Karate student’s improvement and development. An instructor perspective.
Written from the point of Wado karate but would easily apply to other systems.
Hopefully, there is something here for everyone, whatever stage you are at.
Previously, I have written two pieces on my view of how to work towards taking a grading exam: Tips on Karate Gradings. Part 1, Preparation. - by Tim Shaw. And: Tips on Karate Gradings. Part 2. The Grading itself. This piece has crossovers with that but goes into the area of general development.
Here I am going to map out the short and the long trajectory. Instant jumps forward and those that take a while to work out.
Flipping the switch.
This is an easy win. One piece of information, a position in kata, an approach presented by the Sensei and your mind grasps it straight away and, with hardly any effort you fix it – just like flicking on a light switch.
It is really useful to students to be able to identify the ease of such an adjustment. All ‘wins’ are valuable and convince them that progress is really happening.
Maturation – Time to bed-in.
This is based upon steady input and larger/smaller adjustments; but also lots of hard work and repetition. The good habits need establishing and time to solidify. The weaknesses and bad habits that students pick up need overriding and eliminating; it can’t happen like the flick of a switch.
As an instructor, you can measure how successful this is by putting the student under pressure to see if, or when, the wheels fall off.
Example; solo kata instruction:
The Sensei drip-feeds the adjustment, then the hard work of repetition begins. At the right time the teacher gets the student to rip into full-bore runs-through, and if the adjustments have not bedded in, and they go back to making the same (earlier) errors, then it’s ‘Yikes’ and back to the drawing board – Sensei face-palm, then more repetitions.
Self-revelation.
Not as obvious as you might think; but if it happens properly, it’s the one that the student (and the Sensei) value the most, as it came from the person’s own sweat and mature reflection. Truly Nectar from the Gods.
BUT… I have seen it used as a fig leaf, a cheap ‘get-out’ for the Sensei.
The bull***t side of this is when the student is told, ‘you just have to repeat and repeat and repeat and the higher level will reveal itself’. Yes, at base level, the logic is sound, but…
It can also be a convenient fantasy. The student is caught in a bind and the unscrupulous Sensei gets away Scott-free.
Here’s how it works; If the student fails to reach the next level, the Sensei convinces them they just haven’t worked hard enough. The responsibility is put squarely on the student’s shoulders, while the Sensei just sits back. Add to this that the student can’t question it, because it looks like they are being entitled and whiney, wanting it all on a plate. Typical Catch-22.
However, this type of self-revelation can happen and should happen, but it comes out of thoughtful and targeted micro-clues supplied by the Sensei to coax the student to join up the dots so that they can truly own it. This rests on the soft skills of the Sensei, to really know the student and read the situation.
Extreme cases: Press the reset button and ‘Return to factory settings’.
In my days as a High School teacher, once had a teacher of mathematics come to observe one of my art lessons, on the skills of drawing from direct observation. Afterwards, she told me how impressed she was but that I would never be able to teach her to draw, adding that she always felt she had no aptitude for it.
Myself, being a total maths duffer I said, ‘Well you wouldn’t be able to teach me maths’. She then said that she could teach anyone how to do maths – all she needed to do is figure out where I ‘got off the bus’. “That’s weird” I said, “because that’s exactly what I would do to teach you how to draw”. Put another way, all I have to do is track back far enough to get to the point where you lost the plot and move forward from there.
There is a common phenomenon where a karate student, for whatever reasons, is compelled to switch styles. This can cause all kinds of problems, particularly if they have achieved a high grade in their original system. The learning of new kata (solo or paired) is a miniscule problem compared to that of having to completely change the operating system.
Wado is particularly difficult to jump into (even if the particular branch of Wado doesn’t really care and is just doing it for the physical jerks or making ‘Wado-like shapes’). It’s not what you do, it’s the way you do it, and it can get very very technical.
To make that leap takes a barrel-load of physical self-awareness. Where this gets really difficult is when a guy (it’s always guys) has a particular model of STRENGTH in his head that he just can’t shift.
A while back there was a TV show where a well-known celebrity, who was a keen amateur guitarist was presented with the challenge of submitting himself to take lessons with an absolute master guitar teacher, the total top of the tree. It all started out okay, until the teacher began to really pick his technique apart. The celeb had a hissy fit and just refused to accept the changes, thinking he knew better, and then he just angrily walked out. It wasn’t a good look for the celeb.
A certain kind of ego just can’t take it. It needs a kind of humility, submission to authority and opening of the mind (I am tempted to say ‘empty your cup’ but it’s become too much of a cliché).
As a final word…
The value of repetition.
‘Repeat, repeat and repeat again’. Every karate student has heard this mantra, to the point whereby it becomes trite, stale and almost meaningless. Here I am going to give you another model that might help to solidify how it really works – it’s all about the flimsiest of substances, tissue paper.
It works like this…
Imagine that each repetition of kata is like hand-made tissue paper, which you create and then gently lay it on the floor. It has such a diaphanous nature that the slightest breeze would blow it away. Of course, in making the paper you cannot allow shoddy workmanship to creep in – it must be as good as you can make it.
With each repetition you stack the sheets of paper on top of each other. At first your stack looks insignificant, but after twenty or thirty pieces it takes on a little more heft; after five hundred it becomes a significant stack. And beyond that, when you get into the thousands, you’d need a forklift truck to pick it up. That is, it has considerable substance and it’s all through the dedication of sustained sweat and labour. This is how repetition works (I’ve also heard it said that it is like trying to create a mountain one coat of paint at a time).
I hope these musings are of interest to martial arts students, even if they are just confirmations of things you’d figured out already.