Teaching applications

[Kacey]

When I first started TKD, applications of techniques were taught very specifically; for example, low block was defined as being used to block a low front kick, but since then it's been retaught as blocking any attack to the lower side abdomen - a much broader interpretation that blocking front snap kicks.

If you teach, how do you teach application - as a specific "answer", the "way" (or ways) to use a particular technique, or do you teach theory, that particular techniques are intended for categories of application. As a student, how do you like to learn?

As an instructor, I try to follow a middle path - if I am too specific, I limit my students' ability to apply techniques to a wide range of situations, but if I don't give them some idea of what to use a technique for, at least in the form of examples, they have trouble coming up with it themselves, especially at the white, yellow, and green belt ranks; they tend to get more creative and innovative as they learn their own strengths and weaknesses as they progress through the ranks. But I have real trouble finding the right path through this maze. What do others do?

 

[exile]

If you teach, how do you teach application - as a specific "answer", the "way" (or ways) to use a particular technique, or do you teach theory, that particular techniques are intended for categories of application. As a student, how do you like to learn?

As an instructor, I try to follow a middle path - if I am too specific, I limit my students' ability to apply techniques to a wide range of situations, but if I don't give them some idea of what to use a technique for, at least in the form of examples, they have trouble coming up with it themselves, especially at the white, yellow, and green belt ranks; they tend to get more creative and innovative as they learn their own strengths and weaknesses as they progress through the ranks. But I have real trouble finding the right path through this maze. What do others do?

Well, I agree that the middle path idea is the right one; the way I think of it is, if you're trying to teach people something, how do you give them an idea of how to proceed to use their technical knowledge when a novel problem arises? The kind of approach I've been guided by is actually exhibited very nicely in science textbooks. If you're studying any hard physical science, one with a mathematical foundation, you typically find that every chapter in the textbook has three main sections: one where certain concepts are introduced and their general relationship formally worked out in terms of equations and other kinds of mathematical relationships; one where there are 'worked examples'—usually four or five, where the route to the solution is made clear in great detail—and then a collection of problems that students are supposed to work out on their own. The trick for the student is to use the worked examples as a way of 'grounding' the abstract relationships discussed in the first section of the chapter, so that you learn, by studying the examples given and solved, what kind of things you need to do to get all the knowns on one side of an equation and the one unknown that the problem asks you for on the other side. You need both: the general development of the formal relationships, systematically and comprehensively; and the worked problem, to see how to use those concepts and their mathematical relationships in practice, to solve problems. And then, of course, you need some unsolved problems to work on so that your own problem-solving ability is tested. At the end of that problem set, you understand the physics of the situation, or whatever the subject is, way more intuitively and concretely than you do if you never solved any real problems; but you also need some models as guidance, to get you going.

So for me, showing a number of concrete applications is the trick. I teach all blocks as attacks, primarily, delivered to vulnerable points on an attacker's body—a down block primarily as a hammer fist to an attacker's forcibly lowered head, or to his carotid sinus, or collarbone; a rising block as, most likely, a forearm strike to this throat; retractions as controlling moves, setting up locks and pins by pulling the attacker's limbs into a position into which you can apply destructive leverage, forcing his body down and setting up a finishing strike or finishing series of strikes; and so on. I provide a few scenarios—the assailant grabs your wrist or arm; your clothing; your shoulder—and show how you can use hikite and muchimi techs to convert your striking hand to a controlling hand setting up the next tech; how to view pivots as instructions on when and how to throw, and so on. In other words, give a few 'worked examples'. I try to explain to students that there are general principles involved, involving getting outside the attack vs.s staying inside, and the different options and possibilities that fundamental choice creates; how to exploit these different options to close the distance and damage the attacker at close range while preventing him from being able to deliver a strike to your own body, and so on.

But these are things that take a lot of time and individual initiative for a student to work out for him- or herself in a novel situation. So I feel, myself, that providing a rich basis of examples, 'worked problems', is a crucial part of any teaching methodology where you're trying to give people the basics, and show them how to use those basics, but also expect them to be able to extrapolate creatively on the basis of what you've given them. It just takes a long, long time for people to learn to do it... I'm still doing that myself, so I try to be patient...

 

[Marginal]

I tend to view the applications as listed, but, I keep an eye out for techniques and applications that use similar movements.

For example, the circular block is to deflect a kick, but it looks similar to an elbow deflection, or an intercept to a double leg take down. (Use the lower hand to check the forward movement, use the circular block to lock in a cross face and cement the lock by gripping the bracing hand.) I don't have to claim those are hidden applications, but I can remember those potential moves much easier if i can liken it back to a move in a pattern etc. Tends to go over better with the "True TKD" types (hard to take such claims seriously when there's been so much Judo, Hapkido etc influences on TKD already) than trying to interest them in deeper applications etc.

 

[IcemanSK]

I also agree that teaching the middle ground (ie. multiple possibilties) is the best way to teach most techniques.

At first, students need to have one or two reasons to use a technique as to not confuse or render them inactive if the need arise because of "too many possibilities." I want to help my students think like MA-ists for themselves, rather than robots.

I try to avoid saying "if your opponent does X, you do Y." I want them to learn blocks they can use to protect each part of their body so they can improvise in case an opponent throws technique K to the same body part that others might throw to area Y.

To avoid the extreme of both the if X, do Y & the "there are 20 ways to block X & here they are" thoughts: the middle ground is most helpful.

 

[exile]

One of the things which I like very much about some of the current leading bunkai/boon hae analysts, people like Iain Abernethy, Lawrence Kane & Kris Wilder, and Simon O'Neil, is that that they present applications as realizations of certain concepts about real fighting as encoded in forms. The content of these concepts, principles or what have you differ somewhat from author to author, but show remarkable overlap. Specific applications are shown to follow as natural outcomes of the way in which several of these relevant principles overlap in any given situation. There is a particularly nice example of this sort of 'decoding' in their discussion of the Seiyunchin Gojo-ryu kata, where they bring a number of general principles of realistic combat together to show why the conventional, standard bunkai for that kata falls short as an effective fighting application, and how the application of several of these principles makes a much more effective application available. They also emphasize—as do most of the other really good analyses of Okinawan, Japanese and Korean karate-based forms I've seen—that, as they say, 'There is more than one proper interpretation for any movement in kata,' and that different practitioners, for reasons of body structure, approach to combat and even æsthetic tastes, may well favor one kind of application over another.

The real trick, I think, is teaching combat concepts, valid strategic principles, and showing students that these general principles can be realized in various ways using the same movement set. But I think one has to be realistic about how people learn, as well. Most people, in the fields I've taught in, seem to do best working from a small set of models that they can use as touchstones when they're just getting started, before they learn the ropes enough to start navigating on their own. It's really a kind of problem-solving skill, and the learning curve is probably fairly steep, for the average martial student.

 

[cflick]

When I am taught a blocking technique my Instructor usually give 2-3 situations/techniques that it would be effective against.
I would have to agree from a students standpoint the a few would be a good way to go about it. If given to many scenarios then you will at first not know what to block what with.
Also as a student the imagination and curiousity will kick in where I figure it out, "Oh this block could block this technique too if needed, this technique could aslo be blocked by that"