Episode 1153 - Why Martial Artists Stop Growing After They Improve
Jeremy and Andrew discuss the ways that martial artists stop growing as they plateau and how to combat that.
Why Martial Artists Stop Growing After They Improve - Episode 1153
SUMMARY
In this episode of Whistlekick Martial Arts Radio, Jeremy and Andrew explore why many martial artists stop growing after a certain point. They discuss the importance of continuous training, overcoming plateaus, and how instructors can facilitate ongoing development for students at all levels.
TAKEAWAYS
Martial artists stop growing after reaching a certain level.
Ego and autopilot can result in training stagnation.
Instructors need to facilitate student growth.
Discomfort and challenge in progress is important.
One should use problem-solving and challenges to enhance skills.
There is always more to learn.
Role models and peer training can be a significant part of the process.
It is important to keep motivation and avoid complacency.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
01:15 The concept of practitioners feeling stuck and plateauing
02:37 Understanding competence versus refinement in martial arts
04:39 The importance of continuous challenge and discomfort
06:21 The contrast between beginner and advanced training
08:17 Ego, autopilot, and stagnation in martial arts
10:00 The role of training routines and pushing boundaries
12:12 The influence of role models and senior practitioners
15:38 Adapting training to changing motivations and goals
17:58 The endless pursuit of nuance and detail in martial arts
19:41 Using small rocks analogy to understand skill refinement
21:30 Strategies for instructors to foster growth in mixed classes
23:02 Creating challenges and problem-solving in training
24:22 Engagement with the community and feedback
25:09 Promoting resources, merchandise, and community support
26:01 Closing remarks and call to action
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SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Jeremy (00:02.454)
Hey, what's going on, everybody? Welcome back, or maybe for the first time, to another episode of Whistlekick Martial Arts Radio. And on today's episode, Andrew and I are going to talk about why so many martial artists get good and then stop training. Or as our title is written, I should probably read it accurately: why martial artists stop growing after they improve. And if you're not sure what that means, you should stick around. And if you are sure, you should
Also stick around because what we do here on Martial Arts Radio is we have conversation. And our goal here as we have conversation is to get you to think. At no point have Andrew and I ever sat down and said, You have to believe this. Maybe the six freedoms, but pretty much anything else. We've said, Hey, do your thing. And if you come in and you watch or listen to these episodes and they make you think and you end up remaining in the exact same thought place that you were when you started, that's okay.
It is not a healthy opinion if it cannot possibly be changed. And that's what we do here. We talk and we get better because we talk. And so we've been doing this over ten years. We are episode Andrew, what episode is this gonna be?
Andrew Adams (01:16.404)
One thousand one hundred and fifty three. Yeah.
Jeremy (01:20.652)
That's a lot. 1153. That's a lot of episodes. We've been at this a while. And that is why we are the top ranked traditional martial arts podcast. It's discipline. It's because we keep showing up, because we keep finding small ways to improve what we do and give you a better product. And what is more martial arts than that? We keep showing up, we keep training, we keep getting better. Even on the days that we don't feel like it, even on the days where we think we're regressing.
We find a way to show up, and that's where the magic really happens. Now, if what we do resonates for you, then great. Thanks for being here. And if it doesn't, you're probably not here. That's that's that selection works out pretty well. And for those of you who are here, please make sure you're checking out Whistlekick Martial Arts Radio.com. It's where we drop the transcripts and all the other good stuff. You know, here's another value of the transcripts. I was having a conversation with someone.
Because we have 1153 episodes with transcripts, your AI agent of choice has a lot of information to work from. So you could ask it, based on the past guests of Whistlekick Martial Arts Radio, what about this? What about that? Now, this person and I were we were testing this, and we threw a few things at it, and the advice that came back was phenomenal. It really was kind of cool. So there's another use.
Andrew Adams (02:41.835)
Interesting.
Jeremy (02:47.449)
Of what we do. Now, of course, you're not going to go to whistlekickmartialarts radio.com for that. But what you should go to whistlekickmartialarts radio.com for is making sure you are signed up for the newsletter. A bunch of you are, most of you are not. Why should you do that? Because it saves you clicks. You do it once and it saves you clicks because you're going to get an email every time we drop an episode with the video and audio versions separately so you can watch or listen. You don't have to go anywhere else.
Andrew Adams (03:12.939)
And I would encourage you to watch. go go to YouTube. Go to y 'cause if you go to YouTube, you can see cool things like I'm gonna pull this out and you gotta go to YouTube to see. If you don't go to YouTube, you're not gonna see this. So I'm pull I'm pulling it out right now. This is gonna be a special surprise only for the people that are watching. Yeah, yeah, it is. okay, hang on, hang on. there it is. Okay, here we go.
Jeremy (03:15.562)
You should watch.
Jeremy (03:22.466)
Ha ha ha.
I don't know what he's gonna do. What's he what is he doing? What is he doing? Is this related to the crinkling I was hearing? I heard crinkling. Okay.
All right, I'm hanging. I'm hanging. Okay. I
Andrew Adams (03:39.979)
So if you are not watching, you will not see these right here. And I'm not even gonna say what they are, but there's two things that are pretty cool.
Jeremy (03:43.662)
yeah. Yeah. No, I'm I am not gonna spoil it. Those are pretty cool. I made those. I did make those. All right. That's all. All right. Andrew.
Andrew Adams (03:52.115)
You did make those. Okay, that's all.
Jeremy (04:01.095)
One of the frustrations of many long term martial artists, and and I think mostly instructors, but even just longtime students, is this observation that
Jeremy (04:15.435)
People train and they're like, this is new, this is cool, this is fun, and they do it for a little while. And then they reach this point where they think they know a bunch, they really don't. And then they leave. And so hence the title: Why Martial Artists Stop Growing After They Improve. Or we've kind of got an internal subtitle here: mid-level practitioners who feel stuck.
Andrew Adams (04:40.843)
Yeah. Yeah. I I mean and and we've chatted about it, you know, little bits in other episodes. And I think it's really common to hit a plateau at some point. Right. I mean, that's essentially what we're talking about, that you you're you're growing, you're improving, you've gotten really good, or in your mind gotten really good, and your progress is a lot harder to see.
Jeremy (04:46.465)
Yeah.
Jeremy (05:07.105)
Yeah. Now, some of you out there may think, in the way that a lot of people do, mid-level practitioners. A lot of us, we will instantly say, okay, mid-level, and I think of the belt system, because most schools use belts, and I think of the middle ranks. I'm thinking of that blue, green, purple. But when you think of skill and competency as a martial artist, that's not mid-level. Mid-level, I would say.
And for a lot of you, you're gonna go, this makes more sense based on my observations. Red belt, brown belt, first degree black belt. That's what I'm thinking because that's the group of people that so often they are out the door. It's fascinating.
Andrew Adams (05:56.355)
Yeah. And and I think the other thing is when you have been doing it for that long, red belt, brown belt, first degree black belt, you know, you've been in it a number of years. And w what you're doing often can just become autopilot, right? You're just you're used to doing the same thing all the time and you get into this routine and it's hard to break that cycle.
Jeremy (06:07.478)
Yeah.
Jeremy (06:24.607)
Yeah. One of the things we've talked about on the show quite a bit is there are a lot of things that suffer from this, but martial arts might be one of the worst ones, one of the most challenging ones rather, that it is really hard to see what your next steps look like. And so you end up with these individuals who've been training several years and they know some stuff, and they're probably pretty good.
Andrew Adams (06:42.346)
Mm.
Jeremy (06:54.163)
And they have gone far enough that they can see a tremendous contrast from where they started. I I couldn't do this before, now I can do this. I couldn't do that, now I can do that pretty well. I'm one of the best in the school at this thing.
But for a lot of schools, the vast majority of the curriculum is already understood at that point. Maybe there are advanced forms, but most schools don't have advanced techniques that a just before black black belt wouldn't know. Yes, they can know it a lot better. But so much of their upbringing in their training.
Andrew Adams (07:16.942)
Mm.
Andrew Adams (07:20.282)
Mm.
Andrew Adams (07:24.142)
Mm-hmm.
Jeremy (07:39.453)
Is about new. And then the new pipeline shuts off. And they're going, What where's my new? I don't have any new and they don't know how to contextualize their trends.
Andrew Adams (07:40.834)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Andrew Adams (07:51.788)
Yeah. And and some schools, I'm not gonna say I'm not gonna say lots, I'm not gonna say all but I do know some schools they have a very detailed curriculum to get to Black Belt, to get to their f showdown or whatever they're calling it in their school. But then after that, there's obviously still training, but the curriculum after that is not as publicized. And so
That's another reason why people I think where this might come from. Again, not all schools, but a lot of schools.
Jeremy (08:26.591)
And so you you have this routine of showing up to class, probably helping. Maybe you're an assistant instructor, and you've got some some understanding, but you're on autopilot. Because you feel like you know your stuff. Because you're not seeing new. Yeah, there's new forms, I'm not allowed to learn them yet.
Andrew Adams (08:40.706)
Yeah, exactly.
Jeremy (08:52.705)
Right? Not every school does that, but I think most say, you know, we'll work on the forms you're on, and then, you know, we're in those new forms later. And so there's this danger of competence. Because there's a huge difference between competence and refinement. And as martial artists, we're constantly in the refinement stage, at least we should be on everything. But when you don't have higher level refinement modeled for you,
Andrew Adams (09:06.978)
Mm.
Jeremy (09:21.065)
When the contrast of your skill versus the skill you see is the lower ranks, you feel really good. And this is a part where I will call out high level instructors, high level folks who are not typically engaged in demonstrating their skill.
Andrew Adams (09:41.41)
Yeah, yeah. It and I think that's an important part, you know, to help show the students where they can still continue to improve and where they're gonna be able to go. but they have to get out of that routine of being an autopilot.
Jeremy (09:56.514)
Yeah. Yeah. And when you look around and you say, okay, I'm I'm in the front portion of the room and I'm in a mixed class where my instructors are typically spending most of their time on the lower ranks. And, you know, when I do a thing, I know I'm doing it well, at least compared to everyone around me. When I spar
I'm feeling successful because most of my time is with lower skilled folks. It is easy to develop an ego. And ego is a is a can be a barrier. If I show up to class and part of my identity is that I am a high sk level, high skill level.
Andrew Adams (10:36.205)
Yeah. Yep.
Jeremy (10:52.435)
And I exist in this loop where I I'm not trying hard because I feel good about what I'm doing. And I'm just kind of there hanging out.
Andrew Adams (11:02.53)
Mm.
Jeremy (11:05.641)
My identity gets wrapped up in that and suddenly I'm not progressing.
Andrew Adams (11:07.563)
Mm-hmm.
Jeremy (11:12.331)
But then all of a sudden someone that was
Further behind me, that has been using me as a carrot and chasing me. Now all of a sudden, they're doing that better than me. We spar and they're they're suddenly getting me more than they used to. And now that ego starts to show cracks because I I didn't, I I lost the skill of how to get better.
Andrew Adams (11:37.485)
Mm-hmm.
Andrew Adams (11:47.053)
Yeah. And I would say sometimes it's not even in intentional ego. that they're not like they're not they don't feel like okay, no one really feels like they have a big ego, but I guess what I'm getting at is speaking for myself, starting martial arts as a kid, I very much to some degree idolized my instructor, right? He I looked up to them a lot. and they were very pivotal in my life when I was a kid.
And I wanted to get there. I wanted to be where they were. I wanted to be like them. And if I want to be like them, then I'm I want to teach. So I wanted to get good enough, better than the other students, so that I could help and I could teach. But once I got there, what else was there for me? You know, I just from there I I I became good enough to coast and do what I wanted to do. Now there's no reason for me. So it was it isn't necessarily I don't see it necessarily as
I'm ego and I'm the teacher. But like I got to where I wanted to go and I don't know where I want to go next. So again, I'm just gonna go on autopilot and this is what I do.
Jeremy (12:58.577)
It's the process of training is uncomfortable. Or at least it it it should be much of the time. Because if it's not uncomfortable, you're you're probably not progressing. We've talked about that on the show. You you need to be uncomfortable in order to progress. And
Andrew Adams (13:11.342)
Mm-hmm.
Jeremy (13:20.949)
The hu the human body and and the human mind is incredibly good at finding a balance point with whatever input you get. So if you are used to going to class two days a week, your body will acclimate to the physical and mental demands of that two-day a week training. If
You end up in the front of the room at a certain rank, in you know, one of these what we are defining as as middle rank.
If you remain static there, if you do not receive
Jeremy (14:05.959)
stimulus inputs that make you uncomfortable, that is where you will remain. Now I think the big challenge one of the big challenges here is that up until those ranks, the instructor is very much responsible for keeping you uncomfortable. But in every school, there's a point where you kind of crest those those earlier ranks and now you can ride a little smoother.
And if you are not good at making yourself uncomfortable by pushing yourself, this becomes really challenging. This is why when when I see schools, the ones that have the most successful higher ranks have the most higher ranks because they push each other. Because you continue to have peers and seniors modeling what is and
Andrew Adams (14:50.658)
Mm.
Jeremy (15:00.713)
You know what's really interesting about all those schools? You know what what I see happening with those large groups? The person at the top is still training in front of them.
Andrew Adams (15:10.556)
sure. Yep.
Jeremy (15:12.149)
Right. Now, maybe not in front of all the classes, because usually when you have that many, there's a whole bunch of classes. But, you know, you know who I'm thinking of of right here is is Buzz Durkin, who's been on the show. And, you know, I I that whole organization, they have a tremendous number of black belts, and not one of them that I've ever seen has been afraid to get in there and train and train hard at any rank. Whereas
Andrew Adams (15:22.55)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Andrew Adams (15:36.514)
Yep. Yeah, absolutely.
Jeremy (15:39.557)
you see mo most of the schools I'm acquainted with, the more senior the rank, the less likely they are to do fundamental things in front of their students. I think that's an important distinction.
Andrew Adams (15:47.872)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's a really good point. And what was that?
Jeremy (15:52.609)
I think that's a fundamental distinction.
Andrew Adams (15:55.245)
Yeah, yeah. And and I would agree wholeheartedly. the n not only are they willing to, you know, train with whomever, whenever they stick with it and have for d decades and decades. The the number of of people training at that school that have been training for forty years. I mean it it's it's one thing to have the instructor, I've been teaching
Jeremy (16:11.605)
Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew Adams (16:22.934)
in training for forty years. But then to have a class full of that i is is is a big thing. And and I think yeah, absolutely. And I think your point of them having a role model, someone to look up to that also still does that is huge.
Jeremy (16:28.149)
Yeah, it it is it is rare.
Jeremy (16:38.911)
And this is why we we talk about this on the show. No matter what the problem is, the solution is usually training. Right? It's training in the right way based on your reasons. And in this case, we're talking about training hard and recognizing that your reasons might change. Your reasons at these middle ranks that we're talking about, your reasons for continuing to train may be very different than the reasons you started training. And if you don't take a step back from time to time and look at that and accept, you know.
I'm still doing this, but for different reasons. My body is different. My recovery needs are different. My class preparation is different. Then I think you're doing yourself a disservice. And I think we should be very specific here as we speak to both these folks, but also the individuals running schools that are tired of losing these folks. So let's first talk to.
Andrew Adams (17:14.968)
Mm-hmm.
Jeremy (17:38.273)
Let's talk to the people who might be these ranks. And yes, we at the top we talked about this as, you know, red, brown, early black, but it's not confined to that. It's a it's a feeling more than anything else. I've known schools where because of the the stratification and the way classes are are laid out in terms of rank and rank separation, you know, this could be a bluebelt. This could be someone who's been training a year and a half.
What what advice do we give to them beyond what we've said?
Andrew Adams (18:12.172)
I mean, I think the important thing is to recognize that there is always something to learn. Right? There's never an end.
Jeremy (18:28.16)
What happens over time is the new stuff for a period of time, and this is this is interesting to me, it's a it is an inverted bell curve, right? We talk about a bell curve shallow at the bottom, the middle point is a peak, and then it comes back down. And that's you know, we usually use that to think about, you know, where where where do most things happen?
The ranks that we're talking about, it's the perception, and that's an important word, of what is new to pursue in your training is the opposite, is the inverse of that. When you're new, there's a ton of stuff. And you typically you train and you're like, okay, there's less new, there's less new, there's less new. And you end up down here. You end up in this valley. Now, what happens that makes it go back up? You take a step back and you realize.
Andrew Adams (19:05.614)
Mm.
Jeremy (19:22.756)
there's a lot of detail here. I may not learn a new form. I may not learn a new kick. But what about all the different ways to throw that kick? What about take I I think every style that I'm aware of has a front kick. Might not call it a front kick, but some manner of front-facing front kick. Okay. That kick is different, whether it's low.
Andrew Adams (19:24.056)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Andrew Adams (19:33.9)
Yeah. Yep.
Jeremy (19:52.289)
Or to the knee or to the hip or to the head. It's different when I'm kicking off my front leg versus my back leg. It's different when I am stationary versus moving.
Andrew Adams (20:05.43)
It's different from when you're standing up or when you're laying on the ground.
Jeremy (20:09.676)
There are we could, we could combine just the things that we did and come up with well over a hundred different subtle ways that that kick is different. And if you look at it and you say, Well, I know how to do a front kick.
Jeremy (20:29.986)
But what about the ways you don't know how to do a front kick? What about the situations where you don't know how to do a front kick or you do it poorly? The more time you spend on those things, the more you realize there are more ways to do it. And that's where that graph starts to come back up. And you end up in this really interesting place that I think a lot of us who've been training a long time end up that is both the most beautiful and frustrating aspect of training, which is.
I will never learn even a small portion of all the things that I want to learn in my martial arts career because there is so much. And I'm not talking about cross-training. I'm talking about getting really, really nuanced in all these details. There, there is a reason that.
Andrew Adams (21:05.218)
Mm.
Jeremy (21:24.544)
The best martial artists we tend to work with are older. It's because they've had the time. Not all of them do this, but the ones who have put in the time to work all of this nuance end up being really exceptional because they're able to draw connections and understandings that the rest of us don't have.
Jeremy (21:44.555)
And so when you when you recognize that progress stops being about what I often call the big rocks and becomes about the pebbles. If I'm going to build a rock wall, for those of you maybe outside New England who don't understand rock walls, a rock wall was a way of I'm going to clear my field so I can grow crops, but it also creates a boundary with my neighbors, and there's there's there's value there. Well, eventually the big rocks are gone.
You don't want to put the big rocks on the small rocks. But you clear the big rocks and then you've got smaller rocks and then you've got smaller rocks. And yes, day to day, the wall doesn't look any different when you're adding very small rocks. But over the course of weeks, months, years, decades, it absolutely does grow. And in fact, if you take a look at the more aesthetic stone structures, outside of the ones that have been carved all crazy.
Andrew Adams (22:14.958)
Mm-hmm.
Jeremy (22:41.054)
You need those small rocks to fill in the gaps. It creates stability and some regularity that is very attractive. It's it's quite resonant, I think, for most of us.
Andrew Adams (22:51.34)
Yeah, I think the best analogy I've seen was a science teacher. It had nothing this had nothing to do with martial arts, but had to do about learning things. And a science teacher took a big glass jar and brought it out in front of the students, and he took lots of ping pong balls and he filled this glass jar with ping pong balls and said to the students, Can I put any more in here? And they said, No. And then he pulled out from behind the desk much smaller
balls and poured them in and they we you know wound their way around the ping pong balls and he said all right can I put any more in and they said no because if you do it's going to overflow and then he took BBs like small little really tiny like ball bearings and poured them in and they found their way in and he said all right well it's completely full now right and he said and they a student said yes and then he took out sand and he poured it in and it got all the way in.
Jeremy (23:33.506)
Mm.
Andrew Adams (23:49.055)
And well, it's completely full now, right? And they said yes. And then he took out a glass of water and he started pouring water in. So there's I mean, obviously eventually it's gonna end, right? With the with the water, you can really add more to that. But the point is you're learning the big stuff as a new student, and you just have to move to the smaller stuff and get more nuanced as you go up.
Jeremy (24:15.242)
And for the instructors who hold some responsibility, because your your job as the instructor is to coach these folks in their growth.
Jeremy (24:30.11)
Here's what I want to suggest. There are lots of ways you can handle this. You can have separate classes. You can have all of these very formalized things. But let's face it, these students end up in this place for a reason. And that reason is to help them progress requires more time, energy, effort on your part and their part. And it is very difficult to do that in a mixed class. And that's why.
This problem typically arrives in a mixed class. Here is the simplest way I know of to facilitate this.
You give them a broad subject problem to solve or question to answer.
If you know that student is super passionate about sparring and maybe less so about forms, you might give them a problem of, I want you to find the top three, three technique sequences from your forms that make sense in sparring.
Jeremy (25:38.421)
And in one month, we are going to spar and you are only going to use those three sequ three three technique sequences. So you better practice it. Right. So now you're giving them a challenge and a problem, and it takes you 60 seconds of your time, takes plenty of their time. And when you spar with them, maybe that's two or three minutes.
Andrew Adams (25:47.756)
Yeah.
Andrew Adams (26:01.004)
Yeah, that's great.
Jeremy (26:02.142)
If you're new, you might be listening to that going, Jeremy, I don't I don't get it. Well, it's not for you. It's not for you when you're new. Okay. But those of you who have been around a while, you're probably seeing all the dots connecting that I'm seeing as I pose that problem, right? It forces them to practice their forms, which they probably don't do. It forces them to think differently about their sparring, which they need to do. It gives them a challenge, which they probably are not experiencing much.
Andrew Adams (26:29.422)
Mm-hmm.
Jeremy (26:30.484)
in a class setting. It's getting them to practice at home, which is something that we all know is really important if you if you do want to progress beyond the sort of ranks that we're talking about.
Andrew Adams (26:42.604)
Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't it it typically doesn't happen enough.
Jeremy (26:48.619)
Okay.
If we miss something, we want to hear about it. This is this is the thing that we always ask of you. You can email us jeremy at andrew at whistlekick.com. You can also join our Facebook page, Martial Arts Radio, because we name things very simply. And you can leave a comment there because we drop the episodes there. And sometimes there's conversation. Not often. We wish there was more. Those of you in that in that page, please comment more. Because
We all learn from each other. And Andrew and I want to learn from you. And the only way we're going to do that is when you chime in. And some of you are faithful at that. And we really do appreciate it. But the rest of you, hey, you're missing out.
Andrew Adams (27:36.93)
Yep, absolutely.
Jeremy (27:38.946)
All right. Remember go to whistlekickmartialarts radio.com, grab the newsletter, get every episode sent to you. And we haven't said it in a while, but the code podcast one five does still save you 15% at whistlekick.com. We've done a run of new how how many dozens of products have we released since we've talked about that? So many. That there's we've dropped two new lines of shirts in the last year that are are really fun, very different from anything we've done. You should check those out. And
Yeah, I've got a bunch of stuff on my plate that I'm I'm working on that hopefully rolls out soon. You're wearing a whistle kick shirt. I'm wearing a whistle kick shirt. Yours has been washed a few times, my friend. But it just Yeah. But you know what? It it adds it adds to the aesthetic. It
Andrew Adams (28:17.044)
Yes. My whistle picture is a little old for sure.
Andrew Adams (28:25.4)
That's right. And I and I would also say, if you're watching on YouTube, actually, even if you're not watching on YouTube, go to YouTube, click the like button for this episode, hit the subscribe button. I know it sounds silly, but it really, really, truly helps. And it costs you nothing to do, but it helps in the algorithm to make our stuff seen by other people. And if you do watch, obviously I showed you these at the beginning of the episode.
Jeremy (28:33.982)
Yeah.
Jeremy (28:38.85)
Yep. Yep.
Jeremy (28:49.804)
Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew Adams (28:55.106)
But I'm also showing you this as well. Right? You wouldn't see this if you weren't watching on YouTube. So please go help us out. It really, truly means a lot.
Jeremy (29:01.12)
Right. Right.
Jeremy (29:06.338)
Yep. And if you want those things, how do you get those things?
You join the league. You join the Whistlekick Martial Arts League. I'm not gonna say anymore. All right. Thanks for being here with us. We appreciate your time. Until next time. Train hard.
Andrew Adams (29:14.52)
That's all we're gonna say.
Andrew Adams (29:18.446)
Thanks for you.
Smile.
Jeremy (29:25.706)
And have a great day.