Multidisciplinary Training in Real Life

Its a large undertaking, for anyone really.  To become proficient at several skill sets. There is overlap, one could argue that there is some generalization among the various skills, and its true of course. When I train my boxing that footwork and agility help with my shooting for example.  But it doesn’t cover up the fact there are several separate and important skills that need trained in isolation before integration into an overall multifaceted, varied, far reaching methodology for a total protection strategy.

Lets take a quick inventory.  In no particular order we have striking, stand up grappling/clinch, ground work, shooting, vehicles, medical, knife work, low light, in structure work, strength, conditioning, interpersonal interactive skills, and on and on and on.  That’s a lot even if you don’t have a job, a family, a house to take care of.. you know.. things worth going through the trouble of protecting. I cant imagine the logic of missing a child’s parent teacher conference day so you can practice with your home defense shotgun.

It can seem overwhelming. Unapproachable for the normal guy.  It isn’t. Do work.  Lets look at how.

First lets set the stage.  I have a job and family.  Those come first.  My schedule must start there. That means I only have so many hours per week to train, to rest, to study, to learn new skills, and to blog about it and generally be awesome.

The temptation is always to try to write some streamlined schedule where I somehow fit everything in and go seamlessly from one thing to the next.  On paper it might even look good.  But reality is messy.  We stay late at work, we get tired, the lawn needs mowed, the car needs inspected, and it can get frustrating trying to run a tight schedule with no room to move over the long haul.  And I am in this for the long haul, so my planning needs to reflect that.

I spent a long time trying to do everything, at all times.  Early on it can seem that you have to work 25 hours a day to catch up, to even get started.  But time is our friend.  I don’t need to set a record today as much as I need to insure I keep moving forward.  I need to take a long view.  I start thinking about being on a 10 year plan and put it in perspective.  Its consistency that I need to nurture, build my endurance, practice patience and keep moving forward.

“Someone once asked Somerset Maughham if he wrote on a schedule or only when struck by inspiration. “I write only when inspiration strikes,” he replied. “Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.”
― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles

This perspective of starting with my reality and taking a long view on development makes the task manageable.

What I have found works for me is consistent work across the spectrum while cycling through periods of focus on one aspect at a time.  I try not to be too rigid and set in stone plans for X months of this followed by X months of that.  What works best for me is to allow myself to enjoy the journey and embrace whatever I’m feeling at that time, as well as pushing myself into specific work when audits reveal areas that need it.

For example, this past year I had really really been enjoying my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu training.  I was hitting a spot where I was seeing a lot of improvement and just having a great time of it.  Shooting wasn’t really doing it for me. I used to shoot a lot.  So I embraced the BJJ and rather than try to do both things at full bore I allowed my shooting to taper off and made some limited time for it mostly focused on fundamentals and skill checks to stay sharp.

I then went through a phase of doing a lot of in vehicle work, and was all jazzed up over it after being honored to act as assistant instructor to Craig Douglas (shivworks.com) for his Vehicle Combatives And Shooting Tactics course (VCAST). Right now I have a very exciting shooting year ahead of me with some awesome instructors, a new schedule change has allowed me to shoot more regularly, and Frank Proctor (wayofthegun.us) has invited me to join his WOTG Shooting Team.  I’m pretty amped about shooting again!  I plan on embracing it! I wont stop doing the other things, but what I will do is prioritize my time to reflect my current goals.

Keeping steady on a variety of overlapping general skills, strong focus on one area at a time, and allowing myself to love the work keeps my head on straight and making headway as life keeps coming at me.  Jobs change, children grow up, time passes, I keep doing work.