I’m not sure about you, but I sometimes find it difficult to maintain the concept of soft play in training, the likelihood is at some point I will feel the need to ramp the pressure up... Rob pointed out quite rightly in last Saturday’s class, that its not always a good thing to remain in the “killer” mind-set of hard and fast for extended periods, as it could turn out to be counter productive, in that you don't give yourself the time you need to learn. I suppose keeping yourself in a high state of ferociousness does seem a bit OTT and I doubt that you could really maintain it for very long anyhow, and even if you could you would probably fry your brain at some point as well... So there must be times in your training where it’s appropriate to slow things down and “flowmosh” for want of a better word… that said I still think its still all too easy to fall into that trap where you view slow drilling as a reflection of real fighting, and expect that everything will always flow nicely and never badly. Gareth for one has taught me that slow play is a great way to understand movement and feel your way around your training partner, some comparing it to child like play.. and I’m all for that, but I feel that the concept of play can still be play even when its ramped up to a higher more intense level. To me play is only a separated from real fighting when there is an intention to do harm to another person. When you watch two top Judo players totally going for it, this still seems like a form of play to me, albeit a very rough and tumble form of play, but yes still play in my view, but labelled as a competitive sport instead. A true sportsman always has a real respect for his opponent and wouldn't dream of doing the other serious harm or injury, even though the work rate is in overdrive. Even boxers who admittedly are trying to knock each others blocks off are still far from the mind set of ”kill” and as with the Judoka, kill is the last thing in the world that they would want.. I think its all about the intensity of the situation for these guys, as of course the desire to win.. I do think without contrast in your training you cant possibly appreciate things like pressure, fear and loss of control. There are of course other considerations to take into account before increasing the pressure, whether you want to help your partner or not, if you do, you also have to bare in mind their skill level before you start to ramp things up... I remember in Jodo it was always pointed out to me that there was always teaching side between partners in training, no matter what your skill level, there was always someone better than you who naturally became the teaching side, as was there always someone less skilled than you, so you then became the teaching side; the person with the more experience worked to the level of the less experienced, but it was also their job to help raise their partners game, pressuring them to a point where they would find it always challenging, and not leaving the bar at a low “soft play” level for too long, always trying to instil in the trainee what they were actually trying to accomplish, to learn to fight and with some degree of skill, but also showed them that through the training process they where able to change their perspective towards fighting, train to a level where you didn’t feel you had to, but would do if necessary. I think this was true of most Japanese arts that I looked at, slow and deliberate to start, then at some point you had to cross over to the next level, but common to all was the “review”, which meant taking it back to basics and use slow play to recap, to reinforce the skill set. Working with Mark at the weekend was as usual a good balance and demonstrated to me that this idea of play at different levels is possible… when we work together it’s quite often with varying intensities, the slow and tactile, through to medium digs, onto fast and heavy strikes, but all the while just play, without any form of malice, just a clear and focused mind with an appreciation of fun during our training time together. Steve

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