The Process
A week or so ago I had a chance to participate in a Kumite Clinic and a few things struck me about Karate that others seem to miss…key components in the process that seem to be lost when it comes to some “hurry up and get moving” people. The people I refer to are those that want black belts in a few short years, if not sooner and the kind of people that don’t care what they know or what their mechanics are like, they just want the next belt in line.
Don’t rush! To many people want the next rank and they don’t put the time into the level they are at. Each rank has a job they have to do and people develop at different speeds. Some people can go three months between a rank and benefit from the lessons taught at each level…others take years to get past a Green belt because they struggle understanding the level and then zip through purple on their way to brown! It varies a lot and rushing through a rank to get to the next level is not the best way to grow into a life time of training. Unless you start and know you only have 10 years of training left…take your time!
I watched a class that was focused on Ippon Kumite, and with only the exception of one of the Black belt ladies…all the seniors had horrible form when it came to a simple stepping punch. No speed, no spirit and the mechanics of the stepping punch reminded me of my first car…jolt back half a foot to travel forward a yard! I was trying to help the seniors with their basics and really wanted to get through to them that they needed to take a step back. Let all the senior Kata and free style sparring go, don’t focus on the advanced techniques when your basics looked that bad! And with only the single black belt lady…all of them were to tense! They needed to relax and work on basic mechanics. But…no one wants to hear they need to “go back and start over”!
My daily ritual of training in the morning is exactly what I was trying to tell them….I go back and start off with the “crawling” before I start “walking” phase of Karate. I do basics and work on mechanics in my Gyaku zuki and Oi zuki and do the most basic movements to make sure I have them down for more advanced training…and often I don’t even get to the advanced stuff because I am not going to rush to the fun stuff just because I want to and leave the basics behind.
Now I say all of that but I don’t blame the students. I blame us, the instructors to some extent. I have read and been told by instructors, but they don’t listen to me when I correct them….its weak and I don’t like when instructors blame their short comings on students not listening. It’s a combination of some instructors rushing students to advance and really pushing them to test as often as possible and instructors who give up. They tray two or three different approaches and then throw in the towel thinking there is no hope for a student that does not get it…when in fact its normally the instructors inability to challenge the student to learn and not focus so much on testing!
In the end Rank and the color of the cloth around your Gi is not half as important as the knowledge that you house between your ears. It does not matter if you are “going for black belt” if you have not mastered the very basics you should have when you were “going for green belt”! I watched as 1st Kyu members were stepping in, placing their foot and then whipping their arms out to catch up to the stance…or shudder stepping by first moving backwards in their stance then quickly reversing that movement and stepping into the punch and I just thought to myself, they need more basics training and a mirror fast!
While Rank is not as important as mastering the knowledge and technical ability at each step, its not an excuse to stop training for a grade! By that I mean when you are a orange belt you need to focus on mastering the basics, Kumite, techniques and ability of people that are at orange belt! You need to master that level and then move up in rank to Green belt. And when you get to green belt you need to remember to go back and polish your old orange belt skills as well. Just because I have my black belt and I teach a lot does not mean I don’t sit their for hours each week focusing on my stance and my punching in the most basic of ways. I do Gyaku zuki and Oi zuki probably a few thousand times a week.
The process is this, first you learn what the techniques are at the most basic level. At white belt to green belt you are introduced to the most basic techniques and the dynamics of those movements. You are given a strict mold to fit into and you are following someone else ideas of techniques. You know basically nothing but you need to focus and push hard to master this level…it can take a year or so and it is worth going slow…Heck I took six years to get to my brown belt…while others get a black belt in three…but the level of understanding for each level is greater with the more time you spend as a specific level.
After you have a good understanding of basics you move into the intermediate level of making form natural for you. Your hard work now has paid off and you are the strict form….it shocks me how few people get to this level….and some wear black belts! This level is when you can learn Kata and understand them, you get introduced to more advanced level things but you pick it up fast because you know the basics and their form and function. You now start focusing on things like power and speed, explosive reactions and you can move from basic styles of Kumite to the more advanced like semi free and free style kumite. This should happen around 3rd or 2nd Kyu…but far to often it simply does not happen and kumite becomes jerky and dangerous. The students that don’t step back to a beginner level and focus on form even at this natural strict form level slide back quickly.
The last level of technique is the no form level and to be frank, that happens very seldom. Most black belts need to move back to the first form because they think by having bad form they have the most advanced level of form. Kind of makes me laugh!
Before you can move on to the more advanced movements and up in rank one should look at really mastering the baby steps of training. The core fundamentals are so important in performing good techniques and moving forwards in your karate training. Without them you halt your progress simply by not being able to perform the movements properly to move along in training.
Hard work does pay off however. You watch juniors that have good spirit and form and they seem to pick up things so much quicker. They push in home training and the instructor can move to advanced things in class and the whole Dojo benefits. It’s a good challenge for an instructor to have to come up with more and more advanced things because students work hard on basics at home. However, this is kind of rare and most instructors spend so much time going back and correcting things that they lose track of what kind of advanced things they were planning on training in .
Often I want to take seniors aside and suggest they skip a few testing’s and really focus on a weak point of performance in their training. But the focus on rank and just getting by is so strong that I know they won’t take their training as a unique and organic process and focus more on tangible advancements over a true breakthrough in training. My question still remains, do you want to be a black belt that quits and knows nothing or a black belt that wants to have earned their belt and knows that training is far important than grading that the goal should be on mastering form and movement and not on getting a shinny new rank belt around your waste!
Train hard….train harder!
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