I was trained by
many highly skilled instructors in many different arts, each way above my
capability. I then had occasion for a time to compete against some of the best
in the nation, and that competition taught me a great deal. Some of the
instruction was given by those who knew how to develop higher levels of focus
in your forms, once you had properly been prepared for it.
It gave me
insight how to develop the individual towards their own potential.
The reality is
even when people receive the same training at the same time, intense training,
they are still going to remain different. Some will move to a different skill
level in one aspect of their training, others with identical training will move
to different levels in other aspects of their training.
All I ever
wanted to do is share what I know with my student’s, and work to develop their
potential to as far as they chose to take it, and hope they would exceed my own
potentials. The students over time are the ones that choose where you can
direct them. You can’t make them learn anything. It always is their choice.
If you succeed
they can draw their best when they need it, and have acquired knowledge how
best to use it.
Long, long ago I learned a lesson from Cindy
Robinson when my wife and I were giving her a lift home from a tournament in
Central Pennslyvania. She had to stay for the finals that night to compete for
the form grand championship. This was before she was recognized as a National
Champion, back when she was a Region 10 champion. She explained that some of
the judges were engaging in what was a regular psych war experience she
recognized. They were telling her that she was not doing her best that evening.
Now the psych
war exists because often those judges own students are competing against her,
and there is often what is sniping talk to try and get into someone mind.
What Cindy said
next, I have found to be extremely ture.
“What the judges miss is every time every competitor competes,
every one of them is doing their flat out absolute best. But reality is that
every day our best ability changes, It never is exactly the same as before.
Some time we move faster, sometimes we move slower, etc. That is reality. But
it always is our best.”
You see
individuals more closely when the group is small. You can observe what can be
done better, Of course you can always miss what is happening too, for your own
best as an instructor varies too.
You realize that
continuing correct practice move one to develop a higher level of performance
that can be drawn on. And the better in practice, the more potential on tap
when needed, as on a tournament floor or when someone is trying to cave your
head in.
A different
mission is to raise the individuals awareness how they can use those movement
to interrupt an attack, and how to work around less than absolute best
performance. But one wishes that is not the case.
I have used
video to preserve the shapes of some of our performances at various times in
the student’s training. Not to try and capture their absolute best
performances. After all their work is to exceed where they have been, and those
bests are just temporary points of time.
Two students with identical training. One was
slightly better with bo. One was slightly better with empty hand. But for most
outside observers they were identical.
Then their training
varied.
The one working
bo, worked in different ways to develop his ability.
The one who
worked empty hand followed slightly different training for his ability. For one
thing I had him watch as many Gene Kelly dancing movies as possible, paying specific
attention to how his movement flowed from the way he used his hips in his
dance. Especially when he was paired with skilled dancers.
Time and again
each individuals wants, needs and individual effort over the decades,
determines how they want their own karate to be.
I will close
with a bit of Gene Kelly.
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