I would like to expand upon the concept of performance enhancement at some length, as I think it’s tremendously important, and I don’t want the goals of my recently announced RMAX Powered Bujinkan series to be misunderstood.

Why is it that sports (at both an elite and amateur level) and even fighting sports like MMA embrace the idea of performance enhancement and eagerly scour the annals of sports science looking for an edge, and yet traditional martial artists often feel threatened by the very idea? They take it as a slight, as though it were implying that their system is somehow incomplete, is somehow not good enough.

I believe that each martial system, including the Bujinkan, offers a complete system of Strategy within its own particular Doctrine. As performance enhancement specialists looking at how to enhance performance in a particular system we aren’t here to pick apart that Doctrine or system. Rather, what we’re looking at is how we can improve the rate at which an individual excels within that system.

One question that we can ask is, “How does that student best learn?” Rather than attempt to teach a rote curriculum, we can look at ways to ferret out that individual’s questions and then set up drills or situations that allow them to answer those questions. The better we get at crafting these progressions, the faster they will learn. RMAX presents an array of methodologies that can be applied here. In Volume Three of my series I demonstrate how these might be used within the context of TMA, with Bujinkan as my example.

Another example of how an individual’s performance in their TMA might be enhanced is through looking at that student’s impediments. What is preventing them from grasping a lesson or concept or from being able to do a certain type of movement? Can we pull them aside, craft an exercise or joint mobility progression that directly addresses their individual issue, and then plug them back into their kata or TMA practice to see if that performance was improved? It can be frustrating for a teacher to work with a student who “just doesn’t get it.” It leads one to believe that their teaching is somehow off, or that the student is too thick. Perhaps there are other impediments – movement impediments, fear-reactivity, a strength deficit in a particular range – that are limiting that person’s performance? CST Instructors excel at this type of work. Anyone who has attended an RMAX or CST seminar has seen this process in action.

So you see, when doing performance enhancement our job is not to “improve upon” a system in this case, but rather to help those individuals get out of their own way so that they can dig deeper in coming to “own” that system.

Performance enhancement modalities are meant to get to the root of an individual’s challenges in order to make them better at what they do (in this case a particular martial system) or to accelerate their uptake of those skills and abilities. I fail to see how this is a slight to any traditional martial art system. On the contrary, stronger individuals who are better able to embody the skills of that system can only make the system stronger, as living examples of it.

Do I feel that traditional martial arts in general are missing something that we at RMAX can somehow add? In order to answer such a loaded question you must first assess why you are studying those systems and how you hope to apply them. Only by analyzing the arena and your needs within that arena can you honestly answer this question.

I would argue that, if you are studying TMA in order to enhance your daily life, then yes, there’s something missing. Most TMA are very strong on Skills but have no concept of Conditioning (Note: I’m not referring to things like hand toughening methods, many of which are rife with problems in a modern age that demands fine motor skills and in which we live to an age old enough to be plagued by arthritis and other joint problems that can result from such methods).

There’s a very good reason for this, and it doesn’t make the system somehow “less.” The pioneers who developed these systems hundreds or even a thousand years ago worked in the fields, in the forges. They had no concept of conditioning because they lived it every day of their lives. But modern life is sedentary. Most of us, due to the nature of our lives, our jobs, and the food that we eat, are not in the condition that the originators of these systems were in. This is something that we must address if we are at all concerned with our health and our performance.

Further, I suspect that people train far more in our modern age than they would have done in the past, simply because we have so much more leisure time, time that isn’t devoted to purely survival needs. Because of this, and because of the repetitive and often sedentary nature of our jobs, it’s important to examine and release patterns of conditioned tension before they become an injury. When we train we condition repetitive patterns of tension. Failure to address this leads to injury. One of the hallmarks of CST is the use of compensatory movement to release such tension.

Developing a specific conditioning program for TMA involves closely examining the needs of that system and programming specific exercises on top of a well-rounded GPP base. CST, first developed for combat sport, is ideally suited to this goal. Having taken care of such a base, the student can address the grooving of the skills of that system – until then poor conditioning will have them gasping their way through class, thinking more of the emergency room than of the lessons. Further, a solid conditioning base acts as a safeguard in preventing injuries that can sideline one’s training for months.

I also feel that many TMA are missing the concept of Competition. If you’ve been around RMAX for a while you’ll know that we don’t use the term Competition to denote a win-lose sporting contest, necessarily. Rather, it regards working together with resistance to pressure cook our skills.

Many TMA teachers create drills to address this need. Mine certainly did, in my old Bujinkan days. As with anything else, there are accelerated ways to do this. RMAX offers cutting-edge models like the Flow State Performance Spiral and the Softwork – Hardwork Continuum that can be directly applied to your TMA training to meet these needs. You can apply these tools within the framework of your own system. We simply present another way to practice the Skills of your art, another way to look at the process of creating drills and training exercises.

Does every TMA student need to or have to spar? No, absolutely not! If you have no interest in this area, if it isn’t for you, then there’s no reason why you should do it. However, if you’re studying TMA in order to be able to protect yourself, for example, or to survive a conflict, or if you’re claiming to possess some sort of incredible “combat” skills, then you must program some aspect of Competition into your training. It isn’t a matter or “beating” someone or of contests. It’s a method of exposing yourself to the friction of an encounter, of programming your ability to recover from perceived errors and to stay in flow. It’s just another tool in your toolbox, and it can be profitably applied to accelerate your performance in the TMA of your choice. What’s more, you’ll have a tremendous amount of fun doing it!

All of these CST/RMAX tools can be applied within the framework of whatever system you’re studying. I don’t see how applying the most cutting-edge tools available somehow takes away from or slights that system. If you’re feeling defensive or taking performance enhancement as a critique, ask yourself the following question: Would the hardboiled, pragmatic originators of these systems have turned down even the slightest chance to gain an edge? The evolution of that system couldn’t have happened without it.

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