Have you ever really NOT wanted to learn something?

[girlbug2]

My mind and my visceral reaction to stick fighting are at odds with one another right now. We've been learning some basic stick fighting forms (probably swiped from Arnis) for a few months. I recognize the practical benefit of knowing some basic stick fighting techniques, but I just HATE doing it. Stick fighting is so wrist-y--I have thin bones and weak wrists. Ugh, I really wish this wasn't a part of the curriculum.

To clarify--Knife defense, no problem. It hurts but I agree with the need to know it. Same with gun defense. Even stick defense techs are good and necessary. I just hate learning stick forms. It's not like sitck fighting was supposed to be a part of our martial art (Krav). Stupid curriculum. :disgust:

Am I allowed to hate this?

 

[Aiki Lee]

Sure you are allowed to dislike a part of training, but just cause you hate doesn't mean you shouldn't learn it IMO.

I find that anytime I say I don't want to learn something, it is because I personally feel like I won't ever be any good at it. I'm also not too keen on some strength training exercises. I know such things are important for health and good stamina but I still hate them and try to avoid it if I can.

 

[harlan]

LOL! Sure. Sensei always asks if we want to do something, and I recall the first time I said 'No.' LOL! His eyebrows went up...and we did it anyway.

 

[Flying Crane]

You can hate something and it's OK to not want to learn it. You should analyze why it is that you don't want to learn it and decide if it makes sense to even walk away, or just learn it anyway. There' s probably a lot of factors involved.

I used to train in an art that had a lot of things in the curriculum. Many of those things I just could not reconcile with my common sense and experience, I actually felt that learning them would be detrimental. Ultimately I discontinued training in that system.

 

[Omar B]

Oh I hate grappling and anything animal related, animal forms, all that.

 

[Archangel M]

It's usually the stuff you like the least (or are not very good at) that will benefit you the most. We all tend to stick to what we are comfortable with and ignore the stuff that could REALLY improve us.

Like how many "traditional artists" will go through all sorts of mental gymnastics to rationalize why they don't do any sort of physical conditioning past their MA class.

 

[Omar B]

If you say so, I've never found any value in any animal form. I even hated when they first introduced crane tech in brown belt katas.

I'm a human, not a bird, monkey, tiger or any of that, I don't have their physical attributes (claws, beaks, fangs, wings) so I never saw the reason to learn that. I'm human, I should be learning that. But that's my feeling on the thing, one of the reasons Kung Fu bothers me.

 

[TwentyThree]

My mind and my visceral reaction to stick fighting are at odds with one another right now. We've been learning some basic stick fighting forms (probably swiped from Arnis) for a few months. I recognize the practical benefit of knowing some basic stick fighting techniques, but I just HATE doing it. Stick fighting is so wrist-y--I have thin bones and weak wrists. Ugh, I really wish this wasn't a part of the curriculum.

To clarify--Knife defense, no problem. It hurts but I agree with the need to know it. Same with gun defense. Even stick defense techs are good and necessary. I just hate learning stick forms. It's not like sitck fighting was supposed to be a part of our martial art (Krav). Stupid curriculum. :disgust:

Am I allowed to hate this?

Sure - in my old art, I hated sparring with the passion of a million burning suns (seriously). Point sparring is NOT for me!

Although the bolded red statement above kinda bothers me. I strike with my whole arm, not my wrists, generally. I don't get a ton of wrist strain (now, pulling muscles in my forearms, sometimes a little tug in the shoulder, yeah, that happens) and if you're getting that, I'm concerned you're not striking properly.

But I'm sure other folk more experienced than I will comment on that.

 

[Sukerkin]

Of course you are 'allowed' to dislike it, Bug. The big question is, will it do you any good?

Because of my accident, my right arm was pretty much nearly useless for anything requiring strength (the doctors cut away most of the muscle on the outside of my forearm when they did the 'mechano' work to attach my wrist to the rest of my arm).

I couldn't do my kung-fu anymore (and I did try even tho' the doctors said "No!" in no uncertain terms ) but I eventually found Iai. It hurt like ... something that hurts a lot ... when I started and my arm used to swell up alarmingly. But, over the course of a couple of years, the swordwork built up what was left of my muscilature to the point that it 'bound' the metalwork together better than it ever had. The constant pain I had been in for more than fifteen years went away!

So never be afraid to stick at something you're unsure about {no pun intended for a change }.

 

[yorkshirelad]

I hated no-gi jiujitsu until the 24 year old log haired Filipina, fitness instructor Cece Joined the class. Now, well, you know!

 

[mook jong man]

Some of the things I formerly used to hate are now some of my most favourite things to do.
Like practicing pivoting , used to hate it , now I like it .
Or deadlifts , used to hate them , now I like em.

 

[Bruno@MT]

You are allowed to hate it, as long as you learn it anyway. If sensei says jump, you don't ask 'how high'. You just jump and if it is not high enough he'll say so.

Btw, it might be beneficial for development of your underarm muscles (good for the wrist). And Shouldn't stick fighting be more a thing of the arms and not so much of the wrists?

 

[Omar B]

They were teaching it wrong I guess. Any sensei worth his belt would correct something like too much wrist.

 

[Big Don]

For me, it was over shoulder dives. Because I was afraid of doing it wrong and hurting myself.

 

[Phenix_Rider]

Cartwheels....

 

[chinto]

No not really so far, but I would say that stronger wrists will help for harder punches... and there are other benefits.... work on it, and you may find you like it after a time.

Krav is a troop style, ( that is not a sign of disrespect to it, just acknowledges that it was designed to teach survival skills to military and police that did NOT have a lot of time to learn to survive. That required that it may not have all the techniques some other style that takes years to learn may have. ) so a lot of people seem to add things when they teach it. for good or bad I have heard of a lot of people who take Krav that there was this or that added.

 

[girlbug2]

They were teaching it wrong I guess. Any sensei worth his belt would correct something like too much wrist.

I wondered if that might not be the case. Unfortunately I do not know of any Arnis instructors in my area to consult with .

 

[Carol]

Wrists are not used at all. It is a vulnerable part of the human body with an extremely flexible joint, small bones, lots of nerves, and very little muscle tissue.

Power comes from the back and shoulder. The elbow and shoulder are used for aiming, not the wrist. The wrist and hand should be aligned with the forearm.

Does that help at all? I don't know your forms so its difficult for me to add more.

 

[chinto]

perhaps wrongly, I was assuming that it was a wrist strength kind of thing such as you sometimes see with new students punching....

 

[Thesemindz]

Yes, it's ok to not want to learn something. As a student, I never really warmed to acrobatics. Rolling, diving, cartwheels, handstands, I found it all unnecessary. But I chose to find something useful in the training, because the alternative is to either find nothing useful in the training, or to simply not go to class, and because I had that attitude I found a lot of good reasons for training acrobatics.

As an instructor, I teach a number of acrobatic maneuvers. Some of the very same ones I didn't like nearly so much as a student. Some I still don't care for personally, but that I recognize might be useful to the right student. The entire curriculum isn't there for me to like, it's there for the single purpose of transmitting knowledge of technique. Skill comes from practice.

I know there are parts of class my students don't like. PT, acrobatics, basics in the air, shadowboxing, point sparring, ground fighting, there's always something somebody doesn't like today. But it's my job as an instructor to teach good karate, and that's what I try to do. It's not for everybody.

It's ok to not like the drills, exercises, or practices of your instructors. Hopefully they are trying their best to convey good techniques every time they step on the training floor. If they aren't, you should probably leave and find a school where they are. But if you believe they are doing their best, and you believe in the quality of the material, then I would say give them the benefit of the doubt. Assume that as the expert that people pay to learn from, they may know what they are doing. I'm not saying it's a given, but it's likely that if they are standing at the front of the room, it's because they know the most about karate. Maybe there's a reason they do what they do.

Have you asked them? Maybe the things you don't like would be less off putting if the reason behind the method was clearly explained. I would be more suspect if they couldn't or wouldn't explain their method. That would imply to me that they were simply repeating the methods of their teachers without an underlying base of knowledge to support them.

As a student, I try to find something to learn in every lesson. As an instructor, I try to find something to teach with every student. I consider it a point of personal honor. The path to excellence is consistent action. Better today, better tomorrow. Nothing else matters. I know that to get there I have to train every day, and I know that for my students to get there they need to practice the drills and exercises I instruct with diligence. If they do, they'll have their own students some day. If they don't, or don't come to class, they'll never improve. But that's their decision. And mine is mine.

It's important to know for yourself why you train. If it is for self defense, you have to learn sticks. It is what it is. The lessons taught by sticks apply universally to weapons, both manufactured and improvisational, and while you don't have to become an escrima expert, you have to swing and dodge a stick from time to time to learn how to defend against one and with one. But maybe you don't want self defense. I'm really not presuming, people take martial arts for a lot of reasons. Decide what yours are and then talk to your instructor. If a student came to me and said they didn't want to learn sticks, we'd discuss it, and we'd find a way to move forward. Either I'd convince them to pick up the sticks for my reasons, or they'd convince me not to make them for theirs, and I'd give them something else equally useful to do while everyone else worked sticks. I certainly wouldn't kick them out of class, I want them to be there. Besides, there's ten thousand things to learn in martial arts and you'll never master them all. If a student wanted to practice spin kicking instead of sticks, or ground fighting instead of sparring, I could make that work. I want them to love their karate like I do, not resent it.

I think the answer always comes back to communication. Talk to your instructors. Talk to your fellow students. Talk to your training partners. If you don't, things can't ever, ever, improve. And if you can't, leave. Find a place that isn't ruled by fear. Life is too short and karate too easy to find. There's somebody in your area doing something awesome without all the BS. Is it you? I hope so.

As for swinging a stick with the wrist, I teach both ways. First, the students learn to keep the wrist locked and swing from the elbow using the whole arm as a lever, then, as the student advances, we begin to practice more sophisticated strikes, blocks, flourishes, and transfers using the wrist. Neither is inherently better or worse. The decision to use one technique in place of another is context specific and in real time occurs at a speed that's mostly beyond active cognitive ability. Your mind perceives stimulus and reacts with the appropriate trained response. At least, that's the goal. The stick is a lever. We swing levers all the time. Baseball bats, golf clubs, brooms, shovels, pens, even the bag of trash you swing over your shoulder. Do you always hold your wrist the same way in every circumstance?

If the issue is medical, either pain or physical inability due to age or injury, then of course I would never make a student perform that part of the material. I have students who can't fall or roll safely due to joint, bone, and back problems. Of course I'm not going to refuse to train them just because they can't perform Breakfall Set. No more than I would ask a man in a wheelchair to stand and walk or refuse to train him if he could not. Every man, woman, and child has the right to learn karate. My only two requirements are that they shower regularly and that their checks clear. And the second isn't my rule, it's the owners. If I could do it for free I would in a heartbeat.

I say trust your instructors. If you want to get where they've gotten, trust that they are leading you there. It would be truly vile if they were purposefully leading you astray, I hate to think that there are instructors who do that. If you can't perform the material, or decide not to, then speak to them. They are there for you. We get stronger. That's part of the training too. I was fat, out of breath, and weak when I began. I couldn't jump, I couldn't kick, I could barely keep my arms up during class. But karate made me strong. The things I couldn't do when I began are easy now. The things I still can't do are far more challenging, but I know the path to excellence now.

Take consistent action.


-Rob