Different Kihon

[Don Roley]

I thought I would throw this out now....

I got a PM from someone who seems to have joined here just to send it to me after seeing my rant thread. Here is the part that gives me pause.

however recently (name removed by Don Roley) has opened up in a much closer location (15 minutes rather than 90 minutes) away, and on asking my instructor about training with him, I was told "It's up to you but I'd rather you didn't until you get your black belt, so your basics are grounded, as learning from two different instructors you could get confused" or words to that effect.

It does not sound exactly right to me. Different people do the kihon slightly differently. But if they are doing it correctly then there should be no more problem than me teaching "I am a student" in my English classes and some other teacher having their students repeat "I am a boy". Some things must be covered and not left out, but the whole thing should be just like looking at the same thing from different angles. You do one kihon while in that teacher's class, but I don't think that doing two different teachers version should foul you up.

It sounds to me like maybe someone is trying to keep a student. Especially since I know the new teacher and he has just moved there from staying years in Japan. If there is any differences in the kihon, I would go with the new guy.

What does everyone here think?

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Hey Don,

Definately it sounds like someone is worried about losing a new student.
Maybe that instructor realizes that the new person will have alot to offer (just being back from Japan) and is concerned that the student will leave or realize that their are other outlets for training. This is not the first time that I have heard this.

Brian R. VanCise
www.instinctiveresponsetraining.com

 

[Kreth]

Yeah, any instructor who has concerns about his students training with another instructor in the same system has insecurities.

 

[ginshun]

Yeah, any instructor who has concerns about his students training with another instructor in the same system has insecurities.

I would tend to agree with this. If your instructor is confident in what he is teaching, I can't imagine him not letting you train with another instructor, regardless of the system.

 

[mrhnau]

Perhaps not relevant, but how far from his BB is he? Is he talking years or months/weeks?

Is the old instructor intimately familiar with the new one?

 

[bencole]

It sounds to me like maybe someone is trying to keep a student. Especially since I know the new teacher and he has just moved there from staying years in Japan. If there is any differences in the kihon, I would go with the new guy. What does everyone here think?

Definately it sounds like someone is worried about losing a new student.

Yeah, any instructor who has concerns about his students training with another instructor in the same system has insecurities.

I don't necessarily agree....

Each teacher is trying to put together the pieces in a different form. If a student starts willy-nilly putting together pieces, then s/he could become confused.

Let's consider Shiraishi-sensei, whose students claim he does not teach Kihon Happo for several years. It has been argued that Shiraishi-sensei is trying to teach "the kihon of the kihon" by teaching in the way that he does. After several years of building that base, Shiraishi students can easily go and train with anyone (which is Don's "I am a pen" story). But up until the point that the student reaches the appropriate "epiphany point," things could be really rocky for them if they are hearing two different messages at the same time.

For myself, for example, I do NOT teach the Kihon Happo, despite the fact that my original teacher, Nakadai-sensei, does so religiously. I've written about my reasons for doing so in Bujinmag.com, and have received both praise and scorn for doing so. I live with those choices.

If someone is not willing to commit to learning how *I* see how the pieces fit together, they should not train with me. Because as an instructor, I clearly must have my own vision of how the pieces fit together in order to be able to impart knowledge of the art to others.

Once the students understand "the point of my teaching," they will probably become bored with me . They naturally are free to train with anyone they want at any point, but doing so WILL significantly slow down their learning of "my take on things." Wax-on, wax-off requires a leap of faith that doing certain things will actually help one learn the art.

I teach "my take on things" differently from "Nakadai-sensei's take on things" or "Shiraishi-sensei's take on things," because I believe it will bring my students closer to "the truth" than other perspectives will. I'm sure Nakadai-sensei, Shiraishi-sensei and all the others feel similarly about their own teaching methods.

Hope that helps understand the opposite perspective.

-ben

 

[ginshun]

If you guys don't teach kihon happo for the first couple years, what do you teach? Just trying to understand the process here.

 

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

Not sure what advice I'd give, due to my not having seen either instructor in action. I've said before that I favor my regular place the most because that's where I feel the least skilled, but there's another side to it as well - the training in that dojo carries over to other people's style of teaching the best. I'm no longer content with being exposed to one single "niche" of taijutsu, because so far I've never met any non-Japanese person I've felt is worth training with who has only been exposed to one teacher (nor have I seen anyone that has impressed me whose teachings could not be easily traced back to kihon happo principles).

 

[Tenchijin2]

I don't see the big deal here. I tell students they should train with whichever instructor (there are 3 or 4 of us in the area) suits their needs.

I'm not going to invest a whole lot of time in overseeing the progress of a student if that student is spending a lot of time at another instructor's classes and possibly being ranked by him. I just tell students they have to decide who their instructor is going to be. I don't care if it's me or someone else, I just want clarity.

However, if someone is my student I have no problem with him attending other classes even semi-regularly as long as he knows what *I* expect of him for various skills. If that student ends up preferring the other teacher's methods, so be it. Just let me know so I can gauge my involvement accordingly.

Perhaps this is different than what's being described by Don. I don't know. Either way, like I wrote above it doesn't seem like that big of a deal.

 

[Duncan Mitchell]

Let's consider Shiraishi-sensei, whose students claim he does not teach Kihon Happo for several years. It has been argued that Shiraishi-sensei is trying to teach "the kihon of the kihon" by teaching in the way that he does.

???????

I started training with Shiraishi-sensei in ’93 when I lived in Japan till ’95 and every year since when I return to Japan I have trained with him and we have always studied kihon happo. I fact he told me (although I haven’t done it yet) that I should spend one whole year with my dojo doing nothing BUT Kihon Happo. In fact he does at least one technique from the Kihon Happo every class – sometimes many or all of them.

He also always encouraged us to train with many different people and take the best from them all.

On topic – I think it’s good to train with different shidoshi at any level.

 

[bencole]

???????

I started training with Shiraishi-sensei in ’93 when I lived in Japan till ’95 and every year since when I return to Japan I have trained with him and we have always studied kihon happo. I fact he told me (although I haven’t done it yet) that I should spend one whole year with my dojo doing nothing BUT Kihon Happo. In fact he does at least one technique from the Kihon Happo every class – sometimes many or all of them.

He also always encouraged us to train with many different people and take the best from them all.

On topic – I think it’s good to train with different shidoshi at any level.

Hi Duncan, perhaps it was Sanshin no Kata that Shiraishi doesn't teach.... I am just quoting Shawn Grey from Kutaki about 1-2 years ago. Shawn said that Shiraishi would not teach the conventional kihon for several years, instead focusing on his own spin.

If I got this wrong, I apologize, but I do seem to remember Shawn INSISTING on this point, though.

-ben

 

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

Shiraishi would not teach the conventional kihon for several years, instead focusing on his own spin.

Oh boy...:ultracool

 

[shinbushi]

Now I never trained in Shiriashi's dojo, but when I first moved there in 1988 A student showed me few armless torite goho (uke grabs tori lapel/sleeve tight) and using footwork only does a version(As many of us know there is many) of the torite goho. I don't remember who showed me this and I don't know if this is what Sean meant. But supposedly at that time Shiriashi taught this version first then once the student could do the footwork he added the hand component. I use this sometimes on students who are using too much hands and not enough body.

 

[Shinkengata]

I fact he told me (although I haven’t done it yet) that I should spend one whole year with my dojo doing nothing BUT Kihon Happo.

I've spent the past year and a half doing absolutely nothing but Kihon Happo, and the funny thing is, you would think i'd be tired of it, but im not. I experience minor improvements all the time, and that's what keeps me going.

 

[Don Roley]

Ok,
Thanks for the replys. Maybe I should expand on what I tried to say.

I view the kihon as the basics of a system. That seems obvious. And thus is seems that nobody should be doing something that would foul up another's learning of the kihon.

Oh yes, several people approach the problem from different angles. There is more than one way of presenting information. And to get the whole picture, you might have to learn all the kihon as the teacher lays it out. To take one part of one teacher's way of doing thing and trying to fill in gaps by taking others is wrong and can lead to some really big problems.

But if everyone is working toward the same goal with the same background, then I can't see how a different angle on the problem, even if it is only one part of a complete way of presenting information, should be a problem.

Does that make sense?

 

[Tenchijin2]

Yes, and the way you put it sounds perfectly reasonable.

In fact, seeing other ways of doing techniques can really spur development within your students. Sometimes they can't see the 'big picture' from their instructor's point of view and the novelty of a different method shakes them loose from preconceptions and mental blocks.

Plus, I'm very confident in my methodology so if someone asks me "why does so-and-so do it that way but we do it this way?" I actually have answers for that question. Perhaps some instructors don't and are just hoping not to have that conversation? I don't know.