I've been training in traditional martial arts for over 20 years, in which repetition of techniques is a foundational element of training. I recently tried to start a karate club on the college campus where I teach, and the students just were not interested in traditional martial arts. The students want to hit stuff, spar, and grapple immediately without enduring the supposed drudgery of basics. Students came to my classes, but then dropped out after one or two sessions. Then, a student who took a few krav maga weekend instructor seminars started her own group and got several students. I'm the faculty adviser for the martial arts groups on campus, and so she discussed her ideas with me. She actually sat in my office and lectured me on the limitations and impracticalities of traditional martial arts, even though I've been training longer than she has been alive! Her presumption and arrogance aside, I tried to explain to her the why we hikite, for example, and other such things. I explained the function of kata, bunkai, and the relationship of kata to practical self-defense. Nothing registered for her. It was all impractical in her mind and not worthy of her consideration. Frustrating.
Thus, I moved my club to the local YMCA, and I have a small group of regulars, but it's still challenging to get them to appreciate repetitive training. The challenge of teaching and training basics persists. It's like this generation of people want immediate gratification. They see highly trained fighters in the UFC doing amazing things, and they want to do those same things, right now. They don't understand that they need to learn the dynamics of a punch and then practice those dynamics repetitively for a long time before they can punch well.
I've been developing some teaching/training practices to help these kinds of students develop strong basics w/out boring them with traditional kihon training. For example, when teaching "high block," I show them the move, and then I provide one possible application of that move (defense against a lapel grab and forearm strike to the throat, or reversing a wrist grab and striking upward against their straightened elbow joint). Then, I have them work that with partners striking target mitts. Then, I have them work it up and down the floor a bit. Then, back to partner training on the target mitts. That's how I'm teaching basics, and it seems to be working out well.
Has anyone else noticed this challenge in the younger generation, how they don't want to do the "boring" work of repetition yet want to have excellent technique and power immediately? How do you address this issue in your own teaching?
Thanks,
David
Coincidentally, I’ve just added this to the website: http://iainabernethy.co.uk/article/case-kihon
All the best,
Iain
Great article! I think I listened to the podcast version of it. I'm using your ideas to create a more practical approach to integrating kihon training. I guess my challenge as an instructor is helping new students understand these concepts and the value of kihon. It's hard to overcome the immediate gratification mindset of some younger people in this generation. I'm playing around with teaching application first as a way to introduce a new technique.
My sensei in NY (Sensei Jerry Figgiani) encourages me to develop activities to "trick" them into repetition w/out boring them. So, I do a variety of activities in which we work the same technique multiple times in different training contexts. It seems to be working out well. Students appreciate knowing the why behind the what, the applications of the movements. When I first started training, we just did these funky techniques because the sensei told us to. We didn't know why; we just did what we were told to do. Most students today aren't like that--they want to know why. And, if they don't get the why, they usually don't stick around. So, I'm always explaining context, discussing the tactics (the applications), providing partner pad work, and also solo kihon work.
Here's a video I put together illustrating application-based training. This is from this past spring when I had some black belts. Alas, they have graduated and have moved elsewhere. Miss those guys!
Best,
David
Attention spans tend to be much shorter nowadays than they were in the olden days, and even shorter than a few decades ago. People "need" to be entertained constantly. (When I was a kid, we took long car rides, got bored, and dealt with it. Eventually, we learned how to keep our minds occupied for the long drive. Nowadays, if they kids don't have a DVD player in the back seat, your two-hour drive to visit the zoo has turned into the Bataan Death March on Wheels.)
If you can keep things "moving", not linger on anything long enough that the younger generation starts to get bored, and mix in some "fun-based activities" that relate to what you are teaching, you can get the basics covered bit by bit ... not like in the old days, though.
I think Iain's article explains the importance of (and good proportion of) kihon training quite well. It's important to work on technique, but I think that students get "bored" (and rightfully so), if we have them spending all of their time refining technique before they're allowed to work on timing and tactics. For me, from day one, I try to introduce students to technique (for example, gedan barai) in context and in a variety of ways. We'll do some practice in the air where they can learn the techniques and how to move their body. But we move pretty quickly to having them apply the techniques against a partner (for example, breaking a wrist grab), and if I have the equipment available, I'll have them doing impact training with the technique their first day as well (practicing gedan barai as a hammer fist strike). As we move on, we will work with partners on different ways of applying the techniques, and we start to combine the technique in the air with other techniques as well to form combinations. So students get lots of repetition of the technique, but they're not just repeating it up and down the floor endlessly. I think I first heard the term "repetition by stealth" from Iain, and I really like that!
I think that's a totally reasonable expectation of students. I don't think that we should make people perfect their technique before they're able to do the "fun stuff." I think that there are safe ways to work all of these elements in parallel in a progression. And I find that in doing that, students learn to appreciate the time that they can spend on kihon more, because they see where their technique is lacking and want to work to improve it. So I try to link what we do in kihon, kata, and kumite all together so that students see the linkage and understand the importance.
For me, it comes down to how you approach kihon. If it's just endless repetitions of gedan barai up and down the floor because I said so, then students won't appreciate the training. For me as an instructor, I want to know WHY I am having students do any activity in training at any given time. So I have a goal in mind of what I want students to get, I start with a drill (which may be basic kihon training), and I watch them to see if it's accomplishing the goal. If it is - great. If it's not, then I adjust what I'm doing. My goal is to get students to be better - and what I do in training, I should see how that gets them there, and ideally it should be working to an optimal way to get them there. I find it actually doesn't take much to get people to be able to punch reasonably hard. I've had students on their first day punching the focus mitts with reverse punches, and I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of it. It is their optimal punch? No. Could they improve? Of course. But I don't think we can try to force technique to be optimal before we let them also work other skills (like timing and tactics). If they're training for a lifetime, they'll have years to spend on endlessly refining techniques to get them to approach perfection. But my goal is to get students to functional first, and then we can spend forever refining.
Absolutely! I think that comes with teaching adults - Rory Miller had a great blog post on teaching adults that says it better than I ever could (http://chirontraining.blogspot.com/2013/01/teaching-adults.html). If you're just trying to learn karate as a group of movements, then doing this because Sensei told you to is fine. But if you are trying to learn karate as development of skills, then I think you need to tie it into why they're learning it, and why it's important. So you'd better know yourself as the instructor. For me, starting to think this way and teach this way was incredibly scary because I didn't have all the answers at first. But I think I'm (slowly) getting to a better place with my students and a better place in my teaching.
I hope that helps... man, I ended up writing way more than I expected!
-Kim
Yeah, that’s a great phrase … but not mine :-) Brain Seabright 7th dan said it to me after a training session. I remarked that I loved training with him because in all the time I had been doing so we’d never done the same session twice. Brian said that we do the same things all the time (front punches, reverse punches, hood punches, roundhouse kicks, etc.) but in drills that make it seem “new”. He then paused and added, “It’s repetition by stealth”. He was totally right, and I love that phrase. Repetition does not have to be repetitive.
All the best,
Iain