A little understanding (AKA something can be new under the sun)
Of late, I have had a million posts run through my head. Some likely good, some likely bad. But there they were all the same. As I tried to figure out how to salvage as much as I could from all this thinking, it hit me.
We live in an age now where we crave information. And it is there - at our fingertips - around the clock. We can consume information at an incredible rate. But where the problem lies with that consumption is that it overwhelms us.
Why?
Think of the taking on of new information like eating a meal. If we consumed every moment of every day, we would be sick... and eventually (sooner rather than later) we would die. At first, we would find ourselves feeling stuffed. Then, as our body adapted around the constant stream of food, we would find other changes in how our body processed it. Some functions would shift and change, ceding to this new and constant stream of food. But, rather than absorb what was useful, we would simply eat and eat and eat and the foods consumed, be they good or bad, would make us fat.
A body starved of food will have the exact opposite effect: eventually, with nothing new coming in, organs and processes would harvest whatever stock of nutrients and energy the body had. In the similar fashion that processes changed in the overfed body, so, too, would they change in the under-fed body. This time, you would grow weak, skinny and eventually die.
Knowledge can be the same way. Especially now that we have been conditioned to get more and more and more. Gone are the days of processing the information and letting it settle in to where we needed it. Today, we can spew all sorts of information, but rather than process what we have, our brains simply pile on more and more and the information is left, oftentimes, to float around in our heads unprocessed. It is, for lack of a better and nicer way to put it, filling our heads with utterly useless information. So much unprocessed mental food that we become stuffed, yet still seeking more because that is what we have become used to. No wonder there is so much ignorance in this age of technology!
In our karate world, some folk are leading the pack by giving their students more all the time. I`ll call it the feeding of èmpty martial calories. They teach new and new and new things all the time. Once you have one thing, let`s go on to another thing. Here, learn this thing. Here, learn that thing. Here, take on this - or better yet, let`s create a new thing. it's why some Korean systems 'teach' Okinawan 'weapons katas.' and why some schools switch from a singular art to "mixed" martial arts (and not necessarily in the MMA vein - I'll leave that battle for another day.) The problem with this is that the mind and the body are in constant states of learning.
Is that a bad thing? Yes. And no.
It`s good because people are learning new things - and that is why they likely started karate (or any martial art, for that matter) in the first place. It's bad because people do not have the opportunity to understand that which is being taught. And it's a damn sure good bet that the folks teaching are in the same spot. In the race to give the customer what they want (or the semblance of teaching them something that can be used to satisfy an artificial promotion requirement) so that they can and will continue on 'being fed'and 'consuming` at the next level.
On the other hand, you have people who have always been ahead of the pack of exploring what it is they are learning. I hate to say it, but Dillman was one of them. He gave folks something to look at within their kata. He made them explore the movement in a way that few other gaijin instructors up until that time had. Of a far more professional, credible and effective bent from this same theme, innovative instructors like Patrick McCarthy and Taira Masaji are going about the same things now. What they are doing differently from the `feeders`is that they are not teaching them anything new, really. They are, as McCarthy Sensei would say, variations on a theme.
And, my apologies while I spell this out: they are taking you back to doing things that you have already done and already learned.
Yes, it`s true. So very, very true. You`ve been doing these things for years and years in your training, and you did not even realize it. They have simply given you another angle/ aspect to look at. And you know what? It works like gangbusters!
You're getting the inflow of information that you so crave in this new social information paradigm of ours. And you are putting some understanding behind the potential of your techniques. It's something that I came to realize years ago during my failed attempt at sport martial arts.
You see, I learned the most about Olympic Tae Kwon Do not from the Taegeuk patterns or the sparring sessions done in class, but from one simple year (and more succinctly, one semester) of training with a WTF club at Laval University in Quebec City. What made it different was that all we did was drills. Drill of almost every shape, form and variation. The object of said drills was to make us better fighters because, after all, the WTF was all about the sparring. There were no forms competitions in the Olympics. It was bangin' all the time. Strip away the stuff that does not help you and focus on the stuff that does and, lo, we have a winner.
In sport karate, the same could truly be said to be true. A majority of the techniques contained in karate are not used in sparring. I cannot remember the last time I saw someone do a gedan barai uke or jodan uke (or any uke for that mattter). It's all about kicks and punches. No spear-hands, no palm-heels and certainly no elbows (Muay Thai is another thing, of course). So, why, then do we learn all this other stuff? Why do we pile on useless knowledge? Because that's what allows them to call it karate. There's not much appreciation for what the kata hold because there's not always a lot of understanding of what the kata do (besides, of course, for many, just look pretty).
A few hours with a skilled karateka that knew what kata contained and perhaps, just perhaps, they would change their minds. Who knows, a guy can always hope, right?
So, how do you slow down this rate of consumption? Look at developing drills within your karate. We have them for things such as kote kitae and kakie. We do partner drills writ large with renzoku and kakomi kumite. But when was the last time that we did drills that helped us understand core elements of the kata we are doing? When? When? Kihon undo is a good start, but we miss critical pieces of the puzzle.
This is where a little creativity on the part of instructor comes in. I had the good fortune to chat with Sensei Dennis May and one of his students when I was in Okinawa last year. And a simple encounter and brief chat with his senior over a beer told me what I already knew - we need to refind the ability to make our kata more understandable by going back to the drills that the old men of karate likely used!
You can see it in this famous image quite clearly. It's these sorts of drills that likely gave the students a broader and far more comprehensive understanding of karate than the majority of folk practising today. Do you need a master to tell you or show you how to create drills or exercises that demonstrate what your kata are doing? Maybe, but it is not an absolute requirement in my mind. If you have a solid grasp of your karate and you have opportunity to define that which makes sense and that which seems to flow and follow logically, they you'll figure it out. If you need a hand, look to the exercises that you already do such as kakie. And if you need a bit more of a push, then, by all means, grab a video off of Youtube of partner drills or applications, buy a video or 10, or rustle yourself up to a seminar near you. Doesn't matter what level of black belt you are, if you figure you already know everything, you'd be wrong. A little bit of humble pie can go a long way.
So, instead of jumping from kata to kata and stuffing a whole bunch of knowledge down their throats, change it up a bit. Make it more comprehensive: 1) Teach a kata, teach a drill. 2) Practice kata. Practice drill. 3) Repeat step two as needed. 4) Test for mastery - depending on outcome, go back to step 1 or step 2.
But, do yourself and your students a big favour - push away from the information trough for a while and give yourselves time to digest what you`ve just "swallowed" within your karate.
We live in an age now where we crave information. And it is there - at our fingertips - around the clock. We can consume information at an incredible rate. But where the problem lies with that consumption is that it overwhelms us.
Why?
Think of the taking on of new information like eating a meal. If we consumed every moment of every day, we would be sick... and eventually (sooner rather than later) we would die. At first, we would find ourselves feeling stuffed. Then, as our body adapted around the constant stream of food, we would find other changes in how our body processed it. Some functions would shift and change, ceding to this new and constant stream of food. But, rather than absorb what was useful, we would simply eat and eat and eat and the foods consumed, be they good or bad, would make us fat.
A body starved of food will have the exact opposite effect: eventually, with nothing new coming in, organs and processes would harvest whatever stock of nutrients and energy the body had. In the similar fashion that processes changed in the overfed body, so, too, would they change in the under-fed body. This time, you would grow weak, skinny and eventually die.
Knowledge can be the same way. Especially now that we have been conditioned to get more and more and more. Gone are the days of processing the information and letting it settle in to where we needed it. Today, we can spew all sorts of information, but rather than process what we have, our brains simply pile on more and more and the information is left, oftentimes, to float around in our heads unprocessed. It is, for lack of a better and nicer way to put it, filling our heads with utterly useless information. So much unprocessed mental food that we become stuffed, yet still seeking more because that is what we have become used to. No wonder there is so much ignorance in this age of technology!
In our karate world, some folk are leading the pack by giving their students more all the time. I`ll call it the feeding of èmpty martial calories. They teach new and new and new things all the time. Once you have one thing, let`s go on to another thing. Here, learn this thing. Here, learn that thing. Here, take on this - or better yet, let`s create a new thing. it's why some Korean systems 'teach' Okinawan 'weapons katas.' and why some schools switch from a singular art to "mixed" martial arts (and not necessarily in the MMA vein - I'll leave that battle for another day.) The problem with this is that the mind and the body are in constant states of learning.
Is that a bad thing? Yes. And no.
It`s good because people are learning new things - and that is why they likely started karate (or any martial art, for that matter) in the first place. It's bad because people do not have the opportunity to understand that which is being taught. And it's a damn sure good bet that the folks teaching are in the same spot. In the race to give the customer what they want (or the semblance of teaching them something that can be used to satisfy an artificial promotion requirement) so that they can and will continue on 'being fed'and 'consuming` at the next level.
On the other hand, you have people who have always been ahead of the pack of exploring what it is they are learning. I hate to say it, but Dillman was one of them. He gave folks something to look at within their kata. He made them explore the movement in a way that few other gaijin instructors up until that time had. Of a far more professional, credible and effective bent from this same theme, innovative instructors like Patrick McCarthy and Taira Masaji are going about the same things now. What they are doing differently from the `feeders`is that they are not teaching them anything new, really. They are, as McCarthy Sensei would say, variations on a theme.
And, my apologies while I spell this out: they are taking you back to doing things that you have already done and already learned.
Yes, it`s true. So very, very true. You`ve been doing these things for years and years in your training, and you did not even realize it. They have simply given you another angle/ aspect to look at. And you know what? It works like gangbusters!
You're getting the inflow of information that you so crave in this new social information paradigm of ours. And you are putting some understanding behind the potential of your techniques. It's something that I came to realize years ago during my failed attempt at sport martial arts.
You see, I learned the most about Olympic Tae Kwon Do not from the Taegeuk patterns or the sparring sessions done in class, but from one simple year (and more succinctly, one semester) of training with a WTF club at Laval University in Quebec City. What made it different was that all we did was drills. Drill of almost every shape, form and variation. The object of said drills was to make us better fighters because, after all, the WTF was all about the sparring. There were no forms competitions in the Olympics. It was bangin' all the time. Strip away the stuff that does not help you and focus on the stuff that does and, lo, we have a winner.
In sport karate, the same could truly be said to be true. A majority of the techniques contained in karate are not used in sparring. I cannot remember the last time I saw someone do a gedan barai uke or jodan uke (or any uke for that mattter). It's all about kicks and punches. No spear-hands, no palm-heels and certainly no elbows (Muay Thai is another thing, of course). So, why, then do we learn all this other stuff? Why do we pile on useless knowledge? Because that's what allows them to call it karate. There's not much appreciation for what the kata hold because there's not always a lot of understanding of what the kata do (besides, of course, for many, just look pretty).
A few hours with a skilled karateka that knew what kata contained and perhaps, just perhaps, they would change their minds. Who knows, a guy can always hope, right?
So, how do you slow down this rate of consumption? Look at developing drills within your karate. We have them for things such as kote kitae and kakie. We do partner drills writ large with renzoku and kakomi kumite. But when was the last time that we did drills that helped us understand core elements of the kata we are doing? When? When? Kihon undo is a good start, but we miss critical pieces of the puzzle.
This is where a little creativity on the part of instructor comes in. I had the good fortune to chat with Sensei Dennis May and one of his students when I was in Okinawa last year. And a simple encounter and brief chat with his senior over a beer told me what I already knew - we need to refind the ability to make our kata more understandable by going back to the drills that the old men of karate likely used!
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| I doubt that this sort of 'learning' happened in a vacuum |
You can see it in this famous image quite clearly. It's these sorts of drills that likely gave the students a broader and far more comprehensive understanding of karate than the majority of folk practising today. Do you need a master to tell you or show you how to create drills or exercises that demonstrate what your kata are doing? Maybe, but it is not an absolute requirement in my mind. If you have a solid grasp of your karate and you have opportunity to define that which makes sense and that which seems to flow and follow logically, they you'll figure it out. If you need a hand, look to the exercises that you already do such as kakie. And if you need a bit more of a push, then, by all means, grab a video off of Youtube of partner drills or applications, buy a video or 10, or rustle yourself up to a seminar near you. Doesn't matter what level of black belt you are, if you figure you already know everything, you'd be wrong. A little bit of humble pie can go a long way.So, instead of jumping from kata to kata and stuffing a whole bunch of knowledge down their throats, change it up a bit. Make it more comprehensive: 1) Teach a kata, teach a drill. 2) Practice kata. Practice drill. 3) Repeat step two as needed. 4) Test for mastery - depending on outcome, go back to step 1 or step 2.
But, do yourself and your students a big favour - push away from the information trough for a while and give yourselves time to digest what you`ve just "swallowed" within your karate.
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