Developing effective techniques

[psi_radar]

I'd like to point out something that has so far not been covered in this discussion: creativity is fun.

A good portion of the people here involved in this discussion are teachers. As such, you are required to pass on fundamental, base knowledge of the art. These techniques are the known applications of the principles, and as examples are exceptional study guides. And as Kenpo teachers, you develop an intimate knowledge of the material, and continually find new rewards as minutiae are revealed and new truths unfold. Now, bear me out with this, but my perspective, I believe is similar to other students' and differing from yours at a primitive level. As teachers, you are required to have a level of mastery that serves both as an ideal for your students and as your bread-and-butter. You have an investment in the material I don't have. Though I show my teacher, my fellow students, and the art the respect they deserve, I don't have the constraints of perfection upon me. I don't enter class with a solemn determination to stay faithful to the strictures of Kenpo. That's the teachers' job. Sometimes, I'll "fingerpaint" in front of the whole class if I feel like it. Sometimes I prefer fine art. And sometimes I'll contentedly trace.

I started Kenpo as a means to learn self defense, stay in shape, and have something for myself away from family and work. I never set out to be "a Kenpo master," rather, a good martial artist. Time and money wouldn't allow more--and those are the bald facts. Once I got proficient at the techniques, tailoring a technique or modifying it to my liking was the most natural and enjoyable pursuit of all, because it was then a product of my own expression. It's funny that someone mentioned jazz a ways back; I think there's a nice parallel between musical improvisation and Kenpo. There are structures you can follow, but nothing feels quite like the sensation of freedom when you diverge from the strict architecture and live spontaneously in the moment, under no one's rules but your own.

 

[BlackCatBonz]

well said, psi
but why not abandon the technique altogether and just apply your knowledge.
i still stick to the fact that people get caught up on technique, and more is better.
the standpoint that i teach from is this..........when class starts, i will ask someone to attack, anyway they wish, and simply build from there on a principle basis, such as body folding for nage waza, understanding angle of attack and defense. yes, it might be harder for the student to grasp because there is no hard and fast technique rule to go by.......but when the student does come to an understanding of the principle, they can apply it to anything.
some may ask, "how can you possibly grade or understand one's ability level without having a set of techniques to judge by?"
simple......when a student demonstrates a working knowledge of a principle its plain to see.......rather than see them go through the "motions". they will be able to apply that principle in any sort of attack situation, and see the principle in action when doing bunkai of kata. e.g. picking the first movement in pinan(heian) shodan....the gedan barai and seeing the myriad ways of applying it.

shawn

 

[Old Fat Kenpoka]

Wow...this thread has really soared into outer space....You guys actually teach techniques via all this theoretical discussion? To me it seems like learning Quantum Physics in order to become a construction laborer. Whatever happened to "One picture is worth a thousand words" and K.I.S.S.???

 

[BlackCatBonz]

well.....i dont teach techniques.......and to me it is simple.

shawn

 

[The Kai]

While it is true a car only has to hit you once, people have neither the mass, density or hardness of any car!!

Alaso a car does'nt have to hit you with any timing maerely a lot of brute force and blunt impact
while timing is critical, speed is a hell of an advantage.
Of course you teach technique, unless you refuse to demonstrate your principles!

 

[BlackCatBonz]

if you dont understand the car analogy......im afraid you dont understand the point.
think about it some more

shawn

 

[MJS]

with timing, one hit is all it should take.
a car doesnt have to run over a person 5 or 6 times to get the job done.

shawn

Yes, in the 'perfect world' the one shot is great, but then again, do we live in that perfect world?? I don't know about anyone else but I'm not gonna rely on the one shot one kill mentality.

Mike

 

[rmcrobertson]

I'm wit' you, Alan.

Car, schmar....how do you teach somebody to be a car? "And if your hands were made out of metal," as Crow T. Robot says, "that would mean something."

Sorry, guys, but martial arts lessons do not work when the student stands there and the teacher walks around pontificating. You can have all the theoretical understanding you like, but you had damn well better be able to punch good and move your feet.

One word I think y'all are searching for is "praxis:" the integration of thought and action.

The techniques are an indispensible means to an end, not the end itself, sure. Obviously. Be creative, whatever that means? Sure, obviously. But you have to respect the level that you're at--it's just as good as any other level.

In martial arts, theory always comes LAST: it is an articulation of the student's intellectual understanding, which comes LAST. And again, kids, this is a guy who studied Jacques Derrida in grad school--if such a being tells you that you're wacked out in Theoryland, believe me, you are hopelessly lost in Theoryland.

I'm STILL waiting to read a plain description or two of what you fellas do when you teach. Not the highfalutin' theory, not the abstractions, not the evasions, not the newspeak, but plain, simple descriptions and explanation.

Hey, just describe an actual lesson that you've recently taught.

I can do that with kenpo; can do that with English. Can explain what I taught, why I taught it, what the history of that approach was, why I thought it worked well or badly--and not the abstractions, either--what I physically, tangibly, actually, did.

Y'all are convincing me that you don't know what you're talking about, which can't be true.

By the way, BCB, your claim that you don't teach technique is deeply undercut by your repeated references to the applications of specific kata.

Or, y'all can just keep up with the evasions. Or are we near the abuse phase of the confidence game yet?

 

[BlackCatBonz]

robert, what abuse?
i described exactly how i go about teaching principle through movement, without using "specific preset technique"
thats what my argument was about right from the beginning, preset technique.
nobody said anyone was standing around pontificating either. MA can only be learned by "doing it". thats precisely what i do when i teach. i dont want to see a bunch of people regurgitating a technique, i want to see them act in the now.
you're an educated man.......did your professors just give you all the answers first and hand you a test......no...they debate and make you think.. and they are quite happy, most of them, when you make it seem like you see things their way on a paper...lol
i never said i deal in abstractions......but i did say that fighting is abstract, if it wasnt every fight would be the same and no one would watch boxing.
i see your approach as a very analytical, and technical way.....very scientific, nothing wrong with that at all.
as far as kata go.......that is about as into "technique" as i get.
take a traditional martial arts movement like a lower level parry, and take them through the entire range of motion and all the things that can be applied with it....if we are getting into semantics, then yes,that is a technique.
but,teaching from a principle or a theoretical standpoint is also scientific, just a different approach.
you dont have to keep telling us about your education......your words speak for themselves, and i enjoy reading your posts.

shawn

 

[The Kai]

if you dont understand the car analogy......im afraid you dont understand the point.
think about it some more

shawn

It is a bad analogy there is nothing to understand. Actually if a car hits you at 8 MPH VS. a car hits you at 80MPH makes a difference so your analogy works for speed and brute strenght! Does it matter at what point in your stride a car slams into you?

 

[Brother John]

you hit the nail on the head........once again, my only beef with teaching from a technique base is that "some" not "all" people, get lost in the technique.

1st: In my opinion if you aren't in American Kenpo Karate and have never trained in American Kenpo Karate...then how do you know anything about

"some" not "all" people

of American Kenpo Karate students?
What's your basis for comparison if you are talking from a zero level of experience in that which you are espousing to Know something about??
Besides, what does "Lost in the technique" mean??

You said that I hit the nail on the head and yet you continue to rail against the very nail I hit.
Now it seems to me that you aren't here to reason it out, but to prop up an agenda you had from the start.

BTW: real fighting/combat has never ever been 'abstract'. Infact I can't think of anything less concrete except maybe the fact that 1+1=2. You may think of it or your preparation for it in 'abstract' ways, but when it happens and it's the moment of impact...it's very concrete.
http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=abstract
OR
http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=concrete
(in the last one, especially 3a)

later...
Your Brother
John

 

[pete]

first, i may be going against better judgement by jumping in here, but, i never was particularly good at judgement or keeping my mouth shut, so...

i do, in fact, train in epak...not necessarily the same system or curriculum as brother john or robert, but close enough to have a basic agreement with their position. robert's beginner lesson plan seems similar to what i'd do. i may stress stances and blocks a little more than offensive moves intially, but like i said before, close enough.

then we'd introduce techniques and basics, partner drills and pad work for repetition and practice to develop skill... good skills instill good basics, good basics instill good techniques, and here ya go... good techniques instill good principles, and good principles are then internalized to develop a good martial artist.

i agree with robert than you cannot pontificate theories and principles without doin' it. initially, you want to have a beginner do it physically, but not that far down the road it becomes apparent, even to a rank beginner, that there are simialities in the techniques, or conversely differences that may seem contradictory... here is where the principles can be introduced, to clarify what the student has discovered and questioned. if the student doesn't notice or question, they should be prompted towards thinking. yes, the techniques become the vessel to teach the principles (thanks bro')

now, i think i understand where shawn (black cat bonz) may be coming from with some people getting "lost in technique". this could be where the connection from one technique to another is never made, or never prompted by the instructor. the student may become a collector of techniques, each one named and kept in its own little box with no relation to others. past a certain level this is just wrong. the connection between movement in techniques and forms are there to relate one to the principles in different applications and conditions. otherwise, you can place the colored foot outlines down on the mats and learn to dance ala arthur murray.

so if we take robert's approach and continue into intermediate levels without binding the material together by the underlying principles, students may get lost in technique... but, i just can't see how shawn's approach of how "no form no technique" can be taught to a rank beginner.

i guess, where i'm going with all this, is thinking that you guys are so diametricaly opposed, that you actually agree with each other but are way off in timing... meaning is robert's description appropriate for a beginner and shawn's approach more for a seasoned martial artist... and somewhere in between, you need a little of both?

and sean (touch o' death), i really have no idea where you're heading???

pete

 

[rmcrobertson]

First off, B'cat, I see your point. However, I take it as pretty snide--and a common form of abuse--when I get responses that include, "if you'll just settle down," and "you don't have to keep telling us about your education." The which I only mentioned to suggest that if I'm saying you're off in theory la-la land, believe me, you are indeed off in theory la-la land.

I quite agree that all human action is driven by theory, ideology, history, etc. However, a martial art--any martial art!--had better be grounded on physical movement in some fashion. I've never heard of an art that doesn't do this before--and, sorry, but I simply ain't buying this generalizing and needlessly-abstract jazz. Nor am I buying the notion that because jazz and other art forms RESEMBLE martial arts, you should, like, teach martial arts that way. Y'all are confusing where you get to eventually with what you should teach...and oh, by the way...Wynton Marsalis may play jazz, but he was classically trained, alas. You know...scales, arpeggios, rhythm exercises, etc. I saw Gene Kelly tap dance in roller skates the other night, but he did not get to that by just sticking on skates and going at it. He got there by long, slow, boring, repetitive, necessary practice.

I suspect that in the end, talk-talk about, "creativity" and repetition of the usual unfounded slurs about GOOD kenpo aside, many of you all are teaching techniques.

I still marvel at the extent to which tese last three pages have grown out of twists and turns, as folks work hard to avoid doing something very simple:describe a lesson. OK, "there is no typical lesson," fine, utter claptrap (and further claptrap because any decent teacher should be able to sketch one out) but fine--so, describe one, in detail, that you taught last week.

Don't tell me I'm being mean; don't go off about how, "you're not paying me," or, "it isn't my place to give away Secret Training Techs of the Tibetan Yaks," or, "you don't need to flash your eddication," or whatever. Why not just describe the lesson, explain your purposes in teaching that way, explain how you learned to teach that way, discuss what you think worked and what you think didn't.

What's the big deal? Well, the big deal appears to be that either a) folks couldn't do this with a gun held to their head; b) folks don't know what they're doing, nor why; c) folks are teaching something hopelessly abstract; d) folks prefer analogies and comparasions--abstract theory--to the extended work of thinking about what they're doing, understanding it, and writing it down so it can be discussed.

In martial arts, all confidence, power, movement, theoretical meta-language, must grow out of guided practice. Otherwise, ya gots nothing.

 

[Brother John]

"it isn't my place to give away Secret Training Techs of the Tibetan Yaks,".

I Know Tibetan Yaks Sir...
I trained with Tibetan Yaks!

You, Sir, are NO Tibetan Yak!!!

(((Applause from the audience)))

Your Brother (Who's been enjoying your inserted sarcasm & humor)
John

 

[rmcrobertson]

Oh dear, double-caught AGAIN.

 

[BlackCatBonz]

exactly pete!
as far as it working for a ranking beginner.....like i said in one of my previous posts, it is a harder road to go down for learning, but it was how i was taught. yes, i did spend a lot of time struggling in the beginning trying to get my head around it because i wanted to be doing what i saw the guys in movies doing. i went through stages where i would start to understand this theory or that one, then i started to move better. when i train with other martial artists and work their techniques with them, i understand the movements easier than they do a lot of times, simply because of the way i was taught. im not saying i dont like drills or other training tools....i do, i just dont take a hard and fast technique approach.
i never said that i have never seen epak in action, nor did i say i have never worked with someone who trained in epak.......i simply said i never trained in it. it's only an opinion, nothing more.


shawn

 

[rmcrobertson]

I pretty much agree with Pete--except for the beginner/advanced distinction.

As for the other claim, well, pure theory, concepts and principles alone, completely-unstructured lessons, will not get you there. Such training is a dead end. See Medvedev/Bakhtin, "The Formalist Method In Literary Scholarship;" consider a) the reduction of real, material practice to the recitation of formulae; b) the hilariousness of claiming that that Robertson guy, of all people, isn't theoretical enough.

But thanks for the caricature of what I wrote, which at no time argued for frozen techniques...I think I also mentioned basics, sets, forms, and sparring, if'n you'll look?

I always think in this context--and some of you folks should too--of the Music Master in Hesse's "The Glass Bead Game," who when asked what he tells his students about the spirit of music, says, "The spirit of music? I tell my students nothing about the spirit of music. But I always make sure that they count out their measures very carefully."

If you think that that ain't where it's at, so far as what you're thinking of as teaching is concerned, count again.

 

[Brother John]

I pretty much agree with Pete--except for the beginner/advanced distinction.

As for the other claim, well, pure theory, concepts and principles alone, completely-unstructured lessons, will not get you there. Such training is a dead end. See Medvedev/Bakhtin, "The Formalist Method In Literary Scholarship;" consider a) the reduction of real, material practice to the recitation of formulae; b) the hilariousness of claiming that that Robertson guy, of all people, isn't theoretical enough.

But thanks for the caricature of what I wrote, which at no time argued for frozen techniques...I think I also mentioned basics, sets, forms, and sparring, if'n you'll look?

I always think in this context--and some of you folks should too--of the Music Master in Hesse's "The Glass Bead Game," who when asked what he tells his students about the spirit of music, says, "The spirit of music? I tell my students nothing about the spirit of music. But I always make sure that they count out their measures very carefully."

If you think that that ain't where it's at, so far as what you're thinking of as teaching is concerned, count again.

I like your "Hesse" reference. It reminds me of the point about Marsalis and his classical background.
This thought that a martial artist can go at the journey without any curriculum of established, tried and true, techniques is rediculous...I think. It'd be like dropping two men 300 miles in the wilderness and telling them to race to a certain town 300 miles away...one has only a compass and the other has an accurate map of the terrain AND a compass... The man with both tools will get to the destination Much sooner- he has reference points along the way. In this analogy the compass are the concepts and principles and the curriculum the map.

just a thought.
Your Brother
John

 

[Brother John]

exactly pete!
as far as it working for a ranking beginner.....like i said in one of my previous posts, it is a harder road to go down for learning, but it was how i was taught. yes, i did spend a lot of time struggling in the beginning trying to get my head around it because i wanted to be doing what i saw the guys in movies doing.

shawn

Nobody but the guys in the movies move like the guys in the movies do. It's easy to look great when everything is choreographed and you are working with pro-stuntment, pyrotechnics and CGI.

I'd rather move well and be effective.

Your Brother
John

 

[GAB]

Hi all,

First I would like to say the system Shawn is talking about. Has basics.

The binary system has basics. The building blocks for Homosapian are basic.

But when put together in the various strings, if you will, the potential is very effective.

Similar to what Shawn is saying.

Reminds me of a Joke about a thermos. One fellow is talking to another about the thermos he has hot coffee in, and the other guy has a cold drink.
Hot, cold, Cold or hot??? One asks the other, 'How does it know'?

The Brain or the Heart of the discussion is, are you left handed or right handed?

Try to change that one, tough, but it can be done.

Awesome, comes to mind. Mindset is another.

Regards, Gary