Implicit OyataTe Training

After reading Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why by Laurence Gonzales  I began thinking about Implicit OyatTe Training vs Explicit OyatTe Training.  This started with the introduction to this topic on Pages 62-63 in the book.  As we all know, I’m no scientist, nor were either of my college experiences at all rated to this field of study.  So my starting disclaimer is; I’m still learning and researching this topic.  So feel free to tell me I’m wrong if you are the expert in this field and help direct me to the proper edumication of myself.

Implicit memory is a type of memory in which previous experiences aid in the performance of a task without conscious awareness of these previous experiences.  In daily life, people rely on implicit memory every day in the form of procedural memory, the type of memory that allows people to remember how to tie their shoes or ride a bicycle without consciously thinking about these activities. Research into implicit memory indicates that it operates through a different mental process from explicit memory.

Explicit memory is the conscious, intentional recollection of previous experiences and information. People use explicit memory throughout the day, such as remembering the time of an appointment or recollecting an event from years ago.

Explicit memory involves conscious recollection, compared with implicit memory which is an unconscious, unintentional form of memory. Remembering a specific driving lesson is an example of explicit memory, while improved driving skill as a result of the lesson is an example of implicit memory.

IMPLICIT MEMORY	EXPLICIT MEMORY
Driving a Car	Figuring out the Speed Limit
Tie Shoes	Ordering Shoes Online
Fear Responses
Eye Blink	Picking out Eye Drops at Store
Protect Groin / Face	Attempting a specific newly learned technique
Getting Dressed	Picking an Outfit for a Specific Occassion

Kata

When studying a traditional martial art you train with kata and memorize the motions through a continual, laborious process of repetition.  This repetition builds the habits, and reliable associations of the sequences.  The paths your body takes become natural and preclude alternate paths.  Through continuous repetition, always doing these exact motions, the correct choices become obvious and you no longer have to THINK about them.

Through these repetitions, and explitcit memory of the kata movements becomes an implicit memory, second nature.  When one learns a kata motion, all they have to remember is how the move starts and the rest falls into place.  You’ve repeated the kata so often the habit requires no thinking.

Language Learning

When you first start learning a spoken language you learn a single word.  That word is strange and you have to consciously think about the use of it and the meaning of it.  EXPLICIT.  After a while, you don’t have to sit and think about the word any more, the second you hear it you understand it. 

This example is better realized by an adult that is struggling for an understanding of a foreign language.  For the most part, English is now IMPLICIT.  We know most common words, and until we start reading a scientific paper about something new we don’t have to stop and think about the meaning of the words.  Maybe we have to think about the context of the topic, but the individual words in normal life roll off our tongue or past our ears without any conscious thought about them.  If I say “Hi!” you don’t stop and think to yourself that he is using a shortened version of Hello which is an English greeting commonly used among people in the United States.  You just say “Hi” back.  Going even deeper into that, we all learned to spell pretty early on.  When I hear the Hello said to me, I don’t spell it inside my head, my brain recognizes it as a greeting. 

Other examples are tying your shoes.

Driving a Car

When I first learned to drive a car my father taught me using a 4-speed Volkswagen Rabbit.  When I first got in it I had to learn to put the key in the ignition, turn it clockwise until I felt and heard the car engine start, which in an of itself is a learned sound.  That sound of it running rather than ‘cranking over’ later would mean that it was time to let go of the key.  16 years of experience hearing that sound led to that.  I then would check my mirrors, the road, etc and learn to push in the clutch, put it in gear, slowly lift the clutch and press the gas.  Signal to turn left by pressing the signal level down, signal to turn right by lifting the signal level up.   I can go on and on about what I had to learn and concentrate hard on to ensure I didn’t wreck or otherwise damage myself and my dad’s vehicle.  It was EXPLICIT.  I had to think about what I was doing. 

One by one, these tasks changed from thinking about them to just doing them.  Today what do I do after 27 years of doing this is completely unconscious.  It is fully IMPLICIT.   I’m sure most people can remember when they were really tired, getting home and not recalling doing many or any of those tasks.  Your body did it naturally.  Have you ever been heading somewhere and were too busy talking to someone that your body took you to work because you started in that direction and got distracted.  Your body knew you were already on that path, even though your mind was supposed to override and take you to some other destination.  Before you know it, your talking to your passenger and realize you have missed a few turns because you body went on auto-pilot.  It reverted to Implicit memory because your brain was not providing Explicit instructions.  This is how many intoxicated parties wind up at home but don’t recall the actions that brought them there.

The alphabet is an example that Taika uses all the time in regards to kata.  You have to get these kata motions to be IMPLICIT just like the 26 letters in the English language that you don’t even think about when reading this or speaking.  They have to run on auto-pilot.  Your actions have to flow naturally without thought or explicit actions.  React!  Getting these motions to flow by only practicing a single technique with a partner once every six months or so just doesn’t work.  Kata pushes the explicit memory action of a strange motion, after repetition, into implicit unthinking reaction.  You react, your body ends up in a position and it knows the road from there.  You don’t have to say, turn right, slow for the stop sign.  You just do what comes natural.  It doesn’t need to be a full kata, it can be open hand rehearsal of a single technique.

The act of driving the car becomes so natural and implicit, that if it is a standard route your only explicit actions might be speed variables that fluctuate with traffic and speed limit signs.  Drunks loose the explicit and often drive way under the speed limit.

The other day someone asked me to repeat the Six Basic Principles of Tuite and I felt a little embarrassed that even though I had been working on tuite for a few minutes with them, and enacting all six of the six principles, that I stuttered when asked to repeat them.  I had to sit and think about the conscious thought of listing them and explaining them.  It wasn’t until much later that I realized that this was actually a good thing.  When Tony and I sat down to develop the six principles that we teach, it was to aid our students in the basic fundamentals of tuite.  The good part was that I was unconsciously doing all six of them any time I performed Tuite, they had moved to IMPLICIT.  When asked to bring them back into EXPLICIT and explain them is when I stuttered.  Unconsciously I had them and performed them. 

Kata is repetition and what helps you force things into the realm of IMPLICIT memory.  Another thing that can help this is somewhat harder to attain.  It is experience.  At some point in life, we all have experienced touching something hot.  Probably the first time you ever touched something hot, you hesitated prior to pulling your hand away.  Your body had not experienced a burn before and didn’t know to pull away.  The hesitation was probably slight but allowed you to get burned slightly worse than you would have if you hadn’t ingrained this memory into you.  Now, if you touch something you merely THINK is hot you jerk your hand away.  When you first learn to walk, you learn that falling is a consequence and you learn to not make certain mistakes that will make you fall.  These get engrained in your mind and you don’t think, “I must lift my toes as I walk or I will trip over them.”  Much in the same way, some fighting can become implicit as you respond in real life.  Even your buddy in the arts, grabbing your forearm to see what your reaction is, some impromptu tuite training.  This kind of training can increase the implicit reaction.

Partner training is usually slower than kata training.  You are refining the motions with physical touch, feedback, so you are adding a sense.  The open air training should have moved the actions to IMPLICIT but what we find is that when they pair up, student’s don’t rely on their senses and fall back to EXPLICIT.  It is no longer natural, quick and flowing.  Why?  Lack of Practice?

Protecting Your Groin or Face

Well the first one is probably more of a male Implicit trait than female, but the face is common to both.  As a child you learned quickly to protect these areas.  That is why in a real fight, these are not what I would call the best targets to go for to disable a target.  They do, however, solicit an implicit response that makes the target expose other areas.  This is a perfect example of Implicit memory.  If I walk up to any male short of a blind man, and quickly motion to his groin he will involuntarily cover that area.  It isn’t that he THINKS about “Hey, that hand is heading to my groin and if it continues at that velocity it will strike my groin thus causing pain.”  For survival, there is no time for all that thought.  His pelvis naturally retreats and his hands naturally cover.  The same reason the eyes blink when something comes at it.  Experience has told the body that a closed eyelid is less likely to allow the eye to receive damage when something comes careening towards it.  You do think, you blink.

Implicit Training Thoughts

Looking at some of this research and the textbook I purchased I'm rethinking some of the training. There is something that I'll just call BAD Implicit response. That is the "We Play the way we Train" response, kind of like the cops that died because they picked up their brass and put it in their pockets because that was drilled into their head so much during training that it navigated to an implicit response in an actual shooting. There are tons of examples in the book I'm reading right now on how implicit response led to a subject’s demise.

At any rate, thinking about this I think that something bugs me about the way we commonly train. Typically we pick a number like 10 and the Uke pushes or punches 10 times. The Tori does the exact same technique over and over again. We don't practice for the screw up as much or the, I guessed wrong state. I was thinking of testing a new training method in class on nights when we have 4 or more victims....er...students.

• Uke picks a number between 1-10.
• Technique is discussed and instructor picks a PUSH for example.
• Tori pushes with designated hand and Uke responds with the correct technique we are working on.
• When Uke gets to the number they picked, for example push 5, they do something different. (Punch, kick, knee, slap, use opposite hand)
• I think this would help reinforce the importance of the screw it, go with plan B mentality.
  
  Just an opening thought atm.

 

Priming (psychology), a process in which the processing of a target stimulus is aided or altered by the presentation of a previously presented stimulus.

Priming in teaching an OyatTe technique I’m thinking would involve helping the student remember things subtly with little hints prior to actually working on the technique.  In other words, do a similar or same technique early in class and they search or react to it at this now time.  Not sure that will make sense outside of my mind.

Perhaps priming would be using the word PUMP in a sentence prior to them working on a tuite technique where you know they have issues with the PUMP portion of that technique.  Instead of reminding them that they need to PUMP from the bottom of the wrist during the tuite, you slip the word PUMP into the conversation in an unrelated topic.  “How much did you pay for gas at the pump?”  A casual priming word puts the PUMP in their mind and it helps them do it without THINKING.

This is the beginning of my research into this topic and am looking for other peoples thoughts on the topic.  Feel free to wade on in.

Thanks