Depends. It's like the old telephone "game" Line up 10 people and whisper a short story to the first who then whispers to the second and so on. The story probably changes little each time it's told. But a lot by the time #10 tell it.
I guess it is hard to put into words. I am not saying it is ok the CHANGE a movement. I am talking about the innate differences in peoples bodies for the most part. Secondly, the differences in how people process information. Over time it should all diverge into the complete, correct, move with speed and power.
well it doesn't allow you to reach position to perform a technique, apart from kata, where there no actual target, and bag kicking where you have exactly control of your starting position and can adjust it after a few trays to get the correct distance. in all other instances, 9 out of ten times your going to end up to close or to far away, on the first attempt and you may not get a second attempt, your certainly never going to get the luxury of moving your starting position 6 "" to get the correct range as your opponent will keep moving
Therein lies the crux of the criticism. If the only thing you did was Kata you would likely find yourself in a rut only having the habit of specific stance length. I would guess that few only practice Kata. It is but one element of most modern day systems along with sparring as well as perhaps other elements.
well theres a lot of clubs where Kata t and Kata in sequence is paramoun and 5hat clearly requires you to practise and practise uniform stride, but in that case particularly but in any where this is a requirement, theres then a requirement to learn a different stride pattern for combat as best that's a waste of time, more likely is contrary to combat efficiency.
You
You
- 1nd punch may want to punch your opponent's groin. So you punch 30 degree downward.
- 2nd punch may want to punch your opponent's chest. So you punch parallel to the ground.
- 3rd punch may want to punch your opponent's head. So you punch 30 degree upward.
Since a teacher doesn't know whether his student tries to punch the groin, chest, or head, how will he be able to ask his students to punch the same height?
Not necessarily. Most people change and adapt through the color belts. Many beyond that.
And that's a different context. Demo teams are usually very much a performance, rather than martial practice. It's a different skill set, and keeping things in sync is much more impressive - armies, dancers, and marching bands all seem to agree.
I also think it can (if the teaching is done this way) give each person a slightly different lesson. If the Hobbit (5'0") and I (5'10") practice a kata with the same step length, likely she's taking a very long step and I"m taking a slightly short one. If the instructor explains what that does to our techniques, we can actually practice that adjustment on purpose, rather than simply as a step distance we need to keep in sync. It's a small thing, but it's where we can find small lessons inside some of the training we already do.
Maybe I misread his post, but I thought he was talking about the issue of differences among the group. If a bunch of people are off by various small distances, it gets the group out of sync and can make it hard to do the kata together. Or maybe I read it that way because that's my experience with kata. I don't teach it to precision, so two students doing a kata together are almost certainly going to end up in different relative spots. This limits how many students I can have practicing the kata at the same time. Maybe this matters less where precision is part of the kata training.
This is what I was getting at earlier. If people have to sometimes adjust to an arbitrary step size (because of the group), they should be learning to produce their techniques with various step sizes. That should help with that adjustment on the fly.
I don't see it as a "different stride pattern", even when they are using a consistent step when in a group. They're just using one selection in that case, from a range of selections they'd use for combat. And that consistent step in groups is possibly not even consistent. I often see Karate students making adjustments (one bigger step or shorter step) to get back in sync with the group. So even there, they're practicing distance adjustments - just not based on a target.
You start with a starting point, then teach the variations. Some teachers choose the starting point (the more common practice in JMA dojos, I think), which is usually their own mid-chest. Other teachers let that starting point occur naturally, unless it causes problems (students punching too high, causing their shoulders to rise, for instance). It's easier to teach variation from a starting point than to teach students to do many variations from the beginning, because the corrections are more consistent.You
- 1nd punch may want to punch your opponent's groin. So you punch 30 degree downward.
- 2nd punch may want to punch your opponent's chest. So you punch parallel to the ground.
- 3rd punch may want to punch your opponent's head. So you punch 30 degree upward.
Since a teacher doesn't know whether his student tries to punch the groin, chest, or head, how will he be able to ask his students to punch the same height?
I think that is the wrong question. Both student and teacher need to know the stipulated level. This gives the student specific level to try and emulate and allows the teacher to observe whether the student: A. Knows where it is supposed to be; and B. Whether the performance is accurate. Otherwise, even with specific standards how would the teacher know? I would guess most teachers have had the experience where you correct a student saying "When you perform this technique you are doing "A" and should be doing "B" to have the student reply "I didn't realize I was doing that."
