Over the course of my 5 years working with Prepare, I have come to lean on experience from my 15+ year career as a studied professional musician to introduce and explain the concepts of muscle memory and adrenaline-state training. The parallels between learning music and learning empowerment self-defense are deep.
Lived Experience
The process of learning music involves putting names to sounds you’ve been hearing from infancy and for me there’s a clear parallel with the evocative nature of violence and resistance to violence simulated in a Prepare class. Scenarios you’ve thought of, worried about, planned for, are given names, conceptual and societal frameworks, and can be confronted head-on.
Communal Learning
The method of muscle memory training that Prepare utilizes pushes against societal ideas of individuality. Through actively learning by watching and supporting others while they try in real time, some of the siloed nature of modern life dissolves. We learn so much while in community with others, often in surprising or unexpected ways. In the musical communities I’ve been a part of, it’s accepted that “on the bandstand” learning is crucial, and is often more effective than sitting at home in a practice room. There’s something about entering this place of in-time actualization – the moment when you put what you’ve been working on into context and “perform” it, ideally, with no option to stop and restart. The moment demands you quiet your inner critic, which is often the voice imposing separation from others.
Slow Practice
Around 2005 there was a music education conflict around the usefulness of metronomes, with some arguing that using a metronome was just a crutch and actually prevented musical growth. While this position is an extreme one, the metronome is just a tool and can be used well or poorly, I do think it shows a truth about learning: you must start slow enough to integrate the material, to start the process of muscle memory learning. And Prepare does this! The way class progresses from demonstration, to air drills, to focus mitt drills, to realistic role-playing scenarios, embodies this ideal well. I’ve noticed that the rhythm class takes on is regular and defined, but not metronomic, allowing for each student to find their place, slowing down or catching up as needed. I would describe this as a flexible sense of time that allows for real commitment to your choices and actions.
Time
Without the progression of time musical notes have very little meaning. Even within music that takes a long time to develop, is slow, ponderous, or even “out of time”, notes primarily have meaning in relation to each other. Except for the first demonstration / explanation, Prepare’s learning style is mostly “in time.” When practicing as a group, the rhythm is crucial. It helps the students move as a group, commit to moving purposefully, and perhaps most importantly shift from thinking to embodied learning. This element of time is especially clear towards the end of a class set, when students are typically making their own decisions based on a new set of inputs from the instructors during scenarios. This process mirrors the collaborative aspect of performing a newly-learned song with people. You may “know” the material theoretically, but it’s made “real” in the act of performance. In this performance a word might be forgotten, a chord misplaced, but the act of fixing it in real time, catching up and getting back on track within the broader event (song or role-playing scenarios) both requires, and creates, a sense of mastery over the material.
Flexibility
A familiar “aha” moment in music learning comes when a student recognizes a previously learned phrase or concept in a new piece of music. This is crucial to building the vocabulary required to become proficient. Our brains, though amazing, can’t deal with the vast amount of musical possibilities, so we make patterns. When Prepare students begin to realize the flexibility of the techniques they already know, and can recognize their use in novel situations, they are now able to answer their own “what if?” questions. For example, because the techniques we teach in the very first hour of class recur in different physical positions and contexts, students build towards a flexible framework of matching any available technique to any reachable target. The same strike can be used again and again in immeasurable ways. This creates a sense of ownership, that phrase or technique is now a student’s personal tool, useful in a wide variety of situations to keep them safer.
Rest Periods
A vivid lesson from my first year of music school is the importance of rest. An older student explained to me that if you hit a wall working on a specific passage or concept it’s not “giving up” or “lazy” to take a break. In fact it’s through taking a break that your body starts to incorporate what you’ve been working on.(1) I love that a typical Prepare class has this rest period built in as classes extend over a month’s worth of weekends. The integration and learning that happens for our students is often so apparent when they come back for the next class.
Conclusion
As an instructor, I hope to reduce intimidation for people who are considering a self-defense program but don’t have a martial arts or sports background. It’s not at all essential to understanding or learning the key components of self-defense! I related to the material through my own connection based on the physicality of music, not from sports or martial arts. What life experiences would help you connect?
(1) A really fantastic example of the importance of rest comes from a rock climber, Magnus Mitbo (video). He shows very clearly not being able to do a specific problem on the boulder wall but he still tries multiple times, then comes back 4 days later and finds it to be quite easy.
Ben Rolston
Professional Musician, Prepare Instructor