Designing and Organizing Training (The LMA Approach) (Patreon)

• If you’re new to LMA, start with our table of contents

Liberation Martial Arts applies the political organizer lens to training. We've replaced the teacher/instructor-student relationship with the training organizer/practitioner-practitioner dynamic. The goal is to foster problem-solving skills rather than instruct rigid and decontextualized solutions (techniques).

Technique is not skill. Technique is a way of moving, while skill is knowing how to move appropriately to the situation. Repeating specific movements over and over in isolation (which is inherited from the factory system, colonial oppression, and military) can be helpful for motor control and action capacity (physical therapy and fitness), but that's not skill (embodied knowledge). The factory system forces us to be machines rather than humans. We can improve like machines only when the task is machine-like. However, even when considering action capacity, it's always towards the goal of being a fully realized human rather than an alienated machine doing isolated and unrelated tasks.

For instance, in physical therapy, you might move your arm repeatedly in a specific way to develop a range of motion in a joint. However, a good physical therapist won't have you repeat it as often as coaches want you to repeat a technique. They also won't fixate on one movement; instead, they'll diversify the movements. A coach might still have you repeat the same technique over and over in the exact same way because they think they're building skill instead of range of motion. Unfortunately, repeating a movement over and over isn't even good for range of motion as it'll reduce the range of motion over time and increase injury. The colonial model of skill-building is bad for skill-building and physical therapy and is only good for assembly lines, exploiting workers, and oppressing non-white societies.

Skill is the bottom-up knowingness of the practitioner who gathers information from their environment—the street view. Techniques are about memorizing irrelevant information passed down by the instructor—top-down.

Actions can't be isolated from context, and training design starts with context (e.g., sparring, competition, or game). A solution (technique) is the result of skill rather than the other way around. Skill, or what LMA calls wayfinding, is about reading the situation so well that how you move becomes a matter of course. The training organizer designs situations for wayfinding to occur. Rather than the instructor holding the ball, it gives the ball to the players.

Replacing techniques with solutions redefines training as skill development. First comes problems, then comes solutions, and what's developed is problem-solving skills.

The technique and instructor-first colonial "learning" model has no logical or natural connection to skill development or the practitioner. It's disconnected from the practitioner and makes it about the instructor and the technique. The practitioner exists to serve the technique and the instructor and not the other way around.

If the learner is the one who's supposed to learn, why is "learning" instructor-first? It only makes sense when you realize this institutional method of learning is the direct and deliberate result of Western colonialism, capitalism, and military. How many PE teachers are former military? How many martial arts instructors? How many of them are cops or feel their methods are best represented by cops? The US military and cops first commercialized Eastern martial arts in the West. We also can't fail to mention the influence of the capitalist cops of the East, Japan, which also had the most influence on martial arts pedagogy. From this view, it should be clear why Western colonialism loves Japan and, likewise, Western martial arts. I also can't fail to mention the anti-communist, pro-American martial artists who came later and only reinforced commercial Orientalism and the prevailing colonial systems.

A skill is alive and lives in the world (as understood in traditional knowledge systems); therefore, developing a skill requires variation, exploration, autonomy, and self-determined growth. Along the Way, the organizer protects the practitioner physically and mentally. In traditional knowledge systems, especially in wayfinding, the organizer would be the guide.

After designing conditions and describing them to practitioners, the organizer trusts the practitioners to self-determine their Way and only intervenes when something is unsafe. (Description, not prescription.) Intervention is minimal because practitioners can't listen and learn at the same time. The colonial learning approach has it backward on purpose because, for the oppressed, it's not about learning but listening to the oppressor.

The LMA approach is about fostering problem-solving skills in context. A skill without context is not a skill. Likewise, humans isolated and alienated from their context are tools. Our context and experiences—our personhood—precede the skill. Context-skillfulness-solution, in that order. We, humans, need tools; we are not tools for techniques. Skill conforms solutions to us, technique conforms us to it.

Instruction might solve a problem, but it does not develop problem-solving skills. The training organizer guides and the practitioner solves. Of course, they solve; it's their life to live, not ours to dictate. Liberation means not replicating coloniality.

The organizer doesn't need to be an expert in our approach. Once they design the practice, they can also explore the practice conditions and develop their own problem-solving skills. In fact, all the practitioners can also be organizers. No one needs to be an expert. I am not an expert in striking or wrestling, I am developing my skills alongside other practitioners because I am also a practitioner. Knowing the LMA approach means the ability to self-learn almost anything without needing an expert because it's not about an authority but the Way of learning. If you know the Way to learn, you can apply it broadly.

If a designed task is inaccessible for the practitioner, change it. Designing and organizing do not only happen beforehand; they are a living process. Empower practitioners to aid in design. Setting the stage for practitioners to discover solutions on their own contextualizes the solution to the situation and themselves. Rather than information in a vacuum, it's embodied knowledge. Self-discovery leads to deeper understanding and ownership of skill. We don't want a computer hard drive; we want wise humans. Machines have storage, humans have depth. Organizers/guides commune with humans, not machines. It's a social relationship, not a transaction or computer programming.

Freedom isn't the number of irrelevant options but the depth of the relevant ones. Rather than more techniques unrelated to the context, wisdom is knowing the fullness of what's possible. That's skill. Skill is freedom. Freedom is wisdom. Information is not wisdom, and techniques are just information regardless of whether they are relevant or useful. Humans can be free and wise; machines can not. The origin of the term "robot" is slave.

In a learning environment, the level of difficulty and complexity of any training activity should be scaled to match the skill level and capabilities of the practitioners. Even in a group setting, training can be individualized. Consider how many people are excluded or filtered out in the colonial coaching process. The "effectiveness" of the process has nothing to do with effectiveness but instead survivorship bias. That's how coloniality works; it only wants you to look at the ones who pass through coloniality unscathed rather than examine the graveyard. Whether in the training procedure, domestic procedure, or imperial procedure (geopolitical coloniality), coloniality hides where the bodies are buried.

Altering training can mean equipment, conditions, rules, or the presented challenge. In the absence of instruction and an instructor, you're free to explore other natural teaching methods. Let the environment and the conditions teach. This is how humans have evolved.

Rather than using the oppressor's method of dividing tasks to be assembled later in the alienated learner's mind, simplify tasks to make the acquisition of skills accessible and embodied. Challenge is essential but not at the expense of individual needs. The learning environment is a collection of individuals, not a mass assembly line.

Rather than mindless instruction and repetition, the organizer organizes and designs the training, often in real-time, allowing the practitioners to flourish. Learning happens through exploration and interplay between practitioners while the organizer guides the practitioners through the rules and conditions (while also organizing who, when, where, etc.). The LMA approach not only fosters a community but empowers individuals.

– Sam