One of the things that often trips up beginners in the martial arts is the difference between learning something and understanding it.
For illustration, let's take a simple upper body block. It's a fairly easy move to learn, and it's relatively common to many different martial arts styles, although the nuances may vary quite a bit. Imagining that a blow is coming toward's one's head, one raises their arm to get it in-between the incoming punch and their own head, and stops the punch. This is the basic block.
Now, one can see this in a book, or on a video, or be shown it by someone else, and they think they know how to perform the block. It's an easy misunderstanding to have.
How to Understand Basic Karate
Unfortunately, there is a world of difference between 'learning' to perform the block, and 'understanding' how to perform the block.
Some nuances that expand learning can be taught online as well. Tips such as crossing the center line with the rising block so that if one guesses wrong about which side the opponent is throwing the punch with, it will still be blocked. Or how to 'set' the block so that one does not get punched in the face with one's own fist as the block collapses under the opponent's power.
An in-person instructor will make additional adjustments that one typically doesn't see in a book or online, because they require adjustments that are based on the student's physical attributes. Things like the angle of the blocking arm, the height of the elbow relative to the student's body, how the feet connect the flow of incoming power to the floor, the bend in the knees, when to begin the block and what to do with the block once it is applied (such as follow up actions, like grasping and pulling, etc).
All of these things contribute to understanding, but they do not by themselves, constitute understanding.
The only way to gain understanding is to do the technique with a qualified instructor and a partner (who can be the instructor themselves) who force the student to either make the technique work, or get hit.
This has to be done over and over again, day by day, week by week. Adjustments will continue to be made, and there will slowly be a series of eye-opening 'ah hah!' moments involved. They might be small revelations, but they'll be there.
Little things like watching the opponent's midsection and not their eyes, to detect the beginning of the incoming punch. where the 'lock point' is for your individual block, where you can trust your block to handle the incoming blow and not even worry about it. The pacing that takes the place of 'only speed' so that the block is there at the right time, but not in a panic move. The sinking into the floor feeling that redirects the power of the incoming blow so that the arm doesn't have to be super-strong to absorb it. The 'spring tension' in the body that spreads out force.
All of these things, and more, contribute to the beginning of understanding a technique, rather than just learning it. They all take time, lots of time, and repetition, lots of repetition. Often one practices with a willing and trained partner who will at your request bring up the power and speed of the attack until it overmatches your ability, but forces you to improve. Incremental improvement is the goal.
So what is 'understanding' versus 'learning' then? Just lots of reps and tips until the technique gets locked in and works every time?
Actually, no. It's more than that. Being able to do a technique is one thing. Doing it well is something else. But true understanding means more than even that. It means you have begun to master things that go far beyond the technique itself.
In the case of our example, the upper body block, it means we begin to not just see, but begin to be able to demonstrate, how the block can be modified and used in other ways. Perhaps it is not simply a block, but can be a trap, a redirection, a strike. A combination of all of those things. Perhaps it can be applied even through the attack does not come in the form one expected. For example, a student is expecting a roundhouse punch, but instead a high kick is thrown, or a straight punch, or some other form of attack; the student who has some understanding of the technique is not trapped; they can use their technique anyway and it will work.
Eventually, an experienced and dedicated student will hopefully begin to think and move in terms of the abstractions that the technique represents, the parts it is made of, instead of just in terms of the bare mechanics of what the various body parts do.
There is no instruction book for this, and even though instructors who are well-qualified can talk about it and explain and demonstrate, this is something that either becomes a part of a student or it does not.
Nor does it really become part of the student's conscious thinking, like "Here comes the attack. I am going to do X and then Y and then Z, unless the opponent does A instead of B, etc etc." It becomes instinctive and part of the student's natural body movement. "Attack comes, I defend, attack failed," is about as far as it gets into one's conscious thinking.
Understanding begins when the technique is so natural and normal to the student that they can apply any part of the movement at any time for any situation and depend upon it to function as the student wanted it to. When techniques taken as a whole begin to blend together such that a 'block' technique immediately becomes a 'trap' technique to respond to the actual attack as needed, and without thinking about it. The arms move, the body repositions itself, the modified technique is applied and works.
It's the difference between learning to play a song by reading the sheet music and learning to play music by understanding how chord structure and notes work together to flow in a free form, on the fly, and still sound like music to the ears.
Understanding is not a destination; to the best of my knowledge, one never arrives at mastery. One simply continues to improve their understanding for as long as they live and continue to train diligently towards that goal. Personally, I am the furthest thing from a master - perhaps it is honest to say that I have begin to perceive some of what I may yet achieve in time, if I keep training hard. I can say that I have 'learned' to apply an upper body block. I am beginning to understand the technique in that I am starting to be able to use it when I need it for whatever comes my way as an attack. I am beginning to understand that attack, defense, it's all the same thing. Some people say a block is a strike and a strike is a block, but it's even more than that. Everything is everything. That's what it is. The question is whether or not a student can apply that, turn that concept into reality.
Keep training, and strive for understanding to complement learning!
