How to Learn Martial Art

By Matt Powell

Warning, this book will change your views of martial art. The oldest study of self-defense gets a modern update in how to teach and learn from Pramek's Matt Powell.
Pramek's CLM is designed to educated teacher's and students of martial art on a new way at looking at martial art studies. The first in the series, the EPL, or Efficient Perceptual Learning, is a new way to learn martial art.
This is a truly scientific manual on martial art learning destined to go in every school in the country.
Topics include:
A New Philosophy for Martial Art
The true nature of martial art
The EPL - and how it functions.The pit falls of procedural training
How martial art can truly set one free in life
How we learn martial art - from fine to gross motor skills
The stages of learning - and how traditional martial art training can hurt a students growth
A step by step process of taking a student from new to advanced
See goals and reach them in combat
Become truly formless - but through a scientific process..
And much more!!!!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Matt Powell
• Release date: Sep 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9780988321618

Matt Powell

For over a decade his work has pushed the envelope of science application in martial art. Growing up studying boxing and wrestling, Matt Powell’s first exposure to martial art was under world renowned coach, Scott Sonnon and the ROSS system in the late 1990’s.After being in the only Westerner asked to represent the Kadochnikov school and system internationally, the organization K-Sys was created. Since that time the styles he’s studied are not common to the American public: A.A. Kadochnikov, V. Zavgarodnij, Shvets, Retuinskih, Lavrov, Vishnevetskij...men considered the masters of the Russian scientific styles. Matt later wrote the first English language manual on the science of combat in a biomechanical perspective, taking this knowledge; Matt developed a group of martial art researchers to combine the Russian scientific styles with the pragmatism of other martial arts. Matt Powell found by combining these styles basic tenets, with American ingenuity, he could create something easy for a beginner to learn - and in-depth enough to keep a student busy studying for a lifetime. After working in high risk private security contracts, Matt found that his training was theoretically sound, but lacking in practical application. After discussions with his teacher in Russia, he was told it was time to move on and develop his own methods, which later became Pramek, a synergy of Russian science and western combatives. Matt has trained a variety of students, from the US Army Ranger Battalion to the Army land warrior development unit, private security teams, corporations, police, soldiers and civilians, to celebrities like Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges. Matt now actively focuses on developing Pramek and it's instructors, learning methods, and styles. He travels in the US and internationally teaching Pramek, as well as providing high level security consulting. Matt currently lives in Atlanta, GA. where Pramek is based.

Book preview

Pramek’s CLM: Conceptual Learning Method Series

Manual One: Efficient Perceptual Learning

by Matt Powell

Edited by: John M. Landry, Ph.D., Laine Ruscilli-Wickless

Published by 48f Publishing

Copyright © 2012, 48f Publishing

All rights reserved

ISBN-13: 978-0-9883216-0-1

Check out other titles at Pramek.com

License Notes

This EBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This EBook may not be re-sold or given away. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Pramek.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author and Pramek.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Many Thanks

Chapter 1: A Philosophy

Chapter 2: How we learn martial art

Chapter 3. E.fficient P.erceptual L.earning

Chapter 4: Learning perceptions and concepts

Chapter 5. How to Teach EPL - The Training Stages

Training Stage 1: Attention Weighting

Training Stage 2: Imprinting

Training Stage 3: Differentiation

Training Stage 4: Unitization

Stage 5: Conceptualization

Chapter 6. Changing the light bulb

About the Author

Introduction

This series is the result of the most unexpected of catalysts. I do not want to bore you with a resume, which is public record. My training and experience have led me to a confidence in my ability to defend my life and the lives of others - both of which I have done professionally - but that confidence was shaken the day a former friend of mine was put in jail for randomly shooting someone. The individual he shot never saw it coming. He never knew that on that night, a troubled psychological past, an abusive father, and a drug problem, combined with a what?, controlled the trigger. Shot as he walked home, on the side of the road, the victim was found dead the next day. He died alone.

Often , Martial Art teachers discuss what if’s. What if some catastrophic event transpired? What if I drove down one street instead of another? I have lived the what if’s, in my life. From a middle class upbringing, my sense of mischief led to questionable activities, which planted me on the path to who I am today. I never trust; I survey and scrutinize. I was taught to persevere in violence, watch the watchers, experience and observe, be methodical, act with purpose, and survive. So when I saw the headlines and got the call that someone I knew had perpetrated the most random of crimes, I was not surprised by the action, but left in awe of the unpredictable.

I was left with a feeling that shook my naïve sense of immortality. We can prepare for that time of violence in a job or a certain lifestyle, but if someone wants to simply shoot another randomly, nothing can defend against that. Statistically, we are more likely to die in a car accident than in a fight, yet we do not train driving every night. This led me to a deeper internal conversation: why am I studying this? It drew me to thinking about a statement I had recited for over a decade, to myself and to my students: Conquer yourself.

To conquer me: my psychology, my emotions, my past and present, my body, my mind, and my spirit; to exercise control over my body and train my mind. To understand why I react in certain ways and from those experiences, learn more effectively. To not only apply these lessons beyond a training room or seminar, but in every day life. The lessons I learn through the martial arts affect everything I do. I have changed my entire life simply by studying and analyzing. I have found freedom from those chains I never knew controlled me, like the autonomic nervous system, and this allowed me to find freedom from injury by an enemy or to learn a new way to move.

People have goals and ambitions: being a scout leader, expertly manicuring the front lawn, winning at a local bowling league. These hobbies are good to have for positive growth, but they do not help to conquer us. They do not address the fears we face. They may give us discipline in their own arena of expertise, but not discipline to face the unknown. They do not harden you while at the same time teach you compassion. Those ambitions do not give you a choice when faced with life or death, nor do they give you the option to conquer yourself and your greatest enemy: your own nervous system.

I found, in the end, that I was studying martial art not to learn to fight, but to learn to control myself. And in that control, I was discovering me: my own movement, my own limits, my own methods, and exercising the freedom that few others have in their lives. One can build a deck or hit a softball, but can they control their own body, mind, and spirit in those lessons learned from those ambitions? No. And in controlling your body, mind, and spirit, you gain freedom from the constraints of the world, of injury, of age, of fear, of an enemy.

I am one of those rare people who feel free only when teaching, training and when developing martial art. I am a bit of a mystic about it – I can defend myself with the best of them – but within this study, I found a way that was different: a way that freed me from others’ instruction, as I looked for methods that worked best for my students and myself. I create, I change, I adapt, I evolve, and so does what I started: Pramek. In this, I find freedom from constraint as I rely on myself, and the knowledge about my actions, and how I can change to be who I want, not who a teacher wishes me to be.

I began this series because I have, for a decade, labored to find that freedom, for others, and myself within martial art. This gift we are given, be it in traditions one thousand years old in katas, or the camaraderie of a training class on reality based methods. It is a gift we martial artists of every stripe feel, and those outside the world only see. This series and it's knowledge is my interpretation of that gift, and a different way of sharing that gift with others, from the most experienced instructor, to the new student off the street. To look beyond the classroom into those who inhabit our classrooms every day; they are the true focus, as they look to us for education and guidance. With the methods in these manuals, we can perhaps hand them something they will find more applicable than a punch or a kick.

We can help them find how they become who they are, and teach them to