A New Approach to Basics
For those of you who know me and are my students, you know that I am always thinking about our class objectives and how to structure our curriculum and learning to meet those objectives. I've deviated a little from what my teacher taught, but up to this point, other then rearranging some concepts, I've remained consistent.
I want to put out an idea that may change alot of how our class is run. It will definitely create more work for those of you who have been with me for a long time, but in the end, I think it will make us better martial artists.
Here is some background info that will help put this idea into context.
Kara-te is originally an Okinawan art. The art was called Te. Tangsoodo took that art after it had been imported to Japan and infused some Chinese concepts into the training. When Te moved to Japan, it was undergoing some major changes. One of them was the inclusion of Te into the school curriculum. Our Pyung Ahn hyungs are a direct of this! In Okinawa, these were called the Pinan Katas and they were created by a Master of Te who also happened to be a schoolteacher. Master Itosu wanted to teach Te to children in order to prepare them for the military. So he adapted a number of the classical forms (Channan and Kusanku mostly) in order to accomplish this goal. The bottom line is that the Pinan forms were the physical education curriculum for a generation of students in Okinawa.
One of Master Itosu's students was a man named Gichin Funikoshi. He learned Itosu's Te at an early age in Okinawa. Jigoro Kano, the founder of Kodokan Judo, happened to meet Funikoshi in Okinawa. Kano watched Funikoshi perform Te and immediately saw that this art had merit so he urged Funikoshi to move to Japan and teach it. Gichin Funikoshi's school in Japan became known as the "House of Shoto" (Shotokan in Japanese) which was named after Funikoshi's pen name. This is how the Japanese started practicing Kare-te.
When concepts move from culture to culture, they often change in order to fit the circumstances of that culture. Te moving to Japan was no different. In Japan, the concept of Te as a physical education curriculum was taken to a new level because Japan is so much more populous when compared to Okinawa. Te was changed again in order to serve massive amounts of people. Shotokan eventually became this art. The Japanese recognized that their art was different then Te so they changed the ideogram for Kara-te, which means to China Hand, to Empty Hand.
This Japanese derivation of Kara-te was eventually imported to Korea...where it underwent more changes. Korea had its own martial arts Taekyon and Subak which came from China. These martial arts were infused into Japanese Kara-te and Tang Soo Do was the result. Our kicking is a direct result of this cultural blending (the ideogram was changed back to China Hand by the Koreans).
Tang Soo Do was taught by Hwang Kee at his school, the Moo Duk Kwan, and passed to Lawrence Seiberlich...who was serving in Korea at the time. He brought Tang Soo Do to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Master Seiberlich was the teacher of Bill Nelson and he opened a school in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Master Nelson taught Dan Knoll Tang Soo Do and eventually Mr. Knoll passed Tang Soo Do to me...and now I'm passing it to you.
I'm telling you this story, because I want you to see something. Alot of things have happened on the journey that brought Tang Soo Do to us. It has changed alot from the original form of Okinawan Te. This is very important to understand in order to understand the idea that I've been toying with.
How many times have I told you that "the root of our art is the hyung"? Hwang Kee said this all of the time and wrote it in his book about Tang Soo Do. I've taken this to heart in my practice of Tang Soo Do and one of my goals in our dojang is to make sure my students really understand the hyung. This comes directly from my teacher and it is one of the reasons why he added all the locking and throwing and pressure points. This separates us from the bulk of the Tang Soo Do community and much of the Shotokan community because traditionally Kihon (basic hand and foot techniques), Kata (forms), and Kumite (sparring) were all that is done (some dojos do more, but in my experience and from what I've read, this is generally the case).
The theory behind the Kihon/Kata/Kumite concept is relatively simple. Basics prepare one to do the forms. The forms teach one how to spar. Sparring prepares you for self-defense. This comes directly from the Okinawan Te, but it has been changed as it was passed along. In Japan, for instance, the grappling techniques were taken out of the basics lists because they didnt want it to compete with Judo. Another change was the mass marketing of Te to many people. Okinawan dojos are small and family orientated like ours. In Japan, however, Karate became big business.
How many of you have seen the old movies where hundreds of people are doing techniques and forms in perfect unison in these seemingly endless lines? That is the image of Karate that westerners have because that is what we inherited. In order to accomplish this, teaching the meaning behind the movements took a back seat to just practicing the movements themselves. A low block was just a low block and it wasnt all of the things that I have shown you that it is. This, in my opinion, is how the basics became disconnected from the forms. The physical movement choreographed a piece of the form but the meaning behind that movement was lost.
One of my goals in our dojang is to reconnect the basics and the forms. My teacher provided a platform that helped me understand the forms and now Im going to jump off and take it a step further. The line drills that we practice were created with the assumption that a low block is just a low block and a front punch is just a front punch. There is nothing wrong with this assumption, that is how basics should work, but the movements themselves have been disconnected from there meaning.
This begs the question what are basics? My answer is that they are striking, blocking, grappling, and throwing. We practice all of these with partners and with resistance, but with two of these we also practice old traditional line drills. These take a lot of time to learn and one of the things that Ive noticed is that our blocking and striking skills often take a back seat to this. Line drills are important because they teach one the fundamental techniques in the form, but sometime a block is just a block, a kick a kick, and a punch a punch. I believe we need to get back to that.
The idea that I would like to discuss with you is this
How would you feel if we only used line drills to learn the techniques in the forms and we replaced our entire striking and blocking lists with two person drills done with resistance pads? Line drills would no longer be required material for tests and actual striking, blocking, grappling, and throwing an opponent would. Please reply to this and let me know how you feel because this is a major change in how we would do things. I would need to completely rework our requirement sheets in order to make this happen. The more I think about this, however, I think that it is important. It could help us better meet the goals of our dojang and I believe that it would take us closer to our martial arts roots.
Please think about this. Think about the context that I provided. Think about the consequences such a change would have. I value your opinions as my students. Lets discuss this
upnorthkyosa
ps I would like to open this idea up to the MT community in order to get all sorts of feedback. Thanks for reading this and please respond.
For those of you who know me and are my students, you know that I am always thinking about our class objectives and how to structure our curriculum and learning to meet those objectives. I've deviated a little from what my teacher taught, but up to this point, other then rearranging some concepts, I've remained consistent.
I want to put out an idea that may change alot of how our class is run. It will definitely create more work for those of you who have been with me for a long time, but in the end, I think it will make us better martial artists.
Here is some background info that will help put this idea into context.
Kara-te is originally an Okinawan art. The art was called Te. Tangsoodo took that art after it had been imported to Japan and infused some Chinese concepts into the training. When Te moved to Japan, it was undergoing some major changes. One of them was the inclusion of Te into the school curriculum. Our Pyung Ahn hyungs are a direct of this! In Okinawa, these were called the Pinan Katas and they were created by a Master of Te who also happened to be a schoolteacher. Master Itosu wanted to teach Te to children in order to prepare them for the military. So he adapted a number of the classical forms (Channan and Kusanku mostly) in order to accomplish this goal. The bottom line is that the Pinan forms were the physical education curriculum for a generation of students in Okinawa.
One of Master Itosu's students was a man named Gichin Funikoshi. He learned Itosu's Te at an early age in Okinawa. Jigoro Kano, the founder of Kodokan Judo, happened to meet Funikoshi in Okinawa. Kano watched Funikoshi perform Te and immediately saw that this art had merit so he urged Funikoshi to move to Japan and teach it. Gichin Funikoshi's school in Japan became known as the "House of Shoto" (Shotokan in Japanese) which was named after Funikoshi's pen name. This is how the Japanese started practicing Kare-te.
When concepts move from culture to culture, they often change in order to fit the circumstances of that culture. Te moving to Japan was no different. In Japan, the concept of Te as a physical education curriculum was taken to a new level because Japan is so much more populous when compared to Okinawa. Te was changed again in order to serve massive amounts of people. Shotokan eventually became this art. The Japanese recognized that their art was different then Te so they changed the ideogram for Kara-te, which means to China Hand, to Empty Hand.
This Japanese derivation of Kara-te was eventually imported to Korea...where it underwent more changes. Korea had its own martial arts Taekyon and Subak which came from China. These martial arts were infused into Japanese Kara-te and Tang Soo Do was the result. Our kicking is a direct result of this cultural blending (the ideogram was changed back to China Hand by the Koreans).
Tang Soo Do was taught by Hwang Kee at his school, the Moo Duk Kwan, and passed to Lawrence Seiberlich...who was serving in Korea at the time. He brought Tang Soo Do to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Master Seiberlich was the teacher of Bill Nelson and he opened a school in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Master Nelson taught Dan Knoll Tang Soo Do and eventually Mr. Knoll passed Tang Soo Do to me...and now I'm passing it to you.
I'm telling you this story, because I want you to see something. Alot of things have happened on the journey that brought Tang Soo Do to us. It has changed alot from the original form of Okinawan Te. This is very important to understand in order to understand the idea that I've been toying with.
How many times have I told you that "the root of our art is the hyung"? Hwang Kee said this all of the time and wrote it in his book about Tang Soo Do. I've taken this to heart in my practice of Tang Soo Do and one of my goals in our dojang is to make sure my students really understand the hyung. This comes directly from my teacher and it is one of the reasons why he added all the locking and throwing and pressure points. This separates us from the bulk of the Tang Soo Do community and much of the Shotokan community because traditionally Kihon (basic hand and foot techniques), Kata (forms), and Kumite (sparring) were all that is done (some dojos do more, but in my experience and from what I've read, this is generally the case).
The theory behind the Kihon/Kata/Kumite concept is relatively simple. Basics prepare one to do the forms. The forms teach one how to spar. Sparring prepares you for self-defense. This comes directly from the Okinawan Te, but it has been changed as it was passed along. In Japan, for instance, the grappling techniques were taken out of the basics lists because they didnt want it to compete with Judo. Another change was the mass marketing of Te to many people. Okinawan dojos are small and family orientated like ours. In Japan, however, Karate became big business.
How many of you have seen the old movies where hundreds of people are doing techniques and forms in perfect unison in these seemingly endless lines? That is the image of Karate that westerners have because that is what we inherited. In order to accomplish this, teaching the meaning behind the movements took a back seat to just practicing the movements themselves. A low block was just a low block and it wasnt all of the things that I have shown you that it is. This, in my opinion, is how the basics became disconnected from the forms. The physical movement choreographed a piece of the form but the meaning behind that movement was lost.
One of my goals in our dojang is to reconnect the basics and the forms. My teacher provided a platform that helped me understand the forms and now Im going to jump off and take it a step further. The line drills that we practice were created with the assumption that a low block is just a low block and a front punch is just a front punch. There is nothing wrong with this assumption, that is how basics should work, but the movements themselves have been disconnected from there meaning.
This begs the question what are basics? My answer is that they are striking, blocking, grappling, and throwing. We practice all of these with partners and with resistance, but with two of these we also practice old traditional line drills. These take a lot of time to learn and one of the things that Ive noticed is that our blocking and striking skills often take a back seat to this. Line drills are important because they teach one the fundamental techniques in the form, but sometime a block is just a block, a kick a kick, and a punch a punch. I believe we need to get back to that.
The idea that I would like to discuss with you is this
How would you feel if we only used line drills to learn the techniques in the forms and we replaced our entire striking and blocking lists with two person drills done with resistance pads? Line drills would no longer be required material for tests and actual striking, blocking, grappling, and throwing an opponent would. Please reply to this and let me know how you feel because this is a major change in how we would do things. I would need to completely rework our requirement sheets in order to make this happen. The more I think about this, however, I think that it is important. It could help us better meet the goals of our dojang and I believe that it would take us closer to our martial arts roots.
Please think about this. Think about the context that I provided. Think about the consequences such a change would have. I value your opinions as my students. Lets discuss this
upnorthkyosa
ps I would like to open this idea up to the MT community in order to get all sorts of feedback. Thanks for reading this and please respond.
