AI can be our MA teacher

[Flying Crane]

Nothing can really supplant hands-on feedback and instruction with an opponent and an instructor in some arts like BJJ and Aikido, but I think it’s reasonable that someone could get fairly decent in Shotokan without ever setting foot in a dojo if they watched the right YouTube videos and had some AI coaching.
I’d almost bet that a disciplined student could become a pretty convincing black belt that way until you pair him up with someone for sparring or for kihon.

I’m not a shotokan guy but if I was, I would find this comment incredibly naive and uneducated.

The method I train is, at least in my practice, a primarily striking method. If you took your comment above and substituted my method (Tibetan crane) for Shotokan, I would say you shouldn’t comment on things about which you know nothing. What you stated above is completely untrue.

I also train in aikido, long enough now that I think I can make a comparison of the sort you tried to do, between these two methods. They both require direct instruction with a skilled teacher, and hands-on interaction in that process. There are all kinds of subtleties in both methods that will not get passed down by some Ai teaching platform. This is an activity that requires human interaction over and over. Ai cannot pass along anything but surface mimicry, which is the same as trying to learn by video.

I am reminded of this especially at the moment because I have a new student who I have recently begun teaching Tibetan Crane. He is enthusiastic and interested, with no martial experience yet under his belt. I see first hand how difficult it is to learn this stuff well, even with a teacher. I see him struggle to pull all the information together and make it physically functional. He will get there, as I keep encouraging him, but it is a process and it does REQUIRE interaction with a good teacher, not simply reading and following instructions that some Ai bot gives you.

I am still new to aikido, having been a student for only about three years now. Coming into that with several decades of martial training already behind me, I was astonished at how difficult it was to learn the new skills. The little details that make the difference between failure or effortless success are maddeningly difficult to pull together and make consistent.

No, Ai is not a substitute for a teacher. And no, a method like Shotokan isn’t somehow simpler or less sophisticated to be an exception to that truth.

 

[Kung Fu Wang114 145]

One teacher was late for his class. His young brother started the class for him. When the teacher arrived, the teacher slapped on his young brother's face and said, "How dare that you teach these MA secret to someone outside of our family."

The teacher was talking about his own students. But in that teacher's mind, even his own students are still not his own family members. The funniest thing was that both of his sons had no interest in MA.

Most MA teachers are not willing to share. AI is the opposite. You ask AI, AI will answer your question.

Old saying said, "The longer that you live, the more that you will like your dog." If you replace dog by AI. It still makes sense.

I bought a new computer 2 weeks ago. My new computer can recognize my printer. But it won't recognize my scanner. AI helped me to get my scanner to work.

Every time I click on my AI, AI will ask:

Hi John, what should we dive into today?​

AI is willing to share information. That's good enough reason for me to have good feeling about AI.

AI can be someone who never stab on your back. How much more do you want to ask for?

 

[Xue Sheng107 25]

My only real concern with AI is this
If true AI is developed, and if a true quantum computer system is developed, and those 2 get put together. Then i may start thinking more about the movie “Colossus: The Forbin Project” as more of a prediction for the future… or possibly a warning.

 

[wab25]

Wab25 didn’t read this part of the AI response..,

Not sure why you want to accuse me of something, when you have no idea whether I did that thing or not. For the record, I did read that part of the response. I did factor that in. It still would not help me improve my technique or learn a new one, any better than watching a video or reading a book. Note that the video and the book are created by people, who know what they are talking about and how to teach what they are showing, and they still do a very poor job when compared to actual, in person time on the mat or in the dojo. AI is not a master of these arts or even techniques... it does not understand the context around what it is saying and in fact does not have any idea what it is saying. What AI knows, is the statistical probability of this word following those previous words, based on influence from n number of other inputs.

I fed Wab25’s comment above into ChatGPT and it said basically the reason he wasn’t satisfied was because it was a question about mechanics and nobody asked about timing, sensation, errors, or correction points.

Again, even a master has a very hard time writing a book that can communicate all these things in a way that the book alone could teach. The best written instructions in the world are no substitute for an in person instructor. The book or the AI can not give you specific feedback, nor can it tailor the message to the student, in the way that the student needs. Sure, AI will tailor the message to what the student wants to hear..... but the problem is that the student does not know what he needs to hear. That is where real experience needs to come in.

AI is less likely to leave things out for your own good or forget things like a live instructor might, you just have to ask the right questions.

You seem to have a very low opinion of MA instructors. In my experience, if an instructor is not giving you the next piece, it is because you have not yet learned the pieces that he already gave you. Learning those pieces first is very important to understanding the next piece. I have never seen on forget to teach an important part.

 

[wab25]

Most MA teachers are not willing to share. AI is the opposite. You ask AI, AI will answer your question.

As an instructor, you might not be willing to share.... But please do not project that trait on all MA instructors. The ones I meet and train with are very willing to share. In fact, they are more eager to share with me than I am to receive in many instances. If they do not share, then their art dies with them. All the teachers I have met... are interested in passing along their art to the next generation, so that the art may continue. I would not train with a teacher who was not willing to share..... but on the other hand, I have not met one that is not trying to share....

 

[Flying Crane]

One who is not willing to share is not a teacher. That’s pretty simple.

 

[Kung Fu Wang114 145]

As an instructor, you might not be willing to share.... But please do not project that trait on all MA instructors.

I hate those people who is not willing to share. I feel very strongly against that. I can only speak from my own life experience.

 

[Kung Fu Wang114 145]

One who is not willing to share is not a teacher. That’s pretty simple.

Agree and no argument there.

One of CMC's students told me that when CMC taught Taiji in NYC (1973?), he charged $4000 to learn the Taiji form without any correction. If you want CMC to "correct" your Taiji form, you have to pay another $4000. Not sure the 2nd $4000 included any Taiji application or not.

 

[Appledog50 3]

I hate those people who is not willing to share. I feel very strongly against that. I can only speak from my own life experience.

I failed out of college because I was practicing tai chi in the park instead of going to class, is if fair if I expect someone who worked all their life instead to share some of that money with me? The joke is, everyone wants to go to heaven-- but nobody wants to die.

As for AI, I am sure you could get pretty far with an AI, maybe even learn a few forms well. But without a human teacher it will be very difficult to get ancestral skill, because it has to be passed down in order for it to work.

 

[Kung Fu Wang114 145]

I failed out of college because I was practicing tai chi in the park instead of going to class, is if fair if I expect someone who worked all their life instead to share some of that money with me? The joke is, everyone wants to go to heaven-- but nobody wants to die.

Are you saying that MA teachers have right not to share their secret?

You are right! We are all human being. We expect others to share. But in the real world, it just doesn't work that way,

It seems to me that you came from the TMA background. and you understand what I was saying. Some MA teachers may put high value in their secret and not willing to share with just anybody.

 

[Appledog50 3]

Are you saying that MA teachers have right not to share their secret?

I don't understand the concept of not sharing. The issue is time. When you are enlightened you realize you are on fire and you are about to die and you don't have time anymore.

If you treat martial arts as a hobby, you share what you know with other hobbyist martial artists -- but not necessarily with the ice cream man or the local shopkeeper. They didn't ask. OTOH, of martial arts is your career, then you share what you know to people who are your students, and you might not have time to share it with people who are not your students. Why is simple-- you need to make sure your students are the best they can be. This is the antithesis of not sharing.

If you treat martial arts as an academic exercise you do not necessarily have time to teach or share either.

In a place like this, there is not much you can share. But I am happy that I was able to chat with you a little

 

[Kung Fu Wang114 145]

you might not have time to share it with people who are not your students.

This reminds me the following Q&A.

A: The emperor is looking for the solution. You have the solution. Why don't you tell the emperor?
B: The emperor didn't ask me.

Sharing without asking = showing off

 

[Same Trick59 10]

I think AI will eventually be the downfall of civilization as we know it.

It’ll take all the jobs and we all get ubi

 

[Same Trick59 10]

Another cool thing with AI is that eventually we can be put into cryosleep with our minds hooked up into a big “jijitsu”(spelling?) AI game, I mean cool for martial artist

 

[gspell68]

I’m not a shotokan guy but if I was, I would find this comment incredibly naive and uneducated.

The method I train is, at least in my practice, a primarily striking method. If you took your comment above and substituted my method (Tibetan crane) for Shotokan, I would say you shouldn’t comment on things about which you know nothing. What you stated above is completely untrue.

I also train in aikido, long enough now that I think I can make a comparison of the sort you tried to do, between these two methods. They both require direct instruction with a skilled teacher, and hands-on interaction in that process. There are all kinds of subtleties in both methods that will not get passed down by some Ai teaching platform. This is an activity that requires human interaction over and over. Ai cannot pass along anything but surface mimicry, which is the same as trying to learn by video.

I am reminded of this especially at the moment because I have a new student who I have recently begun teaching Tibetan Crane. He is enthusiastic and interested, with no martial experience yet under his belt. I see first hand how difficult it is to learn this stuff well, even with a teacher. I see him struggle to pull all the information together and make it physically functional. He will get there, as I keep encouraging him, but it is a process and it does REQUIRE interaction with a good teacher, not simply reading and following instructions that some Ai bot gives you.

I am still new to aikido, having been a student for only about three years now. Coming into that with several decades of martial training already behind me, I was astonished at how difficult it was to learn the new skills. The little details that make the difference between failure or effortless success are maddeningly difficult to pull together and make consistent.

No, Ai is not a substitute for a teacher. And no, a method like Shotokan isn’t somehow simpler or less sophisticated to be an exception to that truth.

I am a Shotokan guy.
I started just over 40 years ago.
I learned maybe five katas from my instructor who was an out-of-practice first-degree black belt himself running a summer class, the rest I learned from books.
If there is one style you can learn from books, video, AI, or online, Shotokan is it.
But like I said before, it would become evident once the AI student faced an actual opponent.
And what I didn’t make clear is that yes, at some point, the AI student would need in-person instruction and feedback to get up to speed unless they come up with some kind of an AI video monitoring system to evaluate you in real time with feedback.

There are some instances where having a real-life instructor is a BAD thing regardless of how good they might be in their art.
Aikido is a prime example.
Aikido teaches THE absolute weakest punches and kicks in the martial arts world aside from maybe Taichi.
I hate to be disparaging, but it’s the truth.
If you’ve trained in Aikido, you know this for a fact.
You would absolutely, 100% be better off training to a Shotokan video and an AI description than going back in time to learn kicking and punching from Osensei himself.
I liked Aikido and it was fun, but I don’t trust it.
I tried it for a year, but only six to nine months seriously.
Like you said, there’s a lot in the minutiae of Aikido, and it’d probably take at least 10 years of dedicated practice, or longer, for someone to realistically engage someone in a street fight.
I did learn some tai-sabaki and break-falls and I can probably joint lock someone once they’re on the ground, but that’s about all I took away but I’m grateful for it.

 

[gspell68]

Are you saying that MA teachers have right not to share their secret?

You are right! We are all human being. We expect others to share. But in the real world, it just doesn't work that way,

It seems to me that you came from the TMA background. and you understand what I was saying. Some MA teachers may put high value in their secret and not willing to share with just anybody.

I don't understand the concept of not sharing. The issue is time. When you are enlightened you realize you are on fire and you are about to die and you don't have time anymore.

If you treat martial arts as a hobby, you share what you know with other hobbyist martial artists -- but not necessarily with the ice cream man or the local shopkeeper. They didn't ask. OTOH, of martial arts is your career, then you share what you know to people who are your students, and you might not have time to share it with people who are not your students. Why is simple-- you need to make sure your students are the best they can be. This is the antithesis of not sharing.

If you treat martial arts as an academic exercise you do not necessarily have time to teach or share either.

In a place like this, there is not much you can share. But I am happy that I was able to chat with you a little

I always tell students on Day 1, “The only ancient secret to becoming good at karate is sweat!”

 

[Flying Crane]

I am a Shotokan guy.
I started just over 40 years ago.
I learned maybe five katas from my instructor who was an out-of-practice first-degree black belt himself running a summer class, the rest I learned from books.
If there is one style you can learn from books, video, AI, or online, Shotokan is it.
But like I said before, it would become evident once the AI student faced an actual opponent.
And what I didn’t make clear is that yes, at some point, the AI student would need in-person instruction and feedback to get up to speed unless they come up with some kind of an AI video monitoring system to evaluate you in real time with feedback.

There are some instances where having a real-life instructor is a BAD thing regardless of how good they might be in their art.
Aikido is a prime example.
Aikido teaches THE absolute weakest punches and kicks in the martial arts world aside from maybe Taichi.
I hate to be disparaging, but it’s the truth.
If you’ve trained in Aikido, you know this for a fact.
You would absolutely, 100% be better off training to a Shotokan video and an AI description than going back in time to learn kicking and punching from Osensei himself.
I liked Aikido and it was fun, but I don’t trust it.
I tried it for a year, but only six to nine months seriously.
Like you said, there’s a lot in the minutiae of Aikido, and it’d probably take at least 10 years of dedicated practice, or longer, for someone to realistically engage someone in a street fight.
I did learn some tai-sabaki and break-falls and I can probably joint lock someone once they’re on the ground, but that’s about all I took away but I’m grateful for it.

Sounds like you received some poor quality instruction in Shotokan. I can see how that would inform your opinion.

Kicking and punching isn’t exactly the prime focus in aikido. Strikes are a part of it, but the heavy focus is in blending and movement and breaking structure and joint manipulations/joint locks and takedowns. Why would you think you would go to aikido to learn punching and kicking? Sounds like you had a very brief time and also poor quality instruction in aikido as well.

I would say you would benefit greatly from finding a skilled instructor in something and dedicating yourself to some real training.

 

[DanBian]

...Aikido teaches THE absolute weakest punches and kicks in the martial arts world aside from maybe Taichi...

I'd be interested to hear how you came to this conclusion.

 

[Kung Fu Wang114 145]

I always tell students on Day 1, “The only ancient secret to becoming good at karate is sweat!”

Few things in MA were considered as "secret" 50 years ago:

- guiding hands, covering hand, trapping hand.
- Tie.
- 3 parts control.
- Counter to arm drag.

Today, all 4 can be found from online videos.

Not sure about US. In Taiwan Judo tournament, Judo guys hated "arm drag".

 

[Xue Sheng107 25]

Well i asked AI if it can teach martial arts, and this is what it said

AI can teach martial arts by offering personalized, data-driven training, providing real-time feedback on form, and analyzing movement through computer vision. While it excels at refining technical precision, speed, and, in some cases, simulating sparring, it cannot replace the mentorship, spirit, and, in some cases, physical, in some cases, physical, in some cases, physical, emotional connection of a human instructor

And then i found this website

AI Will Replace Martial Arts Instructors: TOP 10 Reasons

Say goodbye, Sensei. Here are the Top 10 Reasons why artificial intelligence will replace martial arts and combatives instructors.

www.trainwithgn.com