In-Person Play Sparring

• LMA Curriculum

This is a video of me with a beginner Liberation Martial Arts (LMA) practitioner who's been through all of the fundamental motor control and movement skills units and is now working his way through adaptive movement skills. Since he lives in Los Angeles, we've worked together semi-regularly. (Patreon Sponsors get one monthly training session with me, or you can contact me directly.)

He's worked through several different adaptive movement games, and we're now playing kickboxing games. In this session, we're focusing on specific targets and stances. The targets are calves, outside thigh, body, chest, and shoulders. Everything scores 1 point except the rear shoulder, which scores 2. We're switching from L-stance to J-stance every round.

These games simulate the pace and challenges of a live fight without causing excessive damage, particularly to the head, allowing for more experience and improvement. Experience is the best teacher, and our training design goal is to safely maximize experiential learning through wayfinding and play.

Wayfinding and play aren't theoretical, they're experiential. Along with that comes exploration, which allows every practitioner's journey to be unique. Despite me being his training organizer, this practitioner doesn't fight like me. He's developing a much more kick-centric style even this early on.

Not everyone needs to play these games because it requires equipment and a partner, nor is everyone interested in this level of representativeness. LMA training is a choose-your-own-adventure, and this is just one possibility, with much more evolution ahead. Months from now, this same game will look vastly different.

As a training organizer, I scale the challenge to fit the practitioner's capabilities and potential for progress. This practitioner is in his late forties, has never trained in martial arts, played any sport, had no fitness routine before starting LMA, could not touch his toes, and dealt with chronic pain. He's been playing this kickboxing game for about 20 days. My role involves presenting problems, providing feedback, and showcasing potential techniques for modeling.