The Importance of Honest Training


Rick L. Crose,

Sabomnim, Central Florida Chayon Ryu



Some time ago, I experience an event that could have cost me lots of pain and loss of income.  I am an air traffic controller at Orlando Int’l Airport.  On this day I was assigned to the TRACON which stands for Terminal Radar Approach Control.  This is a room that houses radar scopes and equipment used by controllers in the separation of aircraft in flight.  Radar scopes are sensitive to light and so the room is kept dark with minimal lighting.  There are no windows for obvious reasons. 


I was enjoying my break outside the TRACON.  It was a beautiful spring day, bright with a cloudless sky and a light breeze.  When my break was up, I returned to the supervisors’ desk for a position assignment at one of the radar scopes.  As I walked toward the back of the room, I was having difficulty seeing anything since I just came out of the sunlight and I walked into one of the tall chairs sometimes used by controllers in support positions.  I knock over the chair and it tripped me up.  My Chayon Ryu training automatically kicked in.  As I was falling with the chair, I extended my reach and did a roll on the floor on the other side of the chair, avoiding getting tangled up with legs and arms of the fallen chair.  One of the other controllers saw the incident and remarked how smooth it seemed.  The lack of injury is clearly a product of Chayon Ryu training.   I could have easily broken an arm, leg or even worse, received a head injury.  The controller that witnessed the incident did not understand the importance of what happened but I know that my training of techniques done to what some would say as; “to the point of boredom” saved me lots of pain and anguish. 


This is why we train in our techniques over and over.  Why does the sprint runner practice over and over…and over?  They only have one purpose.  Their goal is to be faster than anyone else.   For martial artists, it is different.  We must know a variety of techniques.  Is it enough to train to the point of knowing and doing the technique with no difficulty?  No, we must train to perfect the technique but also realize perfection is a goal we may never achieve.  As long as we strive for perfection, our techniques will always improve.  Sometimes the advantages of training this way are not obvious until something happens as it did to me.  In other cases, the advantage of this training is more evident. In any case, the benefits or our training are based on the accuracy of our training.  For instance, when we do practical number one, do we simply block and punch and be happy with it or do we block and punch to the solar plexus with an accuracy that will ensure that our technique will work?  This is why we train over and over so that if we must respond, we will do it right the first time.  We may not have a second chance.