Complex Mistakes

Not just in karate, but in many other contexts, mistakes don't stand alone; they happen as a result of other mistakes and there's often more in the equation than something just being right or wrong. This post concerns an example of this in the context of karate.

It was a while ago now,  I was helping a brown belt, (3rd kyu), with ushiro-geri: every brown belt's, (and still, to some extent, my), worst nightmare!! I watched him do it several times, discovering the kick was far from correct, as it would be when done by a 3rd kyu; there's a good reason why it's the same grading syllabus for 2nd and 3rd kyu: it contains some difficult stuff.







Ushiro-geri from Zenkutsu-dachi.




One of the main points about ushiro-geri is that the foot should point downwards when the kicking leg is fully extended. It's a common 'mistake' to have the foot pointing sideways, a 'mistake' this paticular brown belt was making. I indicated it to him, however my feedback wasn't helpful. It did occur to me that the angle of the foot is a difficult aspect of ushiro-geri to control when I rememberd my own experience of it as a brown belt. This wasn't a 'mistake' which stood alone it often happend as a result of things like carelessness or rushing the kick. I reminded him to take it slowly, however it was equally as unhelpful.

Something else I learned from this experience is that it's not half bad an idea to ask students about their training because, as hard to beleive as it is, they do actually know what they're talking about, even if they are less experienced than me! Eventually, I had the idea to ask this brown belt what he found difficult about ushiro-geri. He answerd that it was turning from Zenkutsu-dachi, executing the kick, then returning to the same stance. Doing it from a standstill, he was fine with it.

I remembered having problems with the same thing, but it had improved once I'd developed the right kind of balance overtime, therefore, logically, his case would be similar. This is what I mean about there being more in the equation than something being right or wrong, he didn't have the right kind of balance. But it wasn't because he was doing anything wrong, it was just because of his lack of experience. Give it several months and his ushiro-geri could look quite different. (Although, he would still need to be pointed in the right direction). His foot was at the wrong angle as a result of him rushing  as a result of him not yet having developed the right kind of balance as a result of his lack of experience(which isn't even a mistake!). See what I mean by complex mistakes?

My next post will cover issues regarding the belt system in karate.

Teaching Karate

Teaching Karate, (or anything), appears an easy thing to do when one sees it done by an experienced teacher. However, I recently discovered the difficulty of it(which my last post breifly refers to).....

For a start, it required me to understand karate in a different way, challenging the understanding I already had. In training, I was pieceing together karate: learning new tecniques, working on mistakes, understanding how they could be used against an attacker, developing my own opinions and views about karate, understanding karate's philosiphy, etc...  While teaching, I have to break karate down, which is the reverse of what I am familliar with in  training. It envolves taking apart the different aspects of the tecniques I'd previously been putting together; working on mistakes, understanding and all. As for my own personal views on karate, my conscience would never let me impose them on other karateka, teaching open-mindedly and not letting my own opinions influence it also proves difficult. This is as a result of the fact that, naturally, my views do affect my training; because it's, yet again, in reverse to what I'm used to. You might've expeienced something similar to this, or maybe teaching just comes naturally to  you? Or maybe you've never had to teach? If the latter is true, then don't let this put you off because you learn so much from teaching Karate(I imagine it becomes easier with experience as well).

Several times, I've heared the saying, 'First know yourself , then know others'. The definition seems to be something along the lines of: ' Defeat your enternal opponents before any external ones' . What does defeating  any kind of opponent envolve? Identifying strengths and weaknesses seems to be a significant part of it(what you do as a result of that idetification might depend on the kind of opponent confronting you). This saying, I think, also applies in teaching. In training, you discover what you find most difficult (kicks, in my case!), and what's easier for you. Overtime , strengths and weaknesses become apparent  and the mistakes you make as a result of them alongside it; you know yourself. Later on in your training, ('...then know others'), when you start teaching, you have to identify the mistakes of other karateka, strengths and weaknesses might become apparent to you as a result of the mistakes, ( it often works in revese, remember?), you then know others.

Of course, there is far more to teaching karate than identifying mistakes. I'd give examples if I knew how to word them. Yet mistakes in themselves can be complex and  interlinked, something I will elabourate on in my next post.

This is a copy of a letter I sent to the editor of a Karate magazine, the topic it covers becomes obvious when you read it.

Dear Editor,

SKM is excellent. It’s interesting to read about such a range of views and opinions about karate. Your editorial is always written with thoughtfulness and open-mindedness: important traits to have both in and out of karate. I’d really appreciate it if you could publish this in the next issue:

In issue 119, I was particularly interested in the late sensei Bjorn Grunstein’s view on why children shouldn't do karate which he mentioned in his interview. I mean absolutely no disrespect to him by saying that I disagree.

He stated in his interview that: ‘To teach children karate, a major part of karate must be disregarded’. In my humble opinion, he would be right if a child’s perception of karate and the way a child trains was the same as that of an adult, only without the same level of maturity; however I don’t think that this is the case.

As somebody who started training at ten years old, I’d say that, far from not being mature enough for karate, karate helped me mature. It gave me the self-confidence and sense of self-worth that I’d previously lacked along with the discipline and resilience needed as one gets older. Children can gain from karate as much as adults can, but they gain different things.

Therefore, for instructors, I don’t think disregarding parts of karate comes in to it, the main thing is to be aware of the fact that different ages train in different ways: what they need to work on and how they benefit from karate.  The sensei I train under often says that while adults should work on flexibility and being more relaxed, children should work on concentration. Not all instructors feel comfortable with teaching children, which I have nothing against; it takes all sorts to make a world. I have done a small amount of teaching within the club I train at, since becoming a 1^st Dan, here is what I found out: teaching is massively difficult without even bringing the age of the students in to the equation!!

Oss,

(where my name would be if I didn't want to keep this blog anonymous)