Training vs. Conditioning

Caveat: This article is mine and mine alone. I the author of this article assure you, the reader, that any of the opinions expressed here are my own and are a result of the way in which my meandering mind interprets a particular situation and/or concept. The views expressed here are solely those of the author in his private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of other martial arts and/or conflict/violence professionals or authors of source materials. It should be quite obvious that the sources I used herein have not approved, endorsed, embraced, friended, liked, tweeted or authorized this article. (Everything I think and write is true, within the limits of my knowledge and understanding.)

I have written a good deal about terminology and how it is important. Its importance lies in the definition and meaning behind the term. In this particular case it is about the term “Training vs. Conditioning.” I just finished an article by Rory Miller at the YMAA website titled, “The Practical Problem of Teaching Self-Defense.” This, by my view, is about teaching, teaching through what Mr. Miller terms, “Operant Conditioning.” 

When it comes to self-defense apparently the time honored model of martial arts, training, conveys and teaches the wrong message. When martial arts talks about speed they often are speaking to how fast you apply a technique in any given situation but it now has an additional meaning to me. To take full advantage of speed you have to condition yourself to do a few things, i.e., first is develop a faster OODA loop, second is to develop the physiokinetics necessary to achieve speed and third you have to condition your responses to the point it bypasses cognitive processing and makes that action speedier from its reflexive speed. 

In other words, we want to condition our mind and bodies to go directly to reflexive speed and that conditioning comes from the understanding and implementation of operant conditioning in lieu of “Training.” 

Rory Miller does warn us that operant conditioning can be mucked up if our “egos (my word/term)” allow us to correct, micromanage, etc., making it training instead of operant conditioning. 

Rory Miller does not go into how one uses operant conditioning to condition students into a reflex action but I assume, at least for the article, it is up to the teacher or instructor to learn how to condition via operant conditioning. It seems to me another one of the criteria that makes for a good SDMA in RBSD or Self-defense Martial Arts in Reality Based Self-Defense. 

You can look to my writing efforts toward changing over from use of “Training” to “Conditioning” for SDMA articles. You will also see RBC used for Reality Based Conditioning. 

Training: The action of teaching a person a particular skill or type of behavior. 

Conditioning: To have a significant influence on or determine (the manner or outcome of something). Bring something into the desired state of use. 

Click for larger view, emphasis example only. 

Operant Conditioning: a method of learning that occurs through reinforcements and punishments for behavior. It encourages the subject to associate desirable or undesirable outcomes with certain behaviors.

Note: Actually, it may depend on what you are trying to accomplish as training may be adequate for some things while the actual realty based self defense model may require that type of conditioning gained through operant conditioning, etc.

Note II: Hmmm, maybe it is about conditioning then training that but maybe both if conditioned under operant conditioning makes both terms relevant? Hmmm, so many things to think about. I guess if you qualify that training to you is about conditioning yourself and your students through operant conditioning, etc. then maybe it doesn't really matter at all.

Bibliography:

Miller, Rory. “The Practical Problem of Teaching Self-Defense.” YMAA. January 19, 2015.