# Hardest thing for YOU to learn?



## Big Don (Jul 1, 2008)

In your training what was the hardest thing for you to learn?
Was it a specific basic, a technique, a mindset?
Mine was the over shoulder rolls. Oooh I hate them.
Technique wise, Shield and Sword kills me for some reason.


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## Fiendlover (Jul 1, 2008)

Big Don said:


> In your training what was the hardest thing for you to learn?
> Was it a specific basic, a technique, a mindset?
> Mine was the over shoulder rolls. Oooh I hate them.
> Technique wise, Shield and Sword kills me for some reason.


Flying side kick.  still can't do them and look retarded at every attempt.


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## Sukerkin (Jul 1, 2008)

In Lau, I'd go along with *Fiend* and say that the flying kicks were hardest for me to get used to.  I never used them in sparring, which goes to show how little I liked them .

In MJER, it has to be the kata sets that use the _tate hiza_ posture.  I find it excruciatingly painful most times we practice them and that rather takes the shine off :lol:.


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## Empty Hands (Jul 1, 2008)

Spinning kicks of all varieties.  Back shoulder rolls.  I love Shield and Sword though, I just "got" that one from the first time I tried it.


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## stickarts (Jul 1, 2008)

Anything with jumping was never my forte. I was never built to jump all that well.


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## Gordon Nore (Jul 1, 2008)

stickarts said:


> Anything with jumping was never my forte. I was never built to jump all that well.



Same here. In the flying department, I am utterly graceless.


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## Whitebelt (Jul 2, 2008)

Its the cartwheel for me. It doesn't come up in my sillabus but we do it simply for balance, agility and streignth purposes.  Being about 6'3" I'm not the tallest man in the world but spinning myself lengthwise throws me completely.


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## kidswarrior (Jul 2, 2008)

To keep my offside hand up as a check. Most of my pre-MA life, I always counted on hand speed to be able to catch an offside/extra blow, but that's dumb. :duh: For example yesterday wehn teaching a class, a white belt got so scared when I did a (very gentle :angel takedown, he kinda spasmed and by reflex kicked out and landed one in my face--and we train in shoes  Had to stop and bend my glasses back into shape. :boing1: If I'd had the offhand in position, it would have automatically blocked that. Stupid, stupid, stupid.


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## Sukerkin (Jul 2, 2008)

Ouch!  Hope you're okay, mate?  That there Sensei Pain is a good teacher but a bit harsh sometimes .


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## girlbug2 (Jul 2, 2008)

Glancing Spear and Returning Storm are ones I still have to take very slowly. Who knows why.

I also had a hard time learning Short Form 2 and I struggled with it for months. Then one day it just "clicked".

Now with those tumbles and kicks I never had a problem. Could be a "girl thing"


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## kidswarrior (Jul 2, 2008)

Sukerkin said:


> Ouch! Hope you're okay, mate? That there Sensei Pain is a good teacher but a bit harsh sometimes .


 Naw, not hurt, thanks. :asian: You know what a boxer says when you hit him in the head, right? _Thank you._ Now the body...  So even tho I'm an oooold boxer, head's the best place for me to take a shot. :uhyeah:


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## morph4me (Jul 2, 2008)

The hardest thing for me to learn was to relax and move out of the way. It never really bothered me to tak a shot, so I would stand there and block or take the shot and go fromt there. It took me a long time to finally get the hang of moving out of the way, and relaxing took even longer.


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## Kembudo-Kai Kempoka (Jul 2, 2008)

To keep my heels kicked out in my neutral bow, and not be too wide in my stance. Been at it 37 years, and it's still a thing for me. I blame it on JMA training.

D.


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## Doc (Jul 2, 2008)

Kembudo-Kai Kempoka said:


> To keep my heels kicked out in my neutral bow, and not be too wide in my stance. Been at it 37 years, and it's still a thing for me. I blame it on JMA training.
> 
> D.



The good news; better too far out than not enough. I feel sooner than later from your efforts, (and my reminders), the body will settle in. Once it happens, your body locks in and reinforces itself every time you do it correctly.


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## MarkC (Jul 2, 2008)

I always hated having to do ( or attempt to do) jump spinning crescent kicks.
I couldn't understand why I should anyway, none appear in any of our forms, and only in our kicking set, none in self defense techniques, and I'd certainly never try one in real life.
I also had a hard time with wristlocks in the heat of the moment, especially when the wrist in question was sweaty.

Like others, my stances need work. Our forms use low stances and we were always encouraged to get down in the stance. Not that I ever achieved very excellent stances, but the nagging habit of thinking I need to stretch out and get lower is alway there.

I need severe instruction and work on the Neutral Bow; we don't have it, we use what we call a "natural fighting stance", which very generally resembles it, but I strive to get the real thing down correctly. Not an easy thing to do with no "personal instruction" at hand....

But my main difficulty is achieving and maintaining the balance between underconfidence and overconfidence.

Edit: Once again, I see that I must apologize for posting in an EPAK thread, when I'm not an EPAK guy! (Just a shameless stealer of that which I want to use)


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## Kembudo-Kai Kempoka (Jul 2, 2008)

Doc said:


> The good news; better too far out than not enough. I feel sooner than later from your efforts, (and my reminders), the body will settle in. Once it happens, your body locks in and reinforces itself every time you do it correctly.


 
Ayup. Elisa teases me about being a skateboard rider if I get too narrow. At least I shook that habit. Oy.


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## tshadowchaser (Jul 2, 2008)

The hardest thing for me to learn, when I studied this system, was not to hit my sparring opponent in the head .  Not sure if it was because of the school I was attending at the time  insisting on no  head contact or because I had been trained differently in a different system.  I once had to sit down with the instructor after class and explain that his constantly telling his students no head contact had led to most of the students not even bothering to block anything thrown at their heads. That was something I felt would hurt them in the streets of Anaheim.
Now I did try to keep the contact down but sometimes got carried away and made some contact.  

The other thing I had a hard time getting used to was children calling adults and higher ranking students (black belts) by their first names.  Maybe that was just a cultural thing being raised in a different part of the country.  I never have got used to children calling adults by their first name.

Other than that learning the names of techniques by name not number was new to me but I did learn after a time


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## kenpofighter (Jul 2, 2008)

Right off head it would be remembering which tech. name goes with which tech. it's a hard one for me.


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## Big Don (Jul 2, 2008)

kenpofighter said:


> Right off head it would be remembering which tech. name goes with which tech. it's a hard one for me.


Amen, brother!


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