Welcome to Episode #128 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “The Nuts and Bolts of Martial Arts.”

Will your martial arts techniques hold up under pressure… or will your skills break apart and leave you lying in a pool of tears?

Here’s the thing—it’s easy to get the BIG things right in the martial arts, but what about the SMALL things? You know…those little details that actually make or break your success? (Is it possible that you don’t even know some of those small things exist?)

The devil is in the details, my friend.

If you want to be effective on offense or defense, you have to look deeper and deeper into the mechanics of your art. Figuring out how all the nuts and bolts are put together takes time. It also requires asking questions, observing others, practicing, and experimenting.

The good news is that if you keep an open mind and stay curious, you will slowly collect the subtleties and nuances that will lead you to your best chance at success.

Join me for a discussion on how to solidify your martial arts training. To LISTEN to “The Nuts and Bolts of Martial Arts,” just hit play below.

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The Nuts and Bolts of Martial Arts

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TRANSCRIPT

Today on Fight for a Happy Life, The Nuts and Bolts of Martial Arts.

Howdy, Ando here from Happy Life Martial Arts. Welcome to episode number 128 of Fight for a Happy Life, the show that believes even a little martial arts makes life a whole lot better. It’s been a little while, it’s great to see you again.

Today, I want to talk about the nuts and bolts of martial arts, the nuts and bolts of self-defense. And, no, I’m not talking about kicking someone in the nuts and bolts. I’m talking about your training, your techniques, your habits.

Are the components of your training, the assembly of what you do, strong and solid, will they hold up under pressure, offensively, defensively, or will it all break apart?

The reason I want to talk about this is because of an incident that occurred to me a few years ago now. You might notice that in the background of some of my older videos, there’s a big red wall and four black heavy bags hanging up.

Now I will tell you that that project made me very proud of myself. I’m not a mechanical guy, but I figured out how to get those bags put up on that wall, so it was a big deal.

With the help of another Sensei, we drilled those boards into the brick wall. I found some wall mounts. We installed those. I had custom bags made, black leather, specific weight, and they came out great. They looked wonderful. And we hung them up.

Kids of all ages loved hitting them. I loved hitting them. Other teachers loved hitting them. Adult students loved hitting them. It was a big success. That is until a couple of weeks went by.

In the middle of a class, I’ve got some kids running a relay race, and a precious little girl went running down one of the rows, and she kicked the bag, she turns around, she starts leaving, and to my horror, the bag detached and just fell. BOOM!

Thankfully, she was not hit, but I was in shock. Shut down the drill, got the kids away from the bags, finished the class, and then afterward, had to come over and face my failure, grabbed a step stool, and got up and took a look at the mechanism.

Just like most heavy bags, the bag had a carabiner on it, the carabiner attached to a metal ring, the ring was attached to the wall mount with a bolt and a nut. Somehow, the nut had worked its way to the end of the threading and fallen off and let the whole bag go. So I figured, being not a super mechanical guy, Oh, I just didn’t tighten them enough when I first installed them.

So cranked, cranked, cranked as much as I could, made them as tight as I possibly could, and thought, there, done deal, we’re okay now.

Nope, nope. Couple weeks later, the same thing happened. A bag fell off. Again, thankfully, no one got hurt. But this time, I was really upset because I couldn’t figure out the problem. I hate that.

So this time, I figured, well, it’s taken about two weeks for this to happen. This just needs to be a regular maintenance task. When you come in for the day, check the bags and see where the nuts are and tighten them up every day. I guess it’s just a design flaw in the wall mounts. That’s what I thought.

But of course, this was always a stress. If I’m sick or if I was working at a different location, I didn’t want to depend on everybody trying to always check for those things because there’s always something that falls through the cracks. And I didn’t want that to fall on someone and crack their head.

So I happened to mention this problem to my brother, who is more mechanical minded and has some background in construction. And he didn’t think twice. He just said, Oh, you need a spring washer. What? A spring washer or a split lock washer. Different names.

So all it is, it’s just like a regular washer, right? A little flat circle, but it’s got a cut in it and it’s got a little twist. So it looks like the first coil of a spring. Now, when you put that spring washer next to a nut, it pushes the nut and tilts it a little bit. So it creates some friction on the bolt.

So now, when the bag is shaking and the mount is shaking, the nut doesn’t start spinning and moving down the threads. What? It’s that simple? A tiny little piece of metal? It didn’t even cost me a dollar to get four of them. Super cheap, super easy to install.

And would you believe it? We never had that problem again. That simple.

But what a lesson. You hear about how the devil is in the details. And boy, if this wasn’t a great example of that. All the money and time that I spent putting those bags up on that wall, all of the drilling and pounding and all to be undone by just this little omission of a spring washer. Of course, now I know.

Engines and washers and dryers and blenders, all these things that vibrate and shake, have some type of anti-vibration technology in them. So, in case you didn’t know, now you know. But this brings the question back to my martial arts training.

Because I realize how little it takes for your techniques to transform into something very successful or to fail completely.

On the offensive side, you may have a really strong punch, but if the pressure’s a little off, your alignment’s a little off, you can break your wrist when you hit something, right?

If you’re actually fighting with someone, these small adjustments in your footwork or your distance can make your punch completely miss. And of course, it works on the defensive side too.

If somebody grabs you and you can shimmy or wiggle just so, you can get away. If you don’t, you’re getting caught. So these little tiny details, these nuances, the subtlety is really what makes or breaks your technique.

So what about your technique? This is what we’re talking about. How would you judge your technique?

I can tell you that when I work with kids, for instance, they get cocky really fast. They don’t seem to understand nuance in any way. And of course, how could they?

The other day, I was working with a student and he’s been a little behind on earning his next belt. He just hasn’t been putting in the work and it shows. So after class, he was whining a little bit like, why can’t I be signed off?

And I started a couple of little things I needed him to fix. Amongst them, very simple, when he makes a fist, his thumb is sticking out.

And I said, look, you know, you’ve been here almost two years