Win Conditions - what are they and what should they be?
Building on my post/release of last week, I want to continue the musings and lay out my idea of how to practice, perform, and improve while not burning out and staying mentally healthy. (Staying physically healthy is another topic)
Here I’m pulling together a few things that I’ve already written about in other posts. So if some of this sounds familiar, then that’s why. If all of it sounds familiar, then you’ve been keeping up and you’re my favorite subscriber. But for the rest of you, I want to draw these threads together all in one place as if you’re my personal students.
This is a conversation I have with pretty much anyone who wants to work with me for any amount of time, and I think it’s vital to understand the concepts here in order to improve in an orderly and efficient way. Can some brute force it and improve? Yes. But most can’t. Most require, or at least are helped by, a flexible and forgiving structure of trial and error and learning.
What is the goal?
To reframe what I wrote last week, winning the fight isn’t a performance goal, and shouldn’t be. Winning is a result of doing the things well - things/skills that can be improved. Winning a fencing match isn’t itself a skill - you can’t really practice it in isolation. Consistently winning fights means you have gotten good at a collection of skills and those are working together to get you the hit before you get hit yourself.
There’s always an element of luck to a fight, so if you make winning the goal, you will often end up getting frustrated, and/or you may find that you’re cutting corners subconsciously to try to reach that goal of winning. I’ve known people - very good, ethical, fair people - who focused so hard on winning that they would subconsciously stop feeling blows in the final rounds of a tournament. This can eventually lead to the trap that we can call “winning at all costs.” It’s a trap to avoid, both for the sake of your growth and for the reputational damage.
So instead, I advise my students to adjust their win conditions - their success expectations - to get away from “winning the fight” and focus on their goal or goals. And their goal(s) should be what they are trying to improve.
It is totally possible for someone to technically lose a fight, but still meet their win condition and be happy with the outcome. The more things/skills they succeed at, the more likely they are to be the victor of the fight too. But it’s never going to be a sure thing, and if they focus only on winning the exchange itself, they are often sabotaging their growth.
So how do you adjust win conditions?
By “adjust your win conditions” I simply am referring to knowing and paying attention to the things you are trying to get better at, and noting whether you are getting better at them. And again - these are individual skills. In the anecdote I laid out last week, these are the subroutines you’re trying to get to work correctly.
So first you need to know what part or parts of the fight/exchange aren’t going well for you. Do you get hit right off the bat with a direct shot as soon as you’re getting into range? Then almost certainly you aren’t constraining their blade and creating a safe space for you to enter into measure. Are you making it into measure and forcing an action out of your opponent, but getting hit when you try to respond? Well first off - SUCCESS! You’re doing at least two things relatively well! You’re moving safely enough into measure, and you’re forcing the opponent into an action. If you weren’t doing those well previously and you started working more on them, then you can see that those were win conditions that you are now meeting! So then you look at the next stage of the fight and see what skills you need to add in to the mix, and set that as your next win condition to focus on.
See how that works?
Not gonna lie - this is where it can really be valuable to have an objective and more advanced person looking on and telling you what they are seeing. Even if they aren’t a trained coach, they can often help you work through the actions and start trying out solutions.
Setting your goals
Think about the things you are wanting to improve on - what is your goal today? Have you been slow in your tempo on certain actions and you want to figure out why? Write it down and evaluate it in the fight! Have you got the tempo, but you’ve been missing your target by a inch? Again - note it and work on it. Some of my students have found it helpful to video their fights along with keeping a journal.
As well, your goal for a practice can be two things. No more than three, though. Don’t overload your efforts. That leads to frustration as well.
You may also find as you focus on the subroutines that you realize that what you thought was your challenge wasn’t really the issue. That’s not only fine, that’s exactly right. You can’t improve until you understand what needs to be improved. And narrowing down the cause of your stumbling block is the point of altering your win conditions and focusing on the subroutines.
Set your goals and meet them
As I said above, use a practice journal to keep track of your goals, how you met them, and what new hurdles you’ve found. Keeping a journal can help you think through practices better, as you continue to write down your observations and note where you didn’t achieve your win condition.
Note also interesting things you observe on your opponents. You may take note of how they are improving as well. Understanding what your opponent is doing and being able to analyze them is itself an important goal.
Even on the list field (sparring, or yes - tournaments), have a few goals you want to accomplish in how you fight.
Be deliberate about your win conditions in drills, sparring, and tournaments. And teach your students that same idea.
And here is a novel concept: hitting the other person should probably never be your win condition. Again, just getting the hit is simply positive feedback that several things aligned in that exchange. And if you really did well, then those things that aligned are the things you wanted to align.
But you can land a hit and still fail at what you were trying to improve. I have won tournaments and been unhappy with most of my fights that day.
And the opposite is true, which is the whole point here about staying in a good headspace. You can meet your win conditions but lose the fight. You can succeed and learn incrementally, even as you fail to get the touch/hit first. And I find it easier to focus on improving when I give myself the grace to work on the parts of the fight and not let my ego overwhelm me when someone gets the touch on me.
For instance, if I’m working on landing a shot in a very specific area, then that means that against an equal opponent who is not limiting their targeting, I’ve made my goal a lot harder than theirs is and I should expect to get hit while I’m working to create that exact opening. Getting hit in that case doesn’t mean I’m a lesser fighter, or that I’m not doing well. It means I’m working on a very specific thing that I’m not yet excelling at.
If you make these individual actions and goals done successfully your win condition, you can focus on learning techniques under stress, and then adding to those techniques with more complex ones, and building up a tool chest of tools that you use well and that you can use in groups.
Conclusion
I meant to break down another sword and dagger play this week, but I got sidetracked with some job applications. Meaning - things are still a little chaotic around the house. I’ll aim to present a new play from Capoferro next week for the paying subscribers.
I hope this makes sense and helps you all think through your skill progression and training thoughts. As always, I’m happy to answer questions and chat about my ideas here in the comments. I’m also open to hosting a live chat, if anyone has a topic that they feel would be good to discuss in person/virtually. Just lemme know!