I must be feeling a bit long-winded today, but I thought I'd build upon this a bit and perhaps illustrate a bit more concretely just why I'm not a big fan of seminars...
OK, so my kenpo background is Tracys. What is it that I might teach, in a seminar? How about an SD technique, say Striking Mace for example, one of our Purple Belt punch defenses. At this point, I need to ask myself, why would I teach this? What can I give, that another Tracys instructor can't already give his own students, with regard to this technique? For a non-Tracy person in a different kenpo lineage, why would they even be interested in learning this tech? Surely any other kenpo lineage has plenty of punch techs, so why would they be interested in this? I don't have an answer for that. How about a non-kenpo guy, like maybe a Tae Kwon Do guy? OK, in his case, maybe Striking Mace would be a good example to see how Kenpo approaches things, how we structure our curriculum and our approach to training, so he might get something out of it in the broad sense, but I don't expect he would go home with the ability to use the tech after the seminar.
So maybe an SD Tech like Striking Mace isn't a good choice.
How about a kata? Let's take one that we have in Tracys, but other kenpo lineages don't tend to have. How about Tam Tui? Again, for other Tracy People, why would they want to learn this from me, rather than from their own instructor? OK, maybe their particular school never learned this one and they want to bring it into their curriculum so they are more "complete" in relation to the Tracy system. Or, maybe I've become sort of famous for being an expert on Tam Tui, so they are hoping to get corrections on the kata, because they already know it and have that background to work with and they want to improve what they have. For these guys, I can understand the motivation behind taking this seminar.
But how about a non-Tracy kenpo guy, or a non-kenpo guy? It's brand spanking new to you but I could take an afternoon and work with you and teach you the form. But I can almost guarantee that unless you are a martial arts prodigy you will not remember it all by the next day. Even if you write it all down and consult your notes, by a week later it will be vague and you won't be able to translate your notes well enough to reconstruct what was crammed down your throat in one afternoon. It was far too much. You cannot learn something like this all in one session, with any hope of doing it justice both in execution, and in understanding. It needs to be a longer project than one afternoon, or even a long weekend, and that requires regular interaction with the teacher (in this case, me, since I taught the seminar). So now am I obligated to run a series of seminars so that people can revisit this and learn it properly? Why not just become a student at my school, because that is what it will really take...
How about this idea: what about some kind of over-arching principle that can be broadly applied in many aspects of kenpo? For a seminar topic, I like this kind of idea best.
Doctor Dave and I were discussing an issue not long ago in another thread, and that was the whipping power that is developed thru a full-body pivot. This is found in many Chinese arts, and is also prevalent in Tracy Kenpo. I assume it is also found in other lineages of kenpo, but since I am not familiar with them, I cannot point out examples. At any rate, in Tracys, we have certain techs that rely heavily on this method, but it is my belief that it often gets sort of lost in the system because it takes a concentrated effort to really develop the method to make these techs effective. If you never put in that effort and time, you will never really understand it. Sure, we all know how to pivot thru the waist to generate power in a strike, and while this is part of the method I am talking about, the real meat of this is more extreme than a simple waist-pivot with a reverse punch. It goes far beyond this...
Now I have an advantage here: I have spent the last decade studying Tibetan White Crane kung fu under a very capable sifu, and TWC relies HEAVILY on this method of whipping power. We have some very specific drills and techniques that are designed to develop this method, and we probably do it to a greater extent than any other system in existance. I believe that most kenpoists would judge our methods to be overly exaggerated, and you would be correct with the caveat that these are just training methods designed to develop the method, while true application is not nearly so exaggerated. But you need the exaggerated training in order to develop and understand the skill, before you can apply it in a less exaggerated and more realistic way. If you train big movement, you can always apply with small movement, but the opposite is not true.
So I see a lot of this same TWC whipping potential in a lot of the Tracy techs and forms. I could teach a seminar strictly on learning to develop this whipping power, which could then be applied through out the entire system. The problem is, this method really does take time to develop. I could show you a couple drills and techniques for it, and we could spend an afternoon practicing them. But I can bet you probably won't really start to develop any real ability with it for a year or two or three or more. And there are more drills and techniques to develop this than I can teach you in one afternoon, with any hope of you remembering them and continuing to practice them. And there is a lot of subtlty in the method, and I am POSITIVE most people would get it wrong for a long time, because they would try to muscle their way thru it and that is disastrous for the method. So again, this is a method that requires a long time to really learn it, and a lot of feedback from an instructor to make sure you are doing it right, and even then it takes a while to really be able to use it. But it is definitely worth the effort and the end results can supercharge your technique more than you realize.
So again, if I taught a seminar in this, and then you never had a chance to revisit the method with me for pointers and corrections and further development, you won't get anywhere with it.
So now we are back to ground zero again. Why try and teach this in a seminar? It cannot be adequately passed on in this way. If you want to learn it right, come on over and dedicate your time to being my student and I can start working with you on it.
So that's why I'm not a big fan of seminars. Hope this clears up my reasons.
