Years ago when I was studying budo taijutsu, a friend of mine Rick, told me about the concept of aliveness, and after studying the concept, and then going to several seminars dealing with the subject, I made it the foundation of how I trained and taught martial arts.
Aliveness is training with resistance using energy, timing and motion. Aliveness is training with resistance using energy, timing and motion. Regardless of your martial art, it is critical to make functional and demonstrable improvements in performance. If the art you train does not include some form of unscripted pressure testing it is not functional and you will not be able to perform, that move, combination or movement in a real situation. For a Drill to be alive there must be variations in timing, energy, and motion,. It takes all for a drill to be alive.
Remember – ALL 3.
A choreographed assault that gets counted by a planned series of responses ending with a throw, such as you see in budo taijutsu or Krav Maga minus the throw, lacks timing, energy and motion. The assault is predictable. A realistic energy, as in a resistance, is non-existent, and the movement is, choreographed. Now in functional training, you do need to start out with a compliant partner and some predetermined sequences, however, the error is stopping there, when it is the actual starting point. In Muay Thai you may start by doing individual strikes or combinations, or grappling moves without any resistance, from a partner however, within a short amount of time you will add in unpredictable movement, additional moves or responses to more closely resemble a Muay Thai match or self-defense situation.
Aliveness is not just Sparring
I’ve noticed a discussion about aliveness does come up people make the mistaken assumption that “aliveness” is just “sparring”
You can drill with Aliveness but the drill has to contain timing, energy (resistance) and motion.
So you can have a drill where one guy is going to work the jab only.
The feeder has to move around and then hold up the target ever once in a while. (Movement and timing.)
The feeder, every once in a while, throws a shot back to make sure the jabber is covering properly. (Resistance.)
So while this is still just a very “light” drill it’s one done with Aliveness.
You then add onto it…jab, hook…etc. which will eventually lead to sparring.
In conclusion, if you want to develop real-world self-defense skills you need to include aliveness at every training session.
For Training Muay Thai in an alive fashion
For Kids Muay Thai training in Murfreesboro Tennessee: https://nakmartialartstn.com/kids-muay-thai-classes/
For Adult Muay Thai training in Murfreesboro Tennessee: https://nakmartialartstn.com/adult-muay-thai-classes/
Additional Reading on Aliveness
Why Aliveness? by Matt Thornton
It’s Aliveness – Still by Matt Thornton
