Steve's BJJ Blog

I’ve worked in training for several years now.  Learning and training are topics that are extremely interesting to me personally and professionally.  It occurred to me that many of the concepts used in creating business-training applications also apply to a complex physical activity such as Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.   While I’m a relative novice in BJJ having trained for less than four years now, I’ve been helping employees develop professional expertise for over a decade. 

This is the first of three articles on some common ideas about adult learning and how I see them applied to martial arts training, specifically BJJ.   Hopefully these articles will provide some context for you, and help you create a framework that explains (and maybe alleviates) some common sources of frustration.

In this article, I’ll discuss how we learn… what’s going on behind the scenes in our brains and bodies.  In the next installment, I’ll try to tie everything together, finishing up the trilogy by providing what I hope are some strategies for success. 

As always, I’m more interested in sparking discussion than anything else, so if you have any comments, corrections or criticisms, I’d love to hear them. 

How we learn

There are three components to learning: Short Term Memory (STM), Long Term Memory (LTM) and what is often referred to as Metacognition.   

A common analogy is that of a computer, where STM is RAM, LTM is the hard drive and metacognition is the operating system.  While this analogy works well, I prefer a more low-tech comparison.  I like to cook, so I tend to think of short term memory as a kitchen counter.  Long term memory, then, would be the pantry and drawers.  Metacognition is pretty much everything else, the human element. 

Short Term Memory

As I mentioned before, short term memory is the kitchen counters.  It’s the active working area in which we do all of our intellectual heavy lifting.  If I’m cooking a meal, I’m going to want a lot of things available to me, including tools, ingredients and perhaps a recipe.  This is my active space, where I’ll use these items to mix, measure, chop and puree, and if I do everything correctly, I’ll end up with a meal that is edible.

Pretty much everything we do actively is a product of our short term memory: analyzing, adapting, understanding, and pretty much every other –ing that you can think of.   It’s where we do all of our Cognition, Reasoning, Analysis and Practical Application, or CRAP.  Hehe. 

*Ahem.*  Sorry. 

From time to time, I’ll say that my brain is full, or in some drastic situations, that my brain is broken.  Of course, these aren’t literal.  What I’m talking about is something referred to as cognitive load.    Cognitive load refers to the limited amount of space we have in our Short Term Memory.  My kitchen counter can only hold so many things at once.  If I don’t put things away, I’ll end up unable to find what I’m looking for. 

Way back in 1956, a guy named Goerge Miller who at the time was a psychology professor at Princeton, described the functional limit of an average human’s working memory as seven plus or minus two.   This pretty much means that most people can only juggle seven “chunks” of information at a time.   Some people can manage up to nine, and others as few as five.  What constitutes a chunk will vary, and I’ll go into that more in the next article.  For now, just think about a chunk as an idea, concept, group of facts or some… well… chunk of information.  

In Ruth Clark’s book, “Building Expertise,” an even more conservative position is taken, suggesting that we’re really only looking at a functional limit of four or five discrete concepts.   The point, though, is that there is a limit.  We only have so much space on our kitchen counters.  If I’m not cleaning as I go and managing the different steps in a logical order, I’ll have too many pots on the stove, too many things going on.  I’m going to end up with a mess and nothing delicious to show for it. 

So, summing up short term memory, that’s where we have rapid access to information.   It’s quick and accessible.  But there is a functional limit, and when we overload our short term memory, we risk losing any gains we’ve made.

Getting back to some more familiar ground for a lot of us, Matt Thornton describes learning as being broken down into the Three I’s:  Introduction, Isolation and Integration.  Introduction and Isolation are both functions that are taking place within the short term memory.  

Long Term Memory

If short term memory is the kitchen counter, long term memory is the pantry and cupboards.  Think bulk storage.  That’s where we keep our knowledge.  It’s also where we house our expertise and build the framework within which we organize information into usable structures.  Think recipes and cookbooks. 

In Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, this is where we liberate ourselves from having to think consciously about what constitutes good side control.  It’s there when we need it.  Techniques are housed here.  That half guard pass I learned from Andre Galvao’s DVD or the X-Guard Sweep I picked up from Marcelo Garcia’s book are both stored in my LTM. 

Our brains are pretty damned amazing.  Unless your name is Homer Simpson, there is no functional limit to what most of us can store in our Long Term Memories.  The skills we develop along with the facts that accompany them. 

The key is in the transfer of skills and information from LTM to STM, and that has to do with organization.  An organized pantry makes it easy to find what we need.  In the same way, our brains build models to quickly reference appropriate material.  Stefan Kesting’s Roadmap for BJJ package is a terrific example of this concept.   In it, he provides a working model in which a person can organize information.   In this way, he’s facilitating the ability of the new BJJ practitioner to imprint concepts into their LTM from their STM. 

Once again, I’ll talk a little more about how this works in the next article.

Metacognition

The third component of learning is metacognition, what essentially boils down to knowledge about knowledge.  As I mentioned in the introduction, this is the human element of learning.  Metacognition is what facilites that transfer of information to and from long term memory. 

In terms of our cooking analogy, this would be the decision making process and how we manage choices.  What’s for dinner?  Which recipe do I choose?  Should I tweak it?  Seems like last time it was a little bland. 

Metacognition is where we set goals for ourselves and organize the act of learning.  It’s where we analyze our performance and develop a strategy or plan to follow.  That’s where the inner dialogue comes from, “Man, my half guard bottom is weak.   I need to just suck it up and pull half guard for a while until I can figure this out.”  The analysis and decision to pull guard are central to what I’m talking about. 

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.”  –  Alvin Toffler  

As far as I’m concerned, this is the most important trait that we can cultivate personally: the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn.  Being able to do this requires an agile mind and a willingness to let go of information regardless of the personal investment we’ve made in acquiring it.  Or said another way, it doesn’t matter how long it took to learn something that is now obsolete.   In terms of Martial Arts, this is where we become afraid to try new things. 

Summary

1. Adult learning is comprised of three key elements: short term memory, long term memory and metacognition. 
2. Short term memory is our working space, where we make gains, draw conclusions and learn new things.
3. Long term memory is where we store skills, facts and the framework within which our expertise is organized.
4. Metacognition is where we manage our memory, make decisions and set goals.  This is our strategic center.

In the next section, I’ll talk more about how these three elements fit together, along with other elements of learning such as the differences between learning as an expert and learning as a novice, adaptive vs static expertise and why we often learn something one day and never think about it again until the next time it’s taught (“Oh yeah.  I remember learning that.”)

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