You need to come down with Mitch some time. Mitch has invested in enough kit to run some very good 'unpredictable' scenarios in his own right.
Thanks to Smurf for booking up a day and coming along with 6 excellent chaps. We had one of my Shotokan guys with us too to make a total of 8 trainees which is a good number. From my perspective it was a very interesting day and I will be reviewing the footage quite a bit. Every one of these days is different and this one threw up some good training points. We had a slow start in some respects as the majority of the participants were not natural 'bad guys' and initially some of the acting and attacks left a little to be desired in terms of realism which in turn affected the outcomes and learning points. Gradually though we managed to elicit some very realistic stimuli and that created a good dynamic in a number of the scenarios. The age group and experience group of this event (Sim Day 20) was unique. It is unusual to work with such a small group and yet have about 180 years worth of training experience in the room. With so many of Smurf's guys participating I found it fascinating to watch the different manifestations of his style. Most of the participants also cross trained and naturally everyone forms their own program from the operating system, but there were some strong consistent elements that formed little style signatures. A number of these were quite alien to me and would not integrate well with my own approaches, but that does not make them any less viable.
It wasn't until my third sim day that I felt really comfortable being a bad guy. As a lot of the texts say, overcoming your programming to be polite is a real issue. Becoming better as a bad guy has made me better at using focussed aggression and eliminated a lot of the shock factor when I'm a defender though, and has certainly made me better at using verbal aggression as a defensive tool.
In the interests of accuracy, I should point out that this was not a DART course. DART is a Karate system. It's nice that people are associating this training method with the system as the feedback from observing (all style) behaviour reactions and tactics in this training format is integral integral to how our pedagogy is structured and tested, but these days are not about DART. Smurf booked this day for his club and one of my Shotokan students joined in to fill a space. As such although this was a 'John Titchen Scenario Training Day' it was really all about Smurf and what his students could take away from the different training environment. I am happy to run such days for other clubs (and currently have Kickboxing, Krav Maga and Shotokan clubs interested). I am considering running a longer event (this was 5 hours) over a weekend with food and accommodation included so that I can give participants more time to analyse their performance and isolate elements to address immediately in a following day's training. Anyone interested in a course can find out more here: http://www.d-a-r-t.org.uk/Scenariotraining.html
I am usually a bad guy on these days ..but this time around I was recovering from injury and was not used much in this role .....so it was good to see others adapt to the role . As Ben says the inate politeness of most martial artists is often hard to overcome .... I was fascinated to watch my friends and students adapt to the role playing and see their instinctive defences to the simulated attackes both verbal and physical. This was a great days training as a tight group of people worked together to improve as a unit with honest feedback and learning taking place mixed in with the sense of humour that exists in martial arts training..there is a great clip of one chap James who has just taken a beating holding his helmet aloft and laughing ... I look forward to having some feedback at the dojo over the next week ...
You're very welcome to a lift next time I go, or if I organise an open event in Nottingham area Lei Mitch
We didn't get as much footage as I wanted for feedback due to some camera issues. I think it might have been the reflected light.
Feedback including some footage from the actual event. [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVI86wBCPY8"]Self Defence Scenario Training Feedback - YouTube[/ame]
