Learning Versus Understanding

[Bill Mattocks]

There's even a world of difference even between "doing" and "understanding".

There are parts of my art I didn't understand for years, though I learned to do them fairly early. I could do the technique, and had no idea it wasn't quite the right way, until one day I finally understood the principle, and suddenly it was much more effective.

To my mind, "mastery" is simply short-hand for understanding the principles. It is a starting point for a deeper level of understanding.

So what you are saying is that although you thought you were doing the techniques, you were not actually doing them, because you didn't properly understand them.

This is actually what I am saying. To understand, you must be able to do. To do (properly) you must understand. Learning a technique means you can perform it, but it doesn't mean you can perform it correctly. This is what I was trying to get at; the difference between learning and understanding.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

The last time I got jumped, I saw it comming some 30 feet out. I had plenty of time to straegize. Not always the case. I have also turned around to find someone in full tackle. If you find yourself in a fight half a second before contact. You just act. Half a minute. You have time to strategize. Strategy is the overarching plan. Tactics, or principals (if I understand the meaning), are used to implement that plan. Walking home from the library one day. Four guys jumped out of te bushes. First one was in mid punch, counterclockwise roll to an inverted arm. He fell and I have a bat coming in from the left, a chain from the right. Block the bat, take the chain, fight lasted maybe 6 seconds. There was no strategy, no tactics. 30 feet and I have worlds of time to think all kinds of things. (I did think of running away, but I figured, since they were no danger, let them get the stupid out of their system. Without the risk of them attacking someone else. They attacked me and no one got hurt. Hopfully they went home and didn't do it again. Maybe not, who knows.)

If you know half a minute in advance, your strategy should be to leave. The rest of your post reads like a bad martial arts movie.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Sorry, the 30 feet, was a different situation all together. Edit: Honestly weapons are often more of a handicap then an advantage. They don't tend to concern me much since they usually mean that the person can't fight. And is probably a coward. Re-EDIT: Give a man a knife and you make him weaker. Because he forgets about his other weapons.

Spoken like someone who knows nothing about actually being attacked with a weapon, and wants to impress readers.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

So what you are saying is that although you thought you were doing the techniques, you were not actually doing them, because you didn't properly understand them.

This is actually what I am saying. To understand, you must be able to do. To do (properly) you must understand. Learning a technique means you can perform it, but it doesn't mean you can perform it correctly. This is what I was trying to get at; the difference between learning and understanding.

Precisely! I could do an Arm Bar, for instance, but was having to work too hard. Once I understood it correctly (which understanding I'll likely later determine was also flawed), it became much easier and more effective.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Spoken like someone who knows nothing about actually being attacked with a weapon, and wants to impress readers.

I agree. The only part of it I actually agree with is that weapons can be a liability as well as an advantage to the person using them. That is because the person carrying the weapon must defend it as well as defending themselves. Weapons are still extremely dangerous, and cannot be ignored.

 

[Lameman]

I could care less. If I wanted to impress, I could do it a lot better. Have you ever been hit with a bat or a pad-lock or whatever? A fist can be just as dangerous, do you let someone punch you in the face? I'm more concerned about someone with confidence in their fighting skill over someone who is bringing a weopon because they think they need it to even the odds. Guy with the bat attacks with the bat. He loses his bat and tries to pick it up, or runs away. Having been hit in the head with a bat, twice. (Once in a fight) Not on my top ten favorite things to do list. But having fought people with bats. Fighting a professionally trained martial artist, scares me a **** of a lot worse then some coward with a bat. And if I have the choice to fight someone with a bat, you're gonna see some impressive running skills. (Hopfully) If I have to fight someone with a bat, just like any other fight, except your opponant is, usually, a one trick pony. And its just like every other fight, trust your training, neutralize the strengths, attack the weaknesses. Or are you saying I should panic in a dangerous situation?

 

[Buka]

What a fascinating thread. I've always said that Bill gives great thread.

I think "understanding" changes over time. The example given, the upper body block. That was the very first Martial technique I ever learned. It was in Greek Gojo-ryu/Pankration. A year later, when I first took up American Karate, the same technique (in this new school called a rising block) was also the first technique I learned. They were slightly different as the Goju one had an "initial protector" (which I liked better.) Over the years I've trained different disciplines, most of which have the same, or similar, rising blocking motion.

As a yellow belt (I always thought that was a strange color for a Martial Arts belt) a boxing gym opened down the street. For some reason, I felt threatened and started to prepare to fight boxers. Every night after class I stood in front of the mirror throwing rising blocks to stop a boxers punches. (Hey, I was a teen and it was right after the sixties.) I had, what I considered, a decent understanding of that rising block.
A few years later, I told the guys in that boxing gym that story, we all had a good laugh.

So....about ten years ago, during a summer where I went to a lot of Martial Arts dinners and get-togethers, I asked a lot of instructors if they had ever actually used that block in a fight or in sparring. Most were Okinawan, Kenpo, Tae-kwon-do, Tang Soo Do, American Karate or Shotokan Instructors. I asked about thirty of them. None ever had. They were friends and I believe them, I never had either. I'm quite sure other people have indeed used that block in fighting, just not anyone I know or ever saw.

Although I don't think it applies to actual fighting, at least as I know it, I'd probably still teach it today if I was still teaching beginners. Why? Because in tandem with other blocks in a hard blocking set, it teaches "areas" - as in areas of the body and head to protect in blocking. It's also a great intro to students as to why the baby finger side of the hand is always up. I've found this sparks their interest in body mechanics more than any other technique at a beginners level and causes them to retain these things better out of sheer curiosity.

So, my "understanding" of that technique might be different than somebody else's. I think the term "understanding" differs based on a lot of contributing factors, one of which is experience. That does not mean either of our understandings is better or worse than the other.

Dominique Bouhours (1628-1702) French Jesuit priest, essayist, critic and grammarian, while prone on his deathbed, said to one of his students "I am about to - or I am going to - die: either expression is correct."
I think "understanding" might be that way, too.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I could care less. If I wanted to impress, I could do it a lot better. Have you ever been hit with a bat or a pad-lock or whatever? A fist can be just as dangerous, do you let someone punch you in the face? I'm more concerned about someone with confidence in their fighting skill over someone who is bringing a weopon because they think they need it to even the odds. Guy with the bat attacks with the bat. He loses his bat and tries to pick it up, or runs away. Having been hit in the head with a bat, twice. (Once in a fight) Not on my top ten favorite things to do list. But having fought people with bats. Fighting a professionally trained martial artist, scares me a **** of a lot worse then some coward with a bat. And if I have the choice to fight someone with a bat, you're gonna see some impressive running skills. (Hopfully) If I have to fight someone with a bat, just like any other fight, except your opponant is, usually, a one trick pony. And its just like every other fight, trust your training, neutralize the strengths, attack the weaknesses. Or are you saying I should panic in a dangerous situation?

LOL. I'm saying that you're making a REALLY dangerous assumption. You're assuming the person with a weapon is less dangerous than an unarmed person BECAUSE they chose a weapon. A skilled fighter who also has a weapon is much more dangerous. A knife is NEVER less dangerous than the fist holding it. A fist to the gut can hurt. A knife to the gut can kill. Period.

And, no, a fist is NOT as dangerous as a bat. Get a half-ripe watermelon. Hit it with your hand as hard as you can. Now hit it with a bat as hard as you can. The result is unmistakable.

 

[Lameman]

Fair point. And to be fair, I have never been stabbed, and only had to fight a man with a knife once. A lot of my cockyness comes from the fact that most of the fights I have been in that involved a weapon, didn't turn out bad. And in all cases, they ran shortly after losing their weapon. If I have to fight a trained weapons expert, I'm probably screwed. But I still shouldn't let that weapon get into my head, because then I am in a worse situation. Stay calm and remember my training. I'm about to need both. Really, my original point was to illistrate, that some fights you don't think, you just act. Others, when you have opportunity, you think and gain every advantage that observation and planning can give. Sun Tzu said, know yourself, know your opponant, and you will find victory. But obviously, that is not always possible.

 

[Paul_D]

And, no, a fist is NOT as dangerous as a bat. Get a half-ripe watermelon. Hit it with your hand as hard as you can. Now hit it with a bat as hard as you can. The result is unmistakable.

That would be a demonstration of a bat being able to generate more powerful than a fist, not being more dangerous.

A fist doesn't have to generate that level of power to kill, it mearly has to render you unconcious so that you strike your skull on the pavement when you fall, and every week there is a news story somwhere of exactly that happeneing.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

That would be a demonstration of a bat being able to generate more powerful than a fist, not being more dangerous.

A fist doesn't have to generate that level of power to kill, it mearly has to render you unconcious so that you strike your skull on the pavement when you fall, and every week there is a news story somwhere of exactly that happeneing.

And a bat can do that by accident, as well. I never said a fist wasn't dangerous. My point is that anything a fist can do, damage-wise, can be done with a stick, as well. And the stick can do much more, besides. To say that a fist is as dangerous as a bat (his original implication was that it was actually much worse) is a fallacy.

 

[drop bear]

Here, I think you're referring to what I'd term "principles". Strategy (my definition, not necessarily yours), refers to high-level plans that are executed through tactics. In battlefield terms (an easy analogy for my usage), a General deals with strategy, while a Sergeant deals with tactics. So, in martial arts terms, what I call strategy is the planning before a contest ("You know he has some trouble with his left leg, so keep him moving left as much as you can - keep his weight on that leg.")

Clearly, that's not something you get to do before a self-defense situation. Just as clearly, that's probably not what you mean when you use the word. I think your usage would fall within "principles" for me. That's only a guess, since I don't yet know what your definition is. You could argue that strategy includes things like maneuvering to more stable ground, and I'd have no problem with that definition - which would certainly be important in self-defense.

Something as simple as calling the cops when you see someone in you back yard would be considered strategy in my opinion.

Organising a group to leave a violent confrontation safely would be another.

A homless man asks you for money. And you start moving into a position where it is harder for him to rob you

 

[Lameman]

Gpseymour, okay, let me ask you this. Is one knife more or less dangerous then two? Its not that a weapon is less dangerous then a fist. But because the person weilding it often forgets about his other weapons. Fist, feet, head, knees, etc. He is handicaped. Not because the knife is less dangerous then his fist, but because he soley relies upon one weapon. Average, wannabe, isn't going kung fu, with a bat. Hes swinging a bat. He is handicapped. And I've been kicked in the head harder then that bat hit me. Potential, is not always reality. I mean, if your strategy for winning a fight against a bat is to eat one to the head. That is a bad idea. Obviously, its dangerous. But don't let it get into your head. If it takes you out, it takes you out. You stay calm, be willing to get hurt, and you will have a good chance to come out unharmed. Be afraid, and then what? If you are too worried about getting hurt, you wont be able to do what is nessesary. No, stay calm, neutralize the weapon quickly. Usually that ends the fight, if not, you still have control. Stay calm. Do what you need. Survive. (And for the record, I'm willing to take a beating if it means someone else doesn't have to. Even if that risk isn't 100% Especially, if there is little or no risk to myself. My inactions heve cost the life of a friend. I live with enough guilt. If by my actions I can increase the probability that someone else doesn't get hurt, without anyone getting hurt. Why not?)

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

Not familiar with using a bat, but am familiar with knife fighting. When it goes to knife fighting, it is not worth the risk of staying around.
A: regardless of what you do there is a high chance you will get cut.
B: If the person does not know how to use a knife, the strategy of dealing with the knife and hoping that they don't give it up is the best strategy assuming your unarmed (IMO). Judging from what you (Lameman) have said, I assume this is your strategy as well. However,
C: People learn very quickly that they should not limit themselves to the knife. The first time they lose because they did (in sparring..the only actual knife 'fight' I've been in I didn't exactly stick around to ask what he learned) they will state that they realized that's the problem. Due to this, if they have any experience specifically with losing a knife fight, you can no longer rely on B and may have completely screwed yourself over by relying on it.

Not sure how well this carries over to bats, golf clubs, sticks, etc. But, considering that if C is in play B backfires, it is not worth the risk to me.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Something as simple as calling the cops when you see someone in you back yard would be considered strategy in my opinion.

Organising a group to leave a violent confrontation safely would be another.

A homless man asks you for money. And you start moving into a position where it is harder for him to rob you

Agreed. As I said, those don't fit the definition I use when talking about strategy, but would fit many people's (including your own). Using a definition that includes those activities, strategy is, indeed, a part of in-the-moment response selection for self-defense.