Abusive training methods

So a kid in Taiwan is in a coma from abusive training methods.
Taiwan: Judo class puts a seven-year-old in a coma

This is a pretty common occurrence in school judo programs in japan with kids dying from being choked by a teacher wilfully ignoring a tap or exhausting the student in training and dehydration related deaths.

I'm sure we've all experienced something similar with macho training methods - what are common practices that should be stamped out?

 

Any kind of forced stretching that ignores the feedback of the person being stretched. Knew a guy who went and trained Karate in Japan and got his adductor muscles pulled when someone forced him into a stretch.

 

While Physical abuse undoubtedly happens it is not very common in the uk now.

But poor training methods are sadly still with us. I visited a local karate / judo school that has been going for over 30 years. The first class I visited the instructor had students doing break falls as the warm up. One student dislocated their shoulder and went to hospital. The second class I had to step in when a student was about to practice a diving wrist lock escape straight into a wall.

thinking about this It might be helpful to have a thread on training don'ts. To help people recognise bad practice.

 

Not respecting a tap during a demo for laughs is a thing I've noticed training in east asia (and folks trained in east asia) and generally with young men.

Additionally I trained with a Korean judo coach who I basically had to tell to stop throwing me as hard and fast as possible in succession when teaching me.
He apologised and told me in his club in Korea, everyone was expected to take the hazing/licks until they were good enough and respected. I did point out that it was difficult to learn when you're in horrible pain.

 

How about the number of adults and especially the family member who stood by watching and not intervening?

It makes me sick to think so many people would spectate as a young child is effectively slammed into brain death. The kid's uncle himself was filming to show the parents that this class was too much for Wei Wei, but otherwise didn't stop things? For the love of god, why are people so paralyzed in awe by these clowns in gis?

That's what should be different...parents and friends need to stop pretending the macho instructor in the room is some unassailable god. I'll bet the uncle now wishes he has approached and thrown the "coach" off Wei Wei himself, but he lacked the will to act against someone who was, I guess, considered an authority figure. Too many authorities in martial arts aren't worth the belt they're wearing, and probably need a good ego-nullifying punch in the nose.

 

So I went looking for more details, and found an entire pressure group to stop it.

“I Was Hit So Many Times I Can’t Count”

 

I'm always appalled by stories of TMA classes where doing chores for the instructor is seen as a privilege. Teachers should be there to serve their students, not make themselves feel big by creating a cult of sycophants.

I'm also disgusted by instructors who go way too hard on compliant demos, and again the students seem to feel it is a privilege to let their teacher beat them up. It reeks of insecurity.

 

I'm just going to say this much as a judo-ka who does karate as well. You can do some breakfalls as warm up, but with some caveats (since physical activity is a bit more nuanced than yes or no)

breakfalls: yes when on properly matted floors (ie: judo mats) not on a dance floor or wooden one like a church hall. Yes after you've got your body warmed up from jogging around and the usual cardiovascular exercises to increase blood flow and oxygen to working muscles, no if you're starting them as first thing with no warming up. Yes if you're only doing a few, no if all your doing is throwing yourself on the ground for 5-10 minutes, and you absolutely need to be taught how to do them correctly before you can do them as a warm up.

I'd also argue if you're not in a style that focuses on grappling, they are a pretty redundant activity to do. Look at it from a sport specific background: if you're doing olympic lifting for a competition, you most likely should be focusing on movements relevant to olympic lifting and building your activity around that, not ignoring them in favour of say, powerlifting.

It's all within context, and being aware of that student's ability level and injuries.

I mean, I don't even make any of my clients at my circuit classes do burpees because I honestly don't think there's a great trade off for what you get out of them.

 

I disagree 100%. The most usefull thing I learned in martial arts is how to fall. a month ago I caught something in the front wheel of my bicycle. The front wheel turned 90% and I went over the handlebars and strait at the ground, rolled and landed totally unharmed. I even had time to congratulate myself on the quality of the break-fall before the bike hit me in the back of the head. Last year my brother in law had a similar accident, he broke both wrists, his left elbow, and fractured his eye socket.

I agree 100% with everything else you said.

 

Sorry perhaps I didn't word that correctly. What i mean is, it's probably more relevant for grapplers to drill more often, as they are more likely to be doing those movements overall. For them, it makes sense as part of a warmup because they'll be more likely to do things like rolls, falls etc in a session than say, a boxer would. I think I wrote that last comment hastily on the way out to work, sorry.

But yeah, I don't think it's wrong for anyone specifically to learn breakfalls, how to land or roll safely, but if you're going sport specific, depending on discipline, you'll be wanting to make the warm ups and movements trained as close to the ones you'll be doing, and if you're not likely to be rolling around or doing ukemi techniques like in Judo if you were in a purely stand up style, you're better spent doing things more relevant to your craft.

It's interesting really because the first MA I dedicated any significant time to was Bujinkan, and I think out of everything I got out of it, breakfalls and rolls, along with one or two throws I carried into Judo from principles of leverage were the best things I got out of it, and it made getting into Judo significantly easier.

 

It is I who should apologies. Your post was considered and well put, where as I my reply may have been overly vehement.

I just find it interesting( and in fact a positive point about both humanity and the society that we live in) that after decades of martial arts, the thing that I have used most often is how to defend myself against my own carless mistakes. Not how to defend against others.

 

no apologies needed. In honesty I’ve got more mileage out of breakfalls than anything else. I’ve only had one altercation since getting into martial arts and probably hundreds more slips and trips.

 

It's a way of teaching people to respect their training space. You're not a customer, you're a student, and a member, and the place that you learn in is your space. It also helps cut down on membership fees and doesn't make the guy who you're paying for specialty instruction have to do all the janitorial legwork. I always found it a valuable attitude to have taken from JMA. I was happy to help clean any place I trained at, and it certainly made other instructors happy to have me there. Seriously, go visit someone else's school, or go train at a new school and sweep, maybe do some mopping, and it makes people really glad to have you there.

My Sifu always said that a big part of martial arts is about building relationships, and that students who only view their training like a business, like they pay and they're supposed to get a product, even if the teacher is well intentioned, will never get the same quality of care and instruction because they don't make themselves part of the family. I think that's very true.

 

I'd say a lot of the strength and conditioning work I see. Most of it isn't really structured well, if at all. A lot of the time it's got no real progression, and it's done in a group setting with varying levels of fitness. Schools would be better off having dedicated strength and conditioning sessions with someone qualified, which can be tailored to individual students instead of having people who can barely do push-ups do what is effectively bodyweight level ego-lifting.

 

One thing that conversing on MAP over the years has instilled in me is that "self defence/protection" should be an over arcing life concern that looks at the risk of harm that may come to me from ALL fronts and take appropriate informed action to mitigate them. Not just the harm that may come from an attacker who never comes.

 

Relationships are a two-way street though. I'm talking about places where being treated like the instructor's servant is seen as a privilege, and a way to claw your way up the pecking order.

I've done my share of clearing rubbish, fencing and planting in our outside training areas, but at the same time my instructor has cooked more meals and done more washing up for me than anyone, other than people I've lived with (and more than a few of them). When I was younger and living in a scuzzy shared house, two of my instructors spent an hour cleaning up our disgusting kitchen. I've done the same since.

Instructors are there to serve, and I serve my students however I can, but with the understanding that each student is better at one or more things than me. I have more knowledge of the martial art they are training, and that's it. Everyone is deserving of equal respect for their skills and knowledge, and it benefits everyone to defer to whoever is most qualified on any given subject.

You have to be very wary of hierarchies, lest you end up taking advice on public health and vaccination from a BJJ black belt!

 

I must say I do like the tradition of group cleaning the dojo floor or mats before/after practice that you see in some dojos. Especially in this day and age with our increased awareness of infections/covid/ringworm etc.
But that kind if thing needs instilling as a dojo ethos from day one. Seeing as a lot of people can't even be bothered to get to class on time let alone turn up 5 minutes early or stay 5 minutes late to clean the training space it'd be a hard thing to implement in a place that doesn't already have it as an expectation.

 

Child labour!

He should be on some kind of register for exploiting minors.