Something that I started saying a few years ago and I finally wrote down (on a chalkboard at my kwoon):
Advanced Techniques are:
1) Difficult -or-
2) Dangerous (to you) -or-
3) Dangerous (to someone else) -or-
4) Break some of the rules or defy some of the system's basic/intermediate principles -or-
5) Some combination of the above
So, it stands to reason, based on #4 that advanced techniques in one system could be beginner or intermediate techniques in another system. If you are a free-form, collector-of-techniques-as-a-style type of practitioner, I don't think this applies to you.
For the rest of you, regardless of what system you teach or train in, what are your thoughts?
Advanced techniques, to me, have always been those that I did not yet know how to do. I would imagine it is the same for everyone else. For example, everyone here who has practiced a martial art that involves kicking was at the point where they thought that side kicks were impossible.
"How do these people generate so much power?"
"How do I keep my balance while pivoting my root foot?"
"I'm just not flexible enough."
These are the
types of thoughts which I can state with 100% certainty everyone's experienced at some point while learning to sidekick. However, once you nail the kick down on both legs, and you constantly practice, the technique is no longer an
advanced technique. The word
advanced,
in my opinion (I understand that I could be wrong), is relative to each student, practitioner, fighter and sensei. Everyone has a set of techniques which they can execute in an almost legendary manner and they might consider as
easy or even
basic. Yet they will also have techniques which they whole heartedly avoid using, as they're not good enough with them yet and they might consider them advanced. Meanwhile, another practioner considers these same techniques easy, and the ones that former practioner has mastered, as advanced.