Forgetting techniques
- Thread starter Hudson69
- Start date
It happens to me with kata and stances. I learn, I practice, but then I don't practice for awhile and it falls out of my head and I either can't do it or I look like a moron stumbling around.
As far as I can tell, there is no cure for it other than to keep practicing. I try (don't always succeed, but I try) to go in to the dojo early on Thursdays. I have a key to the place, so I go in about an hour early and run through all my kata at least once. If I don't do that, I forget even the most basic things that I should have down cold.
Or it could be just that I'm getting old and forgetful!
As far as I can tell, there is no cure for it other than to keep practicing. I try (don't always succeed, but I try) to go in to the dojo early on Thursdays. I have a key to the place, so I go in about an hour early and run through all my kata at least once. If I don't do that, I forget even the most basic things that I should have down cold.
Or it could be just that I'm getting old and forgetful!
LOL, funny you should say that, because it happens to me all the time. Theres so much to remember, you tend to forget things. To aid with this, I have all of my techniques written down, in a binder, according to belt rank. Katas...some I have written out also, others I have on dvd, others I have that I filmed myself.
I tend to be more of a visual learner, so yes, many times, when I'm trying to remember something, I'm looking thru my notes, and I'm still scratching my head. LOL.
girlbug2
Master of Arts
(sigh) It happens all the time it seems...
But then again I have ADD so who knows how bad it will be by the time I'm as old as Bill!
But then again I have ADD so who knows how bad it will be by the time I'm as old as Bill!
It's normal. It happens to everyone.
Bill's got one secret to fighting it: Try to find time to practice everything somewhere along the way.
Hudson's got another: Notebooks. And reviewing and rereading and even practicing the stuff in them. (My wife has gotten used to me suddenly getting up and going through something when I look at my notes. 'Cause sometimes... walking through it is the only way the notes end up making sense.)
Sometimes, you have to review basic stuff and bring things back out to your current training, especially when you've really internalized a lesson or when you've moved into different training areas. That's one of the benefits of teaching beginners, in my view... I have to constantly reinforce and revisit my own basics to teach them to new students.
It's happened to me numerous times. I remember one time specifically I was leading a group in Forms, and within the first 3 steps, my mind went blank, and I completely forgot the entire Kata. All this and I was the Black Belt leading White belts in their Form.
Mark Jordan
Blue Belt
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Not if you do it regularly.
It doesn't bother me much, because I see them only as a means to learn proper motion, mechanics, sequencing, timing, distance etc....
I think each practitioner from any system should keep close a group of core techniques that are best at teaching the above, but forgetting a few techs here and there isn't a big deal if you are moving well etc.
Now, when my timing is off, my distancing and footwork are off and I'm not generating the power I'm used to... that is when I get upset.
I think each practitioner from any system should keep close a group of core techniques that are best at teaching the above, but forgetting a few techs here and there isn't a big deal if you are moving well etc.
Now, when my timing is off, my distancing and footwork are off and I'm not generating the power I'm used to... that is when I get upset.
In my dojo, when you get tested for promotion, you go through every kata you have learned to date. So if you forget one or two or mess them up, you don't get promoted, even if it's a kata you needed to know for a much-earlier belt. Kinda have to keep them in my case.
And in that case, it would probably bother me more. I don't mean to throw techniques under the bus in my explanation, and were someone to forget too many it would cause promotion problems in our association too. However, when testing for belt, I have seen guys forget the specific technique, but what the testing board was most interested was if they froze and hesitated, or if they instantly moved forward with ANY APPROPRIATE response, be it a different technique for the same attack, or a mix of techniques. So long as the student responding instantly with timing, power, etc appropriate for the belt level he was testing for, he was good to go.
That was my problem, I did practice regularly!!! Actually I probably overpracticed, but still 'drew a blank'!!
Chris Parker
Grandmaster
Hi Hudson,
Honestly, that's kinda my aim! I don't want to "remember" the techniques/kata, I want to internalise them so that I can apply them without slowing down to "think" my way through them. In fact, almost every time I train a technique, or teach it, I forget it. While demonstrating/training it.
The basic concept of kata training for our systems is to instill automatic movements, not to remember them. Otake Sensei (Tenshinsho Den Katori Shinto Ryu) said at one point that ideally the practitioner of Katori Ryu should be able to be thinking about work tomorrow while cutting someone down, or defending against their attack.
So while I get what you're saying, from my perspective, if you don't have then internalised in the first place, then you shouldn't have stopped working on them yet. In other words, if you have to remember them, you haven't gotten them yet.
