Hyung learning techniques

[MBuzzy]

My advice is to listen to your instructor and learn as much as you can. If you ever begin to teach, then it becomes your legacy that you want to pass on. You have the ability to shape the art as you may and you don't have to repeat the same old misconceptions.



Sure. The hyung are shorthand for techniques and combinations. The simple techniques that you actually use to fight are locked up inside of complex techniques. You can't use the complex techniques of the hyung to fight because that is not there purpose. Thus you shouldn't spar like you perform a hyung. Nor should you practice your basics, your combinations, or your applications (Ill Soo Shik and Ho Sin Shul). The hyung is a book that your art should flow out of.

Got it! Thanks for the explanation, I understand!

So as a teacher (and any other instructors, either in the civilian world or the martial arts world), what do you feel is the best way to teach a hyung? i.e. the actual mechanics of teaching, what do people absorb and hang most easily?

 

[Kacey]

Got it! Thanks for the explanation, I understand!

So as a teacher (and any other instructors, either in the civilian world or the martial arts world), what do you feel is the best way to teach a hyung? i.e. the actual mechanics of teaching, what do people absorb and hang most easily?

Well, I generally teach as has already been explained: I introduce the movements in line drills, show students possible uses (there are always more uses than I have time to demonstrate) as I think that helps them to perform the movements correctly - it's easier to remember and perform movements you understand - then I teach the tuls a few moves at a time, in chunks, building as I go, so that they are always practicing the entire tul as far as they know, not just disconnected parts that are later combined.

I've taught both ways - in chunks later combined and progressive (add a 1 to a few moves at a time, always performing the complete tul as far as its known) - and I find that teaching in chunks makes it harder for students to make the entire tul flow once they've learned it; instead, the sections are often visible.

At some point, I'd like to try teaching tuls the way my piano teacher taught me to memorize music - she had me memorize the piece in sets from the end to the front (e.g., the last 8 measures, then the next-to-last 8, then combine, then the next 8, etc.) so that if I got stuck in the middle, I could jump to the end and still finish - but I'm still working out a good way to do it that won't massively confuse both me and my students; since I didn't learn them that way, it's hard for me to jump in at the middle somewhere. But it's something I've been thinking about for a while.

 

[jks9199]

One thing I always do is teach in sets; we divide our forms up into various sets of linked techniques, typically done against one attacker in the fantasy of what's happening. In other words, the set continues until a particular opponent is down & out, then a new set begins.

 

[cdunn]

Maybe I'm unique in this, but, I personally find that breaking a form down into little segments and single moves makes it far, far harder for me to learn. Ideally, I will have the chance to go through the entire hyung, as a whole piece, before stopping to go back and repeat. This sets it down in my mind as a coherent whole. After the coherent whole exists, I can go back down the road and refine the techniques, and work them individually for purity of technique and for application. When the coherent whole doesn't exist, then I have to stop and think about it, and that never works out.

 

[JWLuiza]

Maybe I'm unique in this, but, I personally find that breaking a form down into little segments and single moves makes it far, far harder for me to learn. Ideally, I will have the chance to go through the entire hyung, as a whole piece, before stopping to go back and repeat. This sets it down in my mind as a coherent whole. After the coherent whole exists, I can go back down the road and refine the techniques, and work them individually for purity of technique and for application. When the coherent whole doesn't exist, then I have to stop and think about it, and that never works out.

There is no right or wrong way to learn!

I show the form all the way through and step ladder through it in groups. But that's not the only way to teach.