The Three Learning Domains of Self-Defense

Thinking back to my early lessons in martial arts, I remember mostly rigid structure and what physical educators might refer to as command style teaching. The instructor would lead the class through whatever lesson the instructor thought was appropriate for the day, although there was usually a reliable pattern that could be expected: warm-ups, conditioning exercises, basic movements specific to the style, a specific focus for the day such as a technique, kata, or sparring, and then closing with cool-down exercises. Some students saw this structure as boringly repetitive, others took comfort in what they saw as one of the few reliably consistent parts of their day. But what struck me most about remembering back to those early lessons was how much focus was placed on the psychomotor aspect of training, or the physical movements, body conditioning, and hand-eye/foot reflexes. While these aspects are critical to the study of martial arts, I think exclusive focus on the psychomotor learning domain does a disservice to understanding human conflict, and may be detrimental preparing students for other types of self-defense.

If you ask a physical educator, they will tell you that there are 3 overall learning domains: the cognitive (knowledge and its applications), the psychomotor (body movement and coordination), and the affective (social, emotional, and character learning). A common phrase a colleague of mine uses when referencing these domains is "What do you wants students to know, do, and value?" While it is difficult to completely separate these domains within a person, as we all have knowledge about the techniques we use and have emotional responses when performing them, these domains are useful in understanding how to target learning within a martial arts lesson. Part of any martial art is an understanding of self-defense, even if it is not the focus of the style. But much like there are different learning domains, I argue that self-defense needs to be thought of within the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective domains as well. While there certainly are many physical means of being attacked, there are also attacks that can be made against your knowledge base and against your emotions. There are many legends about how famous martial artists used their cunning or discipline to prevent or dissolve conflict rather than resorting to physical techniques, so why don't we include those approaches in our self-defense lessons? In order to visualize these different types of self-defense, the graph below illustrates each domain as well as the types of attacks and self-defense skills necessary against them.

If we think of conflict in this way, then we can recognize that physical skills are only one part of proper self-defense. If we only train our students to defend themselves against attacks in the psychomotor domain, we are setting them up for failure should they come across an (arguably more likely) opponent that is attacking them from a cognitive or affective domain instead. Think of the bully in the schoolyard who taunts his victims instead of punching them, or the conspiracy theorist who attempts to convert people who listen to her using made-up facts and fear-mongering. Can your student truly be considered competent in self-defense if they don't know how to handle these situations as well?

Some may argue that this approach stretches the bounds of what martial arts ought to be and may skew focus away from more traditional practices of the arts. This could be true, and I am not arguing that all schools need to adopt this approach to teaching their students. My intent is that you consider what it is that you are teaching and how you are teaching it. If your intent is to help cultivate the whole student, then you ought to consider expanding your lessons to encompass all 3 domains. This may be a radical change for your students, and any change in your lessons, should be in the best interests of your students (and, realistically, of your school). But if you think expanding into other self-defense domains would be useful for your students, then there are better and worse ways of doing so.

I have seen some instructors attempt to provide moral lessons using end-of-class lectures or group discussion, but I would argue those approaches are as effective at cultivating defenses within those domains as if the lesson was reversed. Imagine if you had students practice their skills for a minute or two after your class, could you expect their physical skills to develop properly that way? In order to get the most out of incorporating cognitive and affective defense skills in your self-defense lessons, use the same care and thoroughness that you put into your psychomotor lessons with these other domains.

Perhaps have a 3-day rotating schedule where you focus on one domain each day, with a weekly theme that you create lessons around in each domain. Or you can split each day into 3 smaller but related lessons from each domain in your class time; such as introducing a psychomotor skill against group attacks, followed up by an affective lesson about not being provoked by insults from a group, which can lead into a cognitive lesson about group psychology that your student can use to prevent the conflict altogether. The specific way you implement these lessons should be tailored to the students you have and the way you run your school in order to be most effective, but all domains can be addressed regardless of style. In fact, you may be able to reinforce specific principles of your martial arts style by applying them to these other domain types! who wouldn't love to learn the capoeira debate tactic or the taekwondo approach to self-control against taunting? Using the cognitive and affective domains along with the psychomotor is something that should seem pretty familiar to you even if you have never use those words before. Most likely, you have already attempted to teach a lesson from each of these domains to your students at one time or another, and your students engaged with those improvised lessons about their thinking and their emotions as much as their physical techniques. Intentionally embedding those lessons throughout your curriculum will help keep lessons consistent and effective at cultivating well-rounded students of self-defense.