Building a strong foundation

[PhotonGuy]

I believe that building a strong foundation is important for beginners, especially in a striking based art where you fight on your feet. Therefore what might be a good approach to teaching a beginner is to first teach stances and how to move in the stances. Then after that to teach kicking techniques. Finally hand techniques would be taught. By teaching stances, movement, and kicking first it helps build the legs and it helps to develop a strong base. In order to have effective hand techniques you do need a strong base so that's why I would want to develop that first.

 

[Tez3]

I disagree, one teaches the basics first. This includes basic kicks, punches and stances, you cannot spend weeks teaching stances, then more weeks teaching kicks etc. Techniques are connected to each other, just learning stances, kicks and punches would end up with instructors having to re-teach everything to join them all together.
How many students have you taught by the way?

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I don't see much value in teaching stances without technique. I have some traditional drills/exercises I'll use that specifically focus on the stance, but I mostly use those for students who have specific issues. For everyone else, their stances develop through use in the techniques. That applies to both the striking and grappling parts of the art.

I also don't see teaching kicks before hand/arm strikes. Kicks require the most development for most folks, to become useful. I start people on the simplest strikes first, and add harder ones as they progress. That way, as their base gets more solid, they can add "tippier" techniques like kicks.

Basically, I want people to develop movement and base within a fighting context, so I help them develop movement and base in relationship to the techniques they'd fight with.

 

[Reedone816]

Read in a cma school website that they used to have their students to do stance only in the first two years of training.

Sent from my Lenovo A7010a48 using Tapatalk

 

[pgsmith]

I agree that building a strong foundation is very important. This is why it's always a good idea to take into consideration the type of soil in your area before you begin. Different soil types require different building techniques in order to have a strong foundation to build upon.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

How good foundation is good? If you go to a grade school, do you have to obtain all "A" before you can graduate from it and move into your high school? Can you just obtain all "B" and move on? IMO, you can. When you are in your high school, you can still "enhance" what you have learned in grade school.

If you insist to obtain all "A" in grade school before you can move on, you may find that one day you are too old to go to high school.

 

[PhotonGuy]

I disagree, one teaches the basics first. This includes basic kicks, punches and stances, you cannot spend weeks teaching stances, then more weeks teaching kicks etc. Techniques are connected to each other, just learning stances, kicks and punches would end up with instructors having to re-teach everything to join them all together.
How many students have you taught by the way?

What I mean is on a students first day I would just teach stances and movement. On their second day I would review stances and movement and then introduce kicks. On their third day I would introduce hand techniques. All the kicks and hand techniques would obviously be done from stances so I wouldn't be separating stances from kicks and hand strikes. I've never taught as a primary instructor but I have taught many students as an assistant instructor.

 

[PhotonGuy]

I don't see much value in teaching stances without technique. I have some traditional drills/exercises I'll use that specifically focus on the stance, but I mostly use those for students who have specific issues. For everyone else, their stances develop through use in the techniques. That applies to both the striking and grappling parts of the art.

Before they learn techniques they've got to learn stances. In some of the schools from thousands of years back supposedly students would spend their first six months doing just stances and only then would they start learning techniques. I would not go for six months having a new student do just stances but I might work on only stances and movement on their first day.

I also don't see teaching kicks before hand/arm strikes. Kicks require the most development for most folks, to become useful. I start people on the simplest strikes first, and add harder ones as they progress. That way, as their base gets more solid, they can add "tippier" techniques like kicks.

That is one of the reasons why I might teach kicks first, they're harder and if a student can learn kicks, learning and developing hand strikes will be that much easier. The main reason I might teach kicks first is because they use the legs the most and a strong base is very important.

 

[Headhunter]

What I mean is on a students first day I would just teach stances and movement. On their second day I would review stances and movement and then introduce kicks. On their third day I would introduce hand techniques. All the kicks and hand techniques would obviously be done from stances so I wouldn't be separating stances from kicks and hand strikes. I've never taught as a primary instructor but I have taught many students as an assistant instructor.

If you taught like that maybe you'd have about 2 students because frankly that would bore people to death. People turn up to martial arts for different but everyone wants to learn how to punch and kick, if you spend an hour or whatever the class length just teaching stances they're not going to come back. Hell I'd be bored even now with a class just on stances. They don't need to be brilliant on day 1 just give them the basic facts. The most important thing in a first class has nothing to do with skill in my opinion it's about getting them interested so they come back.

 

[PhotonGuy]

How good foundation is good? If you go to a grade school, do you have to obtain all "A" before you can graduate from it and move into your high school? Can you just obtain all "B" and move on? IMO, you can. When you are in your high school, you can still "enhance" what you have learned in grade school.

If you insist to obtain all "A" in grade school before you can move on, you may find that one day you are too old to go to high school.

No you don't have to get straight As in elementary school to move on to middle school and then high school but they do have standards for going up a grade. They do sometimes hold students back if the student doesn't perform good enough in their current grade.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Before they learn techniques they've got to learn stances. In some of the schools from thousands of years back supposedly students would spend their first six months doing just stances and only then would they start learning techniques. I would not go for six months having a new student do just stances but I might work on only stances and movement on their first day.

I've never had trouble teaching a student the stance with the technique. After they've done the technique several times, I explain the stance, why we use it, and what we call it.

That is one of the reasons why I might teach kicks first, they're harder and if a student can learn kicks, learning and developing hand strikes will be that much easier. The main reason I might teach kicks first is because they use the legs the most and a strong base is very important.

That's a valid approach, that compromises in the opposite direction of my choices. You force better foundation early by stressing it more.

My focus is getting them something they can use as quickly as possible, so I delay kicks. Kicks take more skill to use effectively, so I teach hand/arm strikes earlier, to give them useful tools quickly.

 

[Tez3]

What I mean is on a students first day I would just teach stances and movement. On their second day I would review stances and movement and then introduce kicks. On their third day I would introduce hand techniques. All the kicks and hand techniques would obviously be done from stances so I wouldn't be separating stances from kicks and hand strikes. I've never taught as a primary instructor but I have taught many students as an assistant instructor.

How long do you imagine these classes would last? Do you think people would be able to process so much information in one go? Don't you think it would be better to teach basics first rather than all stances, all kicks and punches? There's an accepted way that people learn a physical activity and doing it your way will end up with as has been said, bored students and poor learning.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

but I might work on only stances and movement on their first day.

There are 2 different methods to learn MA.

1. Develop strong foundation first. You then use those foundation to develop your fighting skill.
2. Develop fighting skill first. You then develop foundation along with your fighting skill development.

You have described the 1st method in your post. The example for the 2nd method can be you teach "hip throw" first. You then ask your students to use "hip throw" to throw their opponent down 10,000 times. During that 10,000 times hip throw training, you gradually correct your student's "horse stance" until it's perfect.

I like method 2 better than method 1.

Let

A = horse stance
B = hip throw

The difference is

- If you have B, you will have A for sure.
- If you have A, you may still not have B.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Therefore what might be a good approach to teaching a beginner is to first teach stances and how to move in the stances.

This is a good fit for Jow Ga. Some student's get lazy with this and half train it, only to discover 3 years later just how important the stances and movement is stances are.. Without this training the brain has a hard time making the feet react.

 

[Headhunter]

Before they learn techniques they've got to learn stances. In some of the schools from thousands of years back supposedly students would spend their first six months doing just stances and only then would they start learning techniques. I would not go for six months having a new student do just stances but I might work on only stances and movement on their first day.


That is one of the reasons why I might teach kicks first, they're harder and if a student can learn kicks, learning and developing hand strikes will be that much easier. The main reason I might teach kicks first is because they use the legs the most and a strong base is very important.

Yeah but this isn't thousands of years ago In china. People want things fast these days. Why would they spend a few lessons doing nothing but stances when they could go to a kickboxing club and spend an hour hitting and kicking bags, sparring and drilling and getting a sweat on. I know which I'd choose

 

[Buka]

Let's keep in mind we are all teaching different arts, in different places, with different people, for different reasons. Ain't no way we will all teach the same thing, or in the same order.

I don't have a set "first day" set of techniques. It depends on the group, if it is a group, or on the person.
But it usually consists of stance (what I consider a proper stance, not necessarily what you use in your school) moving forward, back sideways and with accompanying angles, a jab, a straight punch with the rear hand (either hand) and a front kick.

The only three things I teach, guaranteed on that first day, is getting up fast, undivided attention and dojo protocol.

 

[drop bear]

Before they learn techniques they've got to learn stances. In some of the schools from thousands of years back supposedly students would spend their first six months doing just stances and only then would they start learning techniques. I would not go for six months having a new student do just stances but I might work on only stances and movement on their first day.


That is one of the reasons why I might teach kicks first, they're harder and if a student can learn kicks, learning and developing hand strikes will be that much easier. The main reason I might teach kicks first is because they use the legs the most and a strong base is very important.

The issue is it really might take 6 months to get stances right. And that would grind.

We do stance work but a bit each class. Which is just more palatable from a training point of view.

Now having said that. Because of the importance of stance training. All of it is stance training. So I am working a bag. I am working stances.

 

[Midnight-shadow]

There's nothing wrong with combining elements together for beginners, as long as you don't overload them. What you need to ask yourself is can your student adequately practice the basics whilst doing other things. In the case of stances, most people are more than capable of doing simple punches while holding a horse or fighting stance, so instead of boring the student by making them just do the stance, combine it with basic hand techniques. This not only speeds up the learning process but makes it more interesting for the student.

 

[jobo]

isn't kata for teaching stances and movement?

 

[Gerry Seymour]

isn't kata for teaching stances and movement?

I use it for training transitions and control. I think most people/systems include stance training in their kata work. I do some stance focus in the short kata (single-technique forms), but I don't like folks focusing on the stances so much in the long-form kata. Those are for them to develop movement.