One of my mentors and a dear friend, Rob Pincus, asked a question to instructors on one of his TV shows, “What did you change your mind about in the last five years?” My answer to that question is I spend more time focusing on the basics. The basics in functional movements, firearms employment, and combatives. As a coach I focus on training my athletes to master the basics and find their failure points (aka learning opportunities).
Mastering the basics is a journey in itself in any endeavor. As a fan of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, I would watch in amazement as my heroes in the game like Saulo Ribeiro, Roger Gracie, and Jean Jaques Machado would win the matches with basic moves you learn from white to blue belt. My mentor Coach Glassman did wrote a key article (one I read at least every month) on “Virtuousity”, which talks about doing the common, uncommonly well. It is always cool to learn new things and even some of the more exotic martial arts or participate in shooting sports. However, I would advise you to spend 90% of your training time to honing the basics and getting comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Train HARD!
SYNERGY Training Project Mentor Video:
Reality-Based Training in Context by Rob Pincus (courtesy of Personal Defense Network)