It’s Not Supposed to Look Like a Fight
A drill earns its place by the skill it develops and what you can do with that skill when the conditions change. Five questions for more purposeful, adaptable training.
Field Notes
The Gap Between Knowing and Doing: How Capability Is Built
Sifu Journal · Capability & Learning The Gap Between Knowing and Doing: How Capability Is Built Information matters. But how do we turn what we learn into something we can …
Judgment in Martial Arts: Are You Training It?
Physical skill does not automatically create good judgment. Alan Baker explains why observation, timing, positioning, and decision-making deserve deliberate attention in martial arts training.
When the Fundamentals Have to Change
A monthly range session forced Alan Baker to reconsider a familiar handgun grip. The result offers a larger lesson about adaptation, coaching, and the continuing path toward mastery.
The Capable Life: Education Should Change What You Can Do
Education should do more than inform you. Alan Baker explains how self-education, practical application, feedback, and humility build a more capable life.
When Less Becomes More: Learning to Become an Intuitive Driver
After years of training with Joe Autera, Alan Baker finally began to understand what it means to feel your way through a driving problem. This reflection from Pocono Raceway explores intuition, simplicity, protective driving, and the lifelong work of becoming more capable.
Ahead of Time: Why Early Recognition Matters in Self-Protection
Situational awareness is more than a slogan. C-TAC teaches students to prepare, train their eyes to see, recognize developing pressure, and make better decisions while they are still ahead of time.
The Nucleus: How Keysi Fighting Method Trains Problems, Not Just Techniques
Technique gives a martial artist the notes, but the Nucleus teaches the student how to play the music. Sifu Alan Baker explores how Keysi develops adaptable problem-solving through drills, laboratories, progressive variables, and self-education.
Two Continuums, Better Decisions: Understanding Force and Threat Escalation in C-TAC
C-TAC students study two essential continuums: the range of responses available to them and the escalating behavior of a threat. Training both helps students recognize change, avoid falling behind in time, and make better decisions under pressure.
The Keysi Fighting Method Pensador Is Not a Single Shield Position
The Pensador is one of Keysi Fighting Method’s most recognizable ideas, but it is not a single guard or shielding position. Sifu Alan Baker examines how its protective structures articulate, transition, strike, manipulate, and remain functional under pressure.
