Unpopular Opinion? "It's easier to learn something than to relearn something" is an absolute myth.

[Dirty Dog]

Yeah I get what you mean. I've experienced both sides strangely enough! When moving to a new style, some movement patterns were SO engrained they were very very difficult to change, and took alot of conscious effort. Yet others which were much larger changes were easy to adopt.

KKW, ITF, and MDK TKD all have a thing commonly called a back stance. And they all do them nearly the same. There are miniscule differences in foot placement and very small differences in weight distribution. It's shockingly difficult to switch back and forth between these styles if you're not really focused.

 

[Instructor]

I think transitionining from a hard linear style to a soft circular style can be hard for some students. Once they have that laser like precision it's hard to make them flow in a more relaxed fluid manner.

 

[Hanshi]

I do agree that it's difficult to teach a soft flow to a long time hard stylist. And yes, I've been the one "standing corrected" a few times. Some students are just stubborn and ego driven and refuse to accept instruction from another sensei. One young man who came to my dojo had been previously training in a ?? style in another state. His sidekicks were abysmal in that he wouldn't have been able to land one on me or my black belts. When we explained the reasons and demonstrated the "better" way to perform the side kick he got "miffed", argued that HIS way was the way he was taught and was therefore the correct way. As a shodan he should have already been trained in the sidekick properly. He left in a huff even though three high ranking black belts explained to him the very same thing. My practice was usually to incorporate a modified technique as a different techniques. This way I could then do it both ways as long as the technique being taught was at least logical.

 

[JowGaWolf]

May be just a pinch on your opponent's face.

Not sure if you mean pinch or punch. I'm going to go with punch since I don't do pinching.
goog
Front leg forward moving first. To keep it simple, I'm including lifting as part of moving even if the foot isn't moving forward.

But before I get into that here's how I train. Front is Back, Back is Front.

The same movement I use to travel forward can be used to travel backwards. If my left foot pushes me forward then I can use that same foot to push me backwards all while heading in the same direction. In this case the trade off is that moving forward pushes my weight into the punch while moving backwards pushes my weight away from the punch.

The other trade off is that this method of shuffling will mean that my power hand is either my lead hand or my rear hand depending on if I'm going forward or backwards.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Not sure what you mean since it has to be put in the context of the technique being used.

If you want to throw a

- punch, you may move your leading leg forward first.
- kick, you may move your back leg forward first.

This is why a boxer may not feel comfortable to move back leg first because he has never had intention to kick.

 

[JowGaWolf]

If you want to throw a

- punch, you may move your leading leg forward first.
- kick, you may move your back leg forward first.

This is why a boxer may not feel comfortable to move back leg first because he has never had intention to kick.

I'll have to show examples of my footwork + jabs. Or do I need to add a kick?

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

I'll have to show examples of my footwork + jabs. Or do I need to add a kick?

You have to enter your kicking range before you can enter your punching range.

If you don't kick your opponent, your opponent may kick you. So why don't you kick your opponent first?

 

[prophet224]

I think Dirty Dog hit the nail on the head especially with the 'muscle memory is a real thing' and 'harder to make small changes' comments.

A lot of good points here though; I'm going to stay away from the 'right' and 'wrong' commentary because as we've seen these depend on the style, the person, the stance, the situation, etc. For that matter, I've seen techniques taught at white belt in kung fu that didn't show up until black belt for TKD. <Shrug> Different teaching and different styles.

That said, some folks are talking as if the human body and mind were computers and it just isn't that simple. That's why we model brains with neural nets. A computer will accept different parameters and do different things. A human mind takes those new parameters and says "is this right?", "Did I mis-hear?", "Maybe I should still do it the other way", and that's before taking into account the difficulty of the mind executing through the body.

Thought exercise - you are at a party, and you are getting a drink. You *need* to keep your drink separate from everyone else's. Do you A.) Take a red cup from the stack of red cups or B.) Take a glass with a completely unique design on it?

When you take a red cup, even marking your name on it, the brain has difficulty distinguishing between them, despite the minor difference, and you increase the rate of errors (picking up other people's cups to see if it is yours). The very different and unique glass stands out. This is just a thought exercise of course, but it can illustrate how the brain can have more difficulty with minor differences versus large differences.

Meanwhile on muscle memory another example then a physiological discussion. My wife practiced Shotokan for several years when she was a kid and before we met. When she joined me in TKD Chang Moo Kwan, some things were very easy to convert, others quite difficult. Several of the early kata are quite similar between the two styles. Since she would often find herself mid-form turning into a move from Shotokan kata, she had to work extra hard to execute properly (for the new style).

Now why is all of this? Some of it is the brain's desire to attach to patterns, and the more you've practiced the more ingrained it is. It is difficult but not impossible to turn the course of a stream that's only been there for a short time, but try to change the course of the Colorado river in the middle of the Grand Canyon.

The other part is that darn (but wonderful) muscle memory. The more we train movements the more the body builds the myelin sheath around the nerves on the way there. That's the layer that 'insulates' nerves (and connections in the brain too). The more built up that layer is, the more smooth and quick your movements are and the more your muscle fibers can be recruited in sync with each other to perform a movement. This is one reason that people who just start exercising can usually make surprising strength gains quickly - they aren't building muscle in those first 3 months or so, they've built a better myelin sheath.

However, that does mean that the actual nerve (and neural) pathways for those movements are more ingrained. You can cut a new path (learn completely new movements) without having to overcome this obstacle, and yes, new movements that are similar can benefit from the years of built up myelin once the initial difficulty with modifying the movement has been overcome. You have to overcome both psychological and physical barriers to get that new movement in properly.

On the soft vs hard thing - ugh. Yeah, it's such a difference in the way of moving and thinking. I went from all hard style (which was not my first choice but just how life worked out) to bagua. Now, as I understand it baguazhang was often 'layered over' hard styles, but geez, it's tough to change the movement patterns and I'm still trying to get more flow rather than the darn rigid strikes and stances I grew up with. It probably didn't help that I was mixing in with Israeli combative work at the same time which is much more hard style, but still.

 

[donald1]

I never had noticeably harder times relearning forms than first time. If I ever had a bad habit or mistake, I'd need to fix it, but that stuff was hardly an issue.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

I never had noticeably harder times relearning forms than first time. If I ever had a bad habit or mistake, I'd need to fix it, but that stuff was hardly an issue.

The issue is more when you change from one style to another style then just relearning a form you'd forgotten.