through this holistic approach, martial artists can enhance their focus and awareness, vital components during sparring or self-defense situations. Ultimately, by combining playfulness with a serious dedication to their craft, martial artists can elevate their practice, fostering growth, skill, and confidence on and off the mat.

Creative Movement- Bear Crawl Play

The task of this movement situation is to keep the yoga block wedged between both players/artists as they move through some patterns.

This is no right or wrong. Just play, create riddles and movement situations to help one another create and grow.

I borrow heavily from martial arts and their particular approach to creative movement and problem solving, as well as physical and artistic expression.

Creative Movement is a poetic, playful discipline which aims to revitalize and rejuvenate an individual's ability to deeply perceive and listen to the body and develop expressive and creative potential.

The physical body, is a source and medium of our artistic life and is considered an essential element in the creative process, despite the artistic language in which it may be realized.

Authentic Movement and Teaching

I know “Authenticity”is a buzz word right now. But it remains a great way to describe what it is that we’re searching for in our own creative movement practice or moving art.

It’s also what we’re searching for in our work. We want to present ourselves and our work as we are, authentically.

Everyone benefits when we show up as our selves. Below I share two stories from personal interactions I had with two younger coaches/teachers. Seeing them happier in their coaching/teaching profession warms my heart.

The video below is of a mentor of mine Linda from Fighting Monkey Practice.

Linda is a dancer and an incredible mover and teacher. I wanted to show you this video within the context of Authentic Movement. Now Linda could just give her students planks or push-ups to strengthen their core, shoulders and chest. Or, as she has done here, give those students something more playful, more artistic, more authentic to her own training and lineage.

Which one do you think her students enjoy more? Which one has more engagement and encourages physical expression? Which one will keep them coming back for more?

I speak much more about Fighting Monkey here: How to Get Smashed & Keep Going.

Creative Problem Solvers and Play

My calling is to help you become skillful and creative through establishing a direct connection between you, your environment and your task. Not pulling away from it by becoming an automatic and reflexive robot. As a moving or martial artist, or just someone that wants to enjoy the physical world around them, we must become adaptive problem solvers and creative decision makers.

One of the best ways to help cultivate these elements is through partner play. Below Molly and Alex do a wonderful job of communicating with one another as well as with the tool that’s between them.

It's a shame we're outsourcing these.

It breaks me heart actually that we have and are completely outsourcing our own Creativity and Physicality.

When was the last time you allowed yourself to be bored? To let your own thoughts and imagination flow ?

I fully support learning from other folks and gathering resources and inspiration but there has to be a balance.

There has to be a time in our own lives where we stop the entertainment and channel surfing. And physically… we have basically stopped all skill work, even in relationship to movement and exercise. There is no skill associated with sitting on a seated leg extension machine and busting out some reps. Maybe useful in some rehab/prehab situations but unlikely...

Cooking and preparing our own food is a pain. We can't even clean or vacuum our own homes, we have to outsource that to little round robots. And then we complain that we have aches and pains. Yes we do, because we're doing less and less to actually nourish our tissues with movement.

We do not stop moving because we get old, we get old because we stop moving.

Creating a Sacred Space

Every practice has a space, and that space is sacred.

Setting up your workspace is a vital part of your creative process, whether we’re speaking of creative movement or another artistic expression or practice. Your environment has a significant impact on expression.

A personal place of expression is a grounding influence and a partner through every phase of expression.

I personally envision the studio, the dojo, or the woodshed as a nucleus of creation, a source from which creative movement and expression flows outward to other areas of life and the place to which it returns again.

Personally, I maintain my artistic workspace as a sanctuary, a place at home where creative expression is nourished and regenerated.

Start by setting up your space. Your very own creative movement woodshed.

A few years ago I was struggling to find or uncover my own practice so I literally built a woodshed where I could move and create daily.

I wrote about here: Jiu-Jitsu and the Slow Track.

An Idea for Jiu-Jitsu Teachers

“As I contemplated my art practice this morning —where each individual portrait is a physical/visual record of my investment of practice, I was gifted an idea I would have certainly tried / executed if I were still teaching young people the martial arts:

I would order some attractive pea gravel or decorative (small) stones —and at the end of every practice I would have the kids stand in a line to say goodbye —and I’d place one of these little stones in their hands.

I’d encourage them to place them in a big jar, so that they (and others) might better understand how each of those practice sessions accumulate. Each is light and small individually, but over time the cumulative practice becomes…something all together different.”

This is a reprint from my mentor Tom Callos. He’s an Artist that’s also a Martial Artist.

It was just a simple IG post but I thought it deserved a blog post someplace so it wouldn’t get totally washed away in the stream.

How to Develop your Jiu-Jitsu...the Soft Skill of Breaking Bones

Jiu-Jitsu is a soft skill, a soft art.

The Japanese term Jiu-Jitsu can actually be translated as soft-skill, although we often translate it as Gentle Art or Soft Art.

In human movement studies and motor development, skills are broken down in many ways. Two big broad categories or classifications are soft skills and hard skills. These are also known as open vs closed skills. It all depends on where you went to school or the textbook you used.

A closed (hard) skill is a skill where repeatable precision is needed. Hard skills are usually free from outside distractions as well.

A classic hard-skill in the sporting world would be a foul shot in basketball. There are no other players reaching for the ball, no dodging or cutting involved. Just one target and one player. All other shots on the court would be soft skills or open skills because they are completely dependent of reading, reacting and recognizing the complete situation on the court as well as the other players from both teams.

Soft skills are flexible, soft skills are all about sensitivity, feeling and physical improv.

So they question arises?

How do we develop soft skills? The answer is play. Play more Jiu-Jitsu. Play with more players. Play with players of all different shapes, sizes and skill sets. Play with variations and positions. Explore and experiment with different paths , approaches and combinations.

When working on the soft-skill of Jiu-Jitsu focus on creating a high number of varied repetitions. Don’t worry so much about making mistakes, the most important thing is to keep it playful and explore. Jiu-Jitsu is fun to practice because it is a soft-skill. But…because it is so fun to practice, it’s important for you to self-coach and observe yourself. After each practice simply ask yourself what worked? What didn’t ? What got you smashed? And why?

A Jiu-Jitsu Poem... Or any other art really.

Jiu-Jitsu is an art, a physical art form, much like Yoga or Dance. These art forms all have something in common beyond their physical similarities. There’s an emotional level, a deep level of appreciation and frustration, of like and dislike. Even disdain. I have felt that on many drives home from the dojo.

This poem by Victoria Erickson is really about her relationship with Yoga. But we can steal it and make modifications for our own moving and martial arts like Jiu-Jitsu.

Sometimes I think about playing around with the words and coming up with something original and all my own, but this is too perfect.

You can check out her book here: Edge of Wonder.

A few years ago I wrote an article about the process of training to get the trash out. You can check that out here:

Jiu-Jitsu and the Art of Churning.