Teaching one’s art is more than just standing before a
class. It is a process of communicating with one’s students, and for good
communications to take place you have to incorporate a feedback channel to
verify what has been shared is received correctly.
In the case of kata, what they learn to perform should match
what is being shown, more and/or less depending on the time the student has
been studying.
We know flaws will occur, where a student’s performance is
incorrect and how it varies depends on the level of the students training. It
also depends on how you approach errors and are looking for instant perfection
or for moving to perfection as a long range goal.
One of the topics must be the serious nature of flaws. A
mistaken technique is not just an error but likely creates an opening for
attack to enter.
The structure of your program will determine the end goal
and time frame for student development.
There is no one standard for all programs, but developing a consistent
approach in correction standards helps everyone’s development.
Beginner
Beginners start by being perfect, as they don’t know
anything they’re not capable of making mistakes, they’re just not correct. Once
they learn something they can begin to become accountable for their actions.
They’re no reason to rush the process.
Explain to the new
student how mistakes are addressed and how they can then work to correct them. Lay the foundation for your future
instruction method from the beginning.
Frequently new students have to learn how to accept
criticism for it’s positive purpose, to help guide them forward, not as a
critical assessment of their work.
Frankly you might take their ‘kata’ performance and find dozens of
things that need correction. Curb yourself telling them that. Instead explain
they’re learning how to start large and move towards small.
Demonstrate to them how their version changes the nature of
the original technique. This allows them to remember why the move must change.
If they strike and they can see it misses by what they’re doing they more
readily embrace the need to change.
Control the Amount of
Information about Mistakes to allow progress. Never give them more than two corrections to
work on, regardless of what they need to get to perfect performance. Two give
them a definable goal towards future success. More corrections than that and
they won’t remember them, so look at the big picture and pick the two mistakes
that if corrected will have the best response in their technique. Then when they
make progress on them (and not necessarily by the next class) go to the next
two and so forth.
Standard Beginner Mistakes:
1) Not
forming their fist correctly.
2) Not
knowing their right from their left
3) Not
looking before turning.
4) Forgetting
movements of their kata
Intermediate
Intermediates students do know something and thus when they
do something wrong it is a mistake. There
are the difficulties learning new material and then there are the problems that
arise in material they already learned.
Explain how mistakes creep into training, especially when
they move on in new studies. They and you will find that the standard group
drills are fine and that their new material is progressing, but it is their
intermediate studies that begin to suffer. For one thing in about 30% of
students changes will start occurring in those intermediate kata. And those changes will take on a pattern in
time, those 30% of students make the same mistake (never taught that way). Part of me suspects it may be that some
student nervous systems have inbred programming about movement and when the
student moves that kata from their immediate focused study other factors
intervene from correct occurrance.
I say 30% because everyone does not have the same
experience, but it is frequent enough that when they first learn the kata point
out the techniques that may change in time (from the instructor’s direct
experiences). That makes it easier to correct because you’re re-enforcing what
they were originally taught.
This then must be turned into a lesson about the work
they’re expected to do to keep those ‘intermediate’ forms from falling back.
1) Reinforce
the value of each movement in each kata, newer more complex kata are not more
valuable they just have different lessons.
2) Don’t
immediately start them on their next kata once they’ve completed the initial
learning of their previous kata. Set time, a month or two, for them to go back
and re-polish each previous study so they move forward in all areas.
3) Explain
that the black belt candidate must develop their potential in all their
studies.
Standard Intermediate Mistakes
1) Forgetting
movements of kata they’ve previously studied.
2) Adding
(or Omitting) techniques to at kata.
New Black Belt
I lump all brown belts into the new black belt category for
corrections. First I see each level of brown belt as a black belt candidate,
and I see each new black belt in the next step of the growth process into dan
level training.
As I gained experience as an instructor I began to observe a
different level of mistakes in the brown belt practices. They were not the same
mistake but all have the same origin. To focus the brown belt mind I named them
a dreaded disease “Brown Belt-itis”.
“Brown Belt-itis” is
a singular disease with a thousand different symptoms. The truth is it can
begin before brown belt and can also continue long after brown belt. But naming
it a disease makes it easier to make the point home.
At this point the student has studied a lot of material.
They have some power and speed but they don’t keep their mind focused on the
immediate goal, making everything work correctly.
Symptoms of “Brown
Belt-it is” include (but are not inclusive of):
1) Worrying
about getting to the next move and not completing the current move. This is
where I first observed this disease, brown belt performance of Kusanku Kata, a
long form, so they’re trying to get from move to move but forgetting to finish
the current move before they go on. Thus a Brown Belt might stop putting power
behind ‘blocks’, but correctly power strikes and kicks.
2) Focusing
on only one aspect of kata performance such as the upper body.
3) Getting
a better idea than ‘sensei’.
4) It
also covers beginning and intermediate mistakes.
Frankly I use it in fun a lot of the time to cover any type
of mistake they make. It also does not go away just because they get their
black belt.
This is where you need to help them understand the weight of
all of their studies. Not just not to forget what they’ve learned, not just to
get good enough for sho-dan
qualification. Instead to help them understand the ongoing commitment required
to keep improving at all areas and keep their focus on the current (the isshin)
and on what’s coming next (the zanchin) at the same time.
It’s at the new black belt area you can re-enforce the fatal nature of flaws more strongly. Work to help
them understand how much power, technique and focus they loose with even the
smallest mistakes of alignment and movement. This is critical to move them
forward into internalizing their correct performance.
At this stage the new black belt is about ½ way towards
adequate performance of say 10 years of training. There’s no short cut to the
point that their body relaxes in execution, their center drops and their power
increases.
Advancing Black Belt
Moving past the initial black belt studies, the challenge of
faith come into play.
It is at this stage they’re entering advancing technique
application studies. Where they move from the study of an application potential
to the study of that potential against the full range of attacks, to finding a
path towards application realized.
At this point the more basic movement mistakes may be in the
past (just a hopeful assumption) but they then come into the understanding that
when their instructor shows them an application for a movement they’ve
practiced for years, when they go to use it in even safe attacks, they
automatically do something else. That’s certainly adequate for self defense,
but not working for advancing studies.
The error isn’t their ability to perform a move, or their
inability to perceive the attack, but their lack of faith the technique will
resolve the attack successfully. This
requires a very different skill acquisition, belief in oneself.
The next challenge is further instruction in uncovering their
own flaws. You need to help them become
aware of their own alignment problems, and here again you turn to the fatal
nature of flaws, in greater detail show each possible mistake and what opening
they leave for an attacker. Supplement this with their own study of the
offensive study how to look for those fatal flaws and design an approach for
attacking them.
The advancing black belt also needs assistance understanding
the scope of their studies and how they cannot work on everything at the same
time. Too many studies and nothing changes. They need guidance how to select
studies to undertake, how to set their
goals, how to complete the study and how to select where they go next.
Senior Black Belt
No matter how hard we train we will never be perfect, only
approach it at times, hopefully of our own choosing. It is at this stage we can
guide the senior black belt past mistakes to work to use Advanced Body Control
makes flaws perfect (rule of no rules).
The Senior Black Belt doesn’t make mistakes, instead they
diffuse their mistakes into their opponent’s bodies.
They should be developing their own challenges and studies
and your role is more advisor, unless it is yourself guiding your own path.
Senior study may well mean you have moved past your instructor,
in space, in time or even in life. The Senior must draw upon all of their
experiences and lessons to correct the ongoing human condition. At some point
the aging process and the certainty of human
You are at a stage you can appreciate hundreds of corrections
on a form performance, but your students, friends or instructor may not be
willing to do it for you. Get a video camera and have yourself filmed and do it
yourself.
Instructor
The Instructor must develop their sensitivity in explaining
flaws not to overwhelm a student and interfere with the message to guide them
forward.
The instructor must work to correct the student most
appropriately for their long term goal for the student development.
The instructor must develop the difference teaching advanced
studies from basic studies and choose their correction methodology appropriate
for the student.
Senior Instructor
The Senior Instructor must use what dealing with flaws has
taught themselves to develop the Instructor..
Understanding the breakdown of age they’re experiencing must
be used to correct and guide the others.
The most important correction is to stop keeping what they
know to themselves and addressing bridging the information time lapse. Having
experienced everything on their path, including sharing in others paths, they
must correct the wish to keep such knowledge private, but work to share it
appropriately.
The Senior Instructor must correct their desires to work
with only their senior students, instead they must spend the majority of their
floor time with the newest beginners. Seeking the beginning mind. Learning that
they need to keep finding their own beginning mind.
Each day brings us innumerable experiences we must
continually correct to grow.
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