OP
rmcrobertson
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- Thread Starter
- #41
I'm glad to see the agreement about the "squeegee," quality of these blocks, which militates against their abbreviation in practice.
Sorry to have dragged the instructors into it (guess there's never any good time for that), even in response to dragging the instructors into it...one addendum; I wrote nothing about rank, or even time, only that I had a degree of teaching experience on and off the mat. And I too dislike excessive language that covers up nonsense, whether it's of that sort or of the pseudo-scientific variety.
However, I still disagree with the bit about blocks from a horse. In the first place, loading beginners with all the variations makes life very difficult for them. Much easier to teach them where the blocks go in relation to points such as the shoulder, then insist on that. As for "cramping the pectoral," etc., I've not found this to be true. To be sure, "back-up mass," is not immediately available in a horse stance, but to my way of thinking, that's fine...another example of building skills one brick at a time.
As for, "moving the shoulder more," I disagree for two reasons. First off, this establishes the basic movement of stepping/sliding to a neutral bow while blocking up much too high; if anything, the hip adjusts more than the shoulder should. Second, why "lock the shoulder?" This makes the small adjustments that get made pretty naturally pretty much imposssible; of course, then, the block will look and feel weird. It's because the block isn't built from the ground up.
I stick behind a point I've made at other times; if you can't get your hands right, look at your feet before you fiddle with your hands.
I quite agree, too, that the nature of these blocks and blocking will change over time. I simply disagree rather strongly about fiddling with basic training from the viewpoint of being more-advanced; sure, you may not need to do that stuff any more, but many do.
Thanks for the discussion, though; always useful to think back through.
Sorry to have dragged the instructors into it (guess there's never any good time for that), even in response to dragging the instructors into it...one addendum; I wrote nothing about rank, or even time, only that I had a degree of teaching experience on and off the mat. And I too dislike excessive language that covers up nonsense, whether it's of that sort or of the pseudo-scientific variety.
However, I still disagree with the bit about blocks from a horse. In the first place, loading beginners with all the variations makes life very difficult for them. Much easier to teach them where the blocks go in relation to points such as the shoulder, then insist on that. As for "cramping the pectoral," etc., I've not found this to be true. To be sure, "back-up mass," is not immediately available in a horse stance, but to my way of thinking, that's fine...another example of building skills one brick at a time.
As for, "moving the shoulder more," I disagree for two reasons. First off, this establishes the basic movement of stepping/sliding to a neutral bow while blocking up much too high; if anything, the hip adjusts more than the shoulder should. Second, why "lock the shoulder?" This makes the small adjustments that get made pretty naturally pretty much imposssible; of course, then, the block will look and feel weird. It's because the block isn't built from the ground up.
I stick behind a point I've made at other times; if you can't get your hands right, look at your feet before you fiddle with your hands.
I quite agree, too, that the nature of these blocks and blocking will change over time. I simply disagree rather strongly about fiddling with basic training from the viewpoint of being more-advanced; sure, you may not need to do that stuff any more, but many do.
Thanks for the discussion, though; always useful to think back through.