How much is "Busy Work"?

[Flying Crane]

I've seen people comment about Busy Work in their martial curriculum. Seems some people feel that certain aspects of their system's curriculum might have questionable value, and might have been incorporated by a previous generation of teacher(s) as a way of marketing and keeping a paying student body around for longer than they might otherwise stay. These are the types of comments that I've seen people make about various things, like a certain kata, or some of the self defense curriculum in their system.

I can see a few issues at play here. It might be that someone simply does not understand the material very well. But it could also be that the material is poorly designed and was simply intended as Busy Work.

So how many people see this in the system that you practice? Do you feel there may be some Busy Work in your system?

 

[stickarts]

Some material i consider core essentials and other material I consider good to know and interesting to play with, but not essential. I don't include anything that I think has no value.

 

[Flying Crane]

Some material i consider core essentials and other material I consider good to know and interesting to play with, but not essential. I don't include anything that I think has no value.

Thanks Frank,

I read this as you are making the decisions about what to teach and what not to teach. When you were a student training, did you feel there was Busy Work in what you were being taught? If so, did you deliberately weed this out from what you now teach?

 

[stickarts]

In my view, sometimes material taught in some of the seminars i attended were taught moreso because they were popular and entertained students rather than because the material was effective. I love seminars and I have attended, instructed, and promoted seminars consistently for 20+ years. The majority of the seminars that i have attended have been awesome and i have learned a lot. There have been some seminar cases where it seemed to me that it was high on entertainment value and low on solid effective material. :0) I try to learn something from everything taught. In some cases i learned that certain techniques weren't for me which is still an education! :0)

 

[oaktree]

I never thought of anything I did as busy work. But I have wondered about some things in the forms and what their use was.
In Chen Taijiquan we have some postures that leave me thinking like #2 Jin Gang Dao Dui 金刚捣碓 or Buddha's Warrior Attendant Pounds Mortar and #16 Pie Shen Quan 撇身捶 Striking Down by Twisting Body. I do not know their martial intent but they are part of the form and I am sure they have a vaild reason for being there. I am sure the possibility exist that people added things in forms for busy work but I like to believe that the person who added or created it really thought it had some useful application.

 

[WC_lun]

"Busy Work" goes against Wing Chun principles and concepts and thankfully I don't see any of it in the training I am recieving.

 

[MJS]

I've seen people comment about Busy Work in their martial curriculum. Seems some people feel that certain aspects of their system's curriculum might have questionable value, and might have been incorporated by a previous generation of teacher(s) as a way of marketing and keeping a paying student body around for longer than they might otherwise stay. These are the types of comments that I've seen people make about various things, like a certain kata, or some of the self defense curriculum in their system.

I can see a few issues at play here. It might be that someone simply does not understand the material very well. But it could also be that the material is poorly designed and was simply intended as Busy Work.

So how many people see this in the system that you practice? Do you feel there may be some Busy Work in your system?

Hey Mike,

IMO, I think that alot of it depends on the person. I'll use Kenpo, as thats a) something that you and I can both relate to and b) something that you and I have discussed many times. The extensions for example...you'll get someone like Doc who thinks they're all busy work and someone like Clyde who thinks they have value. Is it possible that the person just doesnt understand the real meaning? Sure. OTOH, its also possible that the reason the student thinks its busy work, is because the inst. doesnt understand it either, so its just a downward spiral.

When you hear people talk about stand up vs. grappling arts and dealing with multiple attackers, you'll always hear the grappler say, "Well, if you can't fight 1 and win, what makes you think you'll be able to win against 2 or more?" I've said the same thing regarding the huge number of Kenpo techs. Why do you need 20 punch defenses? If you cant defend yourself with 1 or 2 techs, the other 18 or 19 arent gonna help ya either...lol. So, in that case, yeah, I view that as busy work.

People tend to think that more is better, thus the reason why others think that alot of whats included in an art is busy work. Why is there so much? Is it really necessary? For the sake of the art, the history, etc, sure. For practicality...no, probably not. When I'd teach, yes, I'd teach all the material, even though I may've thought it was busywork. However, for my own training, I have a much more condensed list of what I train. IMO, I think that time would be better spent working on a core set of things, rather than a huge laundry list of things. How many times have you heard people talk about cross training? How many times have you heard people ask how more than 1 art can be done at the same time? Same thing here. I'd rather be kept busy with a small list of things that I know I can make work, rather than a huge list of things that chances are, I'll never be able to devote quality time to.

This isn't to say that it can't be done. I do more than 1 art. Yet, I'm not in a rush. I take small bits and drill them. So on the flip side, I suppose someone could take small bits of stuff from that laundry list and drill them. It all depends on the goal of the person. But you still have to work your way thru all that stuff, whereas if the list was smaller, if that busywork wasn't there......

 

[David43515]

I`d be careful about removing things you don`t see an application for right away, or think only has use in limited situations. It may not be practical but it might be there to teach a principle that`s otherwise difficult to grasp. Or you might just be tossing out something others would find useful.

I remember a few years ago reading on Marc MacYoung`s site, one of the guys had an old English copy of a well known Judo book published by the founder Kano back in the early days of the art. It`s still considered a classic "Go to" text in Japan. The English version from the 1920`s had a chapter of purely self defense katas being demonstrated by Kano himself. The modern Japanese versions haven`t contained the kata for so long that no one remembered that they even existed. He showed it to some Japanese friends and they begged him to let them copy the chapter. These guys were proffesionals whose job was training Judo coaches, and not only did they not know the katas, none of them had ever heard of them.

Of course, I suppose you have to be practical. I know for a fact that during the Vietnam war the US army was still teaching movements in bayonet drill that were designed specifically for facing a cavalry charge.

 

[MJS]

I`d be careful about removing things you don`t see an application for right away, or think only has use in limited situations. It may not be practical but it might be there to teach a principle that`s otherwise difficult to grasp. Or you might just be tossing out something others would find useful.

I remember a few years ago reading on Marc MacYoung`s site, one of the guys had an old English copy of a well known Judo book published by the founder Kano back in the early days of the art. It`s still considered a classic "Go to" text in Japan. The English version from the 1920`s had a chapter of purely self defense katas being demonstrated by Kano himself. The modern Japanese versions haven`t contained the kata for so long that no one remembered that they even existed. He showed it to some Japanese friends and they begged him to let them copy the chapter. These guys were proffesionals whose job was training Judo coaches, and not only did they not know the katas, none of them had ever heard of them.

Of course, I suppose you have to be practical. I know for a fact that during the Vietnam war the US army was still teaching movements in bayonet drill that were designed specifically for facing a cavalry charge.

Hi Dave,

Not sure if the above was for me or not, but I'll comment anyways. Yes, I do see what you're saying. As I said, I still taught the material as it was taught to me. I think alot of the time though, the concepts and ideas of an art can be taught, without having to have 40 different things to teach an idea. People should be able to build upon their basics, and figure things out. Additionally, I still feel that people think that more is better. In other words, if someone only had 8 SD techs per belt level, rather than 24, the students would get bored. They'd somehow be able to master these 8 in a day, and be ready to move on. But see...in cases like this, how many can honestly say that they "know" it? Probably not that many. I've seen it with my own eyes. I'd show someone something, tell them to work it and I'd be back to see how they're doing. I'd come back a few min. later, ask to see it, and it would suck. LOL. Like I said before, if you can't make 1 thing work effectively, knowing 100 other things probably isn't going to help either.

 

[punisher73]

I think it's a tough call. In most traditional, older arts the material was selected for a reason by the founder and money wasn't an object, you spent your time drilling and drilling the material and had to have it mastered before getting new materail. If you use karate as an example, the masters used to teach only 2-3 kata to a student based on their strengths. They would then teach everything to a single person or a very small number of people to pass on to the next generation of students. It wasn't until the time around WW2 that "kata collecting" started to come into play, many did it for historical purposes to preserve the karate of okinawa others started to systemitize their teachers approach and create styles based on katas.

Fast forward to more modern times. Most students don't want to spend 3-5 years learning basics and a kata like Sanchin. They want to keep learning more and more stuff to keep it new and fresh. Instructors, realize that to keep students happy they need new stuff, so many incorporate katas from other styles or create new material to add onto the other stuff.

I think "busy work" is material added just to have more material and keep a commercial student happy. If the material, no matter how extensive, is all unique and teaches it owns lessons and concepts that are important than I don't see it as "busy work" at all.

 

[kbarrett]

I know my students like a lot of hands on and partner training, pad work, sparring, westling, weapons sparring and other kinds of sparring we do, they like the jujutsu and ground work. They don't mind doing the Hyungs (kata) they understand that it help in their over all development, I do try and keep the curriculum small and not drawn out and my students seem to really enjoy their training much more that way.

Ken

 

[Flying Crane]

I hate to accuse anyone of creating deliberate busy work for marketing sake and for milking students for money or for some questionable motivations that may be related to greed. I do not know what their motivations may have been, so without that knowledge I am reluctant to make the accusation.

I will say that I have seen some things that have made me question what the purpose is. Some things that have struck me as perhaps poorly designed, tho the motivations of the designer may have been honest and honorable. Other things that may have simply been poorly understood so that the benefits of the practice may be minimal or non-existant.

The system that i study is pretty large, and to be honest I suspect that if one would thoroughly understand the lower level material, that would be plenty. I've not learned the complete system yet so I cannot really make a true judgement, but that is my suspicion, and my Sifu has essentially said as much. He jokes about why we have so much more material, and says, "It's so I have more to teach and you keep paying me!" but that's not the truth of it. Really, he says that it's because most of us (himself included) are not intelligent enough to truly grasp the full scope of the material thru the lower level material alone. Instead, we need to learn more before we have the vision and the experience to recognize that the lower material is all that is really needed. But we all need to take that long way around before we can understand that. I can see the wisdom in that point of view.

Thanks everyone, for the responses so far.

 

[Flying Crane]

Hey Mike,

IMO, I think that alot of it depends on the person. I'll use Kenpo, as thats a) something that you and I can both relate to and b) something that you and I have discussed many times. The extensions for example...you'll get someone like Doc who thinks they're all busy work and someone like Clyde who thinks they have value. Is it possible that the person just doesnt understand the real meaning? Sure. OTOH, its also possible that the reason the student thinks its busy work, is because the inst. doesnt understand it either, so its just a downward spiral.

When you hear people talk about stand up vs. grappling arts and dealing with multiple attackers, you'll always hear the grappler say, "Well, if you can't fight 1 and win, what makes you think you'll be able to win against 2 or more?" I've said the same thing regarding the huge number of Kenpo techs. Why do you need 20 punch defenses? If you cant defend yourself with 1 or 2 techs, the other 18 or 19 arent gonna help ya either...lol. So, in that case, yeah, I view that as busy work.

People tend to think that more is better, thus the reason why others think that alot of whats included in an art is busy work. Why is there so much? Is it really necessary? For the sake of the art, the history, etc, sure. For practicality...no, probably not. When I'd teach, yes, I'd teach all the material, even though I may've thought it was busywork. However, for my own training, I have a much more condensed list of what I train. IMO, I think that time would be better spent working on a core set of things, rather than a huge laundry list of things. How many times have you heard people talk about cross training? How many times have you heard people ask how more than 1 art can be done at the same time? Same thing here. I'd rather be kept busy with a small list of things that I know I can make work, rather than a huge list of things that chances are, I'll never be able to devote quality time to.

This isn't to say that it can't be done. I do more than 1 art. Yet, I'm not in a rush. I take small bits and drill them. So on the flip side, I suppose someone could take small bits of stuff from that laundry list and drill them. It all depends on the goal of the person. But you still have to work your way thru all that stuff, whereas if the list was smaller, if that busywork wasn't there......

There's a lot of truth in what you are saying here. Thanks for jumping in!

 

[oftheherd1]

I`d be careful about removing things you don`t see an application for right away, or think only has use in limited situations. It may not be practical but it might be there to teach a principle that`s otherwise difficult to grasp. Or you might just be tossing out something others would find useful.
...

I have to agree with the above. When I was taught knife defense, one of the moves seemed rather impractical to me. It involved a block with the forearm, and an almost simultaneous strike with a finger knuckle to the attacker's muscle. One day it finally dawned on me what a perfect defense it was if your back was to a wall and there was no warning nor any retreat possible. When I taught, I ensure my students knew that was its best use.

Of course, I suppose you have to be practical. I know for a fact that during the Vietnam war the US army was still teaching movements in bayonet drill that were designed specifically for facing a cavalry charge.

I have to admit, that just boggles my mind. Were you told some of your moves were for that, and did it seem to be so? The bayonet training I had was definitly against dismounted troops, who likely were attacking me with a bayoneted rifle as well. I can still hear my XO's (our instructor) remarks that there were only two types of people in the battlefield, the quick and the dead; a play on words, but true.

Hi Dave,
...

Like I said before, if you can't make 1 thing work effectively, knowing 100 other things probably isn't going to help either.

Well, first I am not a fan of learning only 6 or 8 "core" techniques/punches/kicks, or whatever. Perhaps OK for a SD class, but not for a MA. But making something work effectively is the responsibility of both the student and the instructor. The student needs to practice until they can, the instructor needs to keep showing and correcting until they can, or not promote. Even when things may seem, or even be similar, there are going to be differences in application (or should be) that make the thing taught worth while. If not, indeed what is the reason to teach it? But as students, we must ensure we understand what we are being taught and why.

Just my belief and two cents.

 

[punisher73]

The system that i study is pretty large, and to be honest I suspect that if one would thoroughly understand the lower level material, that would be plenty. I've not learned the complete system yet so I cannot really make a true judgement, but that is my suspicion, and my Sifu has essentially said as much. He jokes about why we have so much more material, and says, "It's so I have more to teach and you keep paying me!" but that's not the truth of it. Really, he says that it's because most of us (himself included) are not intelligent enough to truly grasp the full scope of the material thru the lower level material alone. Instead, we need to learn more before we have the vision and the experience to recognize that the lower material is all that is really needed. But we all need to take that long way around before we can understand that. I can see the wisdom in that point of view.

Thanks everyone, for the responses so far.

That really makes alot of sense. There IS redundant material so you can see it in all of it's manifestations to save you the time to try and figure all of them out and see how it is all interconnected.

 

[Flying Crane]

That really makes alot of sense. There IS redundant material so you can see it in all of it's manifestations to save you the time to try and figure all of them out and see how it is all interconnected.

yes, and it's really interesting because it is both redundant and different at the same time. My system is very heavy on forms practice and focuses on forms as the vehicle for teaching the method. The same techniques show up over and over in the different forms, but they are used in different combinations while at the same time some new material is presented as well. New ways of approaching the same techiniques, etc. Ultimately this all reinforces the same concept over and over: how to use the full body to drive any technique from any position, with devastating power. That is really what the entire system is built upon. The variations that exist in our system aren't really looked at as options of what to do if Bad Guy does X to you. Rather, it's seen as examples of how you can effectively move and deliver any technique, so that any movement can be a devastating technique.

I've thought about this a lot, and it occurs to me that on the very first day of study, we have taught the real secret of our method. But nobody is yet able to recognize it for what it is. We teach how to root and how to rotate and pivot, and how the rooting and pivot is used to drive technique. That is the real secret of our system and the mechanics of that are taught on the very first day.

Gradually, we introduce the different techniques, the ways of punching and striking. These are valid techniques as stand-alone, but really they are just examples of how you can use the rooting and rotation to drive a technique and simply opens the door to recognizing a method for using the full body. Later, as we learn our forms, we are learning more complex examples of how to use our basic principle, while moving, stepping, from different positions, etc. The movements themselves in the forms have very useful self defense applications, but again the real lesson is simply learning how to engage the root and the rotation to drive everything, from any position. The forms provide a wide range of examples of how this can be done. It's a more abstract approach to training than having a list of specific SD techs, but for me I can see the wisdom in it and it works well for me.

But getting back to the basics, after day one of training we've already taught the secret. If a student had the vision to recognize how that secret can be applied with everything, he would not need any further lessons. But most of us lack that vision in the beginning, and need to work thru the process and the material before we can recognize what is possible.

 

[Mark Lynn]

I think what might be termed as busy work, also could be system or category completion. Let me clarify.

In my weapons class we did a series of drills that was basically Nunchaku manipulation. Now the drill was based on the same drill pattern we used for the sai and tonfa, so Nunchaku techniques were created or adapted to the drill. Frankly I hated them, saw no use in them, and spoke out against them, figuring that there were better drills or rather that a better drill could be created to teach manipulation techniques. I saw it as busy work. There were other drills in some of the arnis curriculums that I have seen (studied) that seemed seminar filler material (busy work), which didn't have much application or bearing to me.

However when I was in Buffalo for the Modern Arnis Reunion Camp this year Datu Hartman spoke about "System (or Category) Completion" in that you do a technique (drill) in order to complete the system even though the chance of executing it or needing to execute it in that manner is remote to say the least. Let's say you have a knife thrust defense that uses a certain principle (say blending with the force), OK so you are teaching going with the force techniques and you show that one. However you much prefer blocking and just hitting the person instead of blending and passing. You show and teach the lesser important one (going with the force) as part of completing the category of techniques and you learn valuable skills in that, but your primary or main defense would be blocking and hitting.

This allows you to have or rank defenses as in A, B C, D, E, all teaching slightly different concepts in defense but still show how this concept of defense (going with the force) works against this type of attack and I rank it as an A (important) defense. However against another type of attack I rank it as a E (unlikely but still possible) therefore I spend most of my time on the A defenses, a little less time on the B defense and so on. But I'm learning to apply the different concepts in defending against an attack where it will have greater success than others. But even in that you are still learning and getting feedback.

I liked this idea because it made doing things a little easier with me taking a more pro view (there is a reason why I'm doing this) instead of the "this is BS" point of view. So to me "Busy Work" might just be Category Completion just not explained or only a protion of the orignial material because someone else through stuff out a long time ago.

 

[Flying Crane]

However when I was in Buffalo for the Modern Arnis Reunion Camp this year Datu Hartman spoke about "System (or Category) Completion" in that you do a technique (drill) in order to complete the system even though the chance of executing it or needing to execute it in that manner is remote to say the least. Let's say you have a knife thrust defense that uses a certain principle (say blending with the force), OK so you are teaching going with the force techniques and you show that one. However you much prefer blocking and just hitting the person instead of blending and passing. You show and teach the lesser important one (going with the force) as part of completing the category of techniques and you learn valuable skills in that, but your primary or main defense would be blocking and hitting.

I guess the question that comes to mind for me is, what are the categories, and who decides what categories are important and relevant? Who even decides what a category is?

 

[Mark Lynn]

I guess the question that comes to mind for me is, what are the categories, and who decides what categories are important and relevant? Who even decides what a category is?

That actually is my point, the instructor who is teaching at the time, the founder of the system, the person working out with another person in his garage, the father/mother teaching their kid. All of us in our training time whittle away at what we think is necessary for our students to learn, it constantly changes from person to person.

So what I might see as busy work now, might have been a lessor part of a system (category or whatever term), it might have been a very important part of someones system, who knows? What helped me to not just disregard things that I didn't like is to rank them in importance of training for me A techniques (I spend the more time on), B techniques a little less time and so on down the line to D or E (not so probable) but still worth the value of practicing and teaching because it helps me to make it work, to see a bigger overall picture etc. etc.

For me as a teacher I have to keep in mind my students, while I might not like a passing technique to get from the inside to the outside of a arm, if I discard it as worthless or busy work, then another student who is say shorter and can do that technique quite well will miss out on it if I don't show it or teach it. But do I need to spend a lot of time perfecting it? My student might but I have my own favorite techniques.

 

[K-man]

In the system I trained for many years there is an enormous amount of material I look at as not only useless, but material that could put you at a severe disadvantage if you were attacked on the street. Much of it was developed to assist in competition sparring and it expanded over the years to fill the curriculum.

When I left that style just over 2 years ago I was able to literally throw out more than half the material we had to know to progress through the grading system and concentrate on training that is relevant to karate as it was practised 100 years ago and for reality based self defence.

Contrary to the feelings expressed by some of the folk on MT, most of our attention is now on the kata and their reality based applications, the study of which will comfortably take me the rest of my karate life.

The sad truth is, the material I was able to delete was boring as bats#1t anyway.

I believe that if instructors looked at their curriculum with a critical eye they would find much material that is of little value.