The Rule of 10

One does learn things, the longer one stays at it.

In my case the longer I taught, both kids and adults I began to see things I had never thought about previously.

And then you give those things you see names to allow you to focus on them later.

One really valuable lesson I came to call the Rule of 10.

A note about how at 10 years effort, training in anything such as a kata, the body begins to relax in the technique series. The muscles of the body begin to work together more effectively,  that allows the body center of balance to drop as a result, and then as the center dropping causes the power to increase.

 

It does not mean 10 years into training, rather 10 years effort on anything. For example a form learned as a black belt will not reach that fluidity for another 10 years, or how kicking practice changes. 

Note the number 10 is just a mnemonic device not a practical time limit.

This means it becomes a new layer of training then begins to harness that newly discovered power.

That does not mean solid exact performance cannot occur before that. But no matter how solid that performance is there will be further development later.

 This partially explains what can often be observed in brown belts. Where their years of correct study allows part of this to occur and as a result the brown belts power increases because they are beginning to be more relaxed in their technique. And too many times, not understanding what has begun to occur, the brown belt may not realize what that change means when they are working with newer students. This can lead to unintentional injury.

 At all levels of training the individual requires sensitivity training so they can understand better how to work with others appropriately.

Of course the Rule of 10 does not mean this is the end, rather the start of more interesting training as the coming decades will show.

Just a brief addendum, the Rule of 10 is not the same as the time in your art. For example when you learn a new form as a black belt, it does not mean good performance, the rule of 10 means you will really start to get that form in roughly  10 years. There are no shortcuts. learning really never ceases.

I came up with this  observation as my adult program, though kept small, those who reached black belt with me continued training for an average of +17 years, with others continuously training up to 40 years with me. Thus I could observe the effects of continuous long term training.

 

In a similar way I observed the effects of +20 years training in our Kobudo kata becoming a force enhancer to both increase capability in karate and using those force enhancers to offset the reality of the onset of aging in the practitioner.

 

Frankly this cannot really be explained to the short time students. They really will not understand the purpose of correct training is because of the benefits decades down the road.   I am not suggesting it can’t be shared, but the reality is they will really not understand until those years of training have passed and they can experience those benefits themselves.