Let me ask this

[Danjo]

FC---this is very interesting and reminds me of what a guy I knew at university who was a ranked International Master in chess once told me, in a conversation which turned to people's conception of grandmasters being able to see 10 moves ahead or more. What he said was, no one does that unless there's a mating situation set up where every single response to an attack is forced. Otherwise, he said, the average `great' chess player doesn't try to see more than a few moves ahead; but what differentiates the great player from the ordinary woodpusher is a deep intuition about how any given move sends ripples through the alignment of forces currently on the board. It sounds very similar to your point here...

Holy Moley, that was a good response.

 

[exile]

Good analogy. Very interesting. I often wished I had a deep understanding of chess, but alas, I am an ordinary woodpusher...

Me too, and years of playing never really let me improve past a certain point. Like others, I had the misimpression that guys like this chap were gifted with an incredible ability to store all kinds of branching possibilities in their heads. But he was very emphatic that he didn't do that and except where it was clear there were no branches except the one (the longed for long forced mate that you call out without actually touching the pieces, in your fantasies), he couldn't do it. What he could do was something that he couldn't explain, and that forever separates guys like him from the rest of us.

I wonder if the really great MAists---not just kenpoists but in all the arts---are the ones who have a physical analogue of my friend's cerebral gift: they have a sense of what to go after, what will absolutely minimize the response space of their opponent, such that even if the latter evades a technique, they're still in a box of some kind that sets up the MAist's next moves---moves that the kenpoist can `see' by virtue of his or her training and innate gift for the art---and so on, till by convergence the attacker is on the ground. If that kind of physical intuition is present, then just being able to see a few techniques ahead would be enough. This is all purely speculation---kenpo isn't my art, though I love to watch it and have the greatest respect for it...

 

[HKphooey]

Me too, and years of playing never really let me improve past a certain point. Like others, I had the misimpression that guys like this chap were gifted with an incredible ability to store all kinds of branching possibilities in their heads. But he was very emphatic that he didn't do that and except where it was clear there were no branches except the one (the longed for long forced mate that you call out without actually touching the pieces, in your fantasies), he couldn't do it. What he could do was something that he couldn't explain, and that forever separates guys like him from the rest of us.

I wonder if the really great MAists---not just kenpoists but in all the arts---are the ones who have a physical analogue of my friend's cerebral gift: they have a sense of what to go after, what will absolutely minimize the response space of their opponent, such that even if the latter evades a technique, they're still in a box of some kind that sets up the MAist's next moves---moves that the kenpoist can `see' by virtue of his or her training and innate gift for the art---and so on, till by convergence the attacker is on the ground. If that kind of physical intuition is present, then just being able to see a few techniques ahead would be enough. This is all purely speculation---kenpo isn't my art, though I love to watch it and have the greatest respect for it...

First, great post!

Second,
This is were the "artist/painter" analogy in martial arts comes into play. A great artist sees the end product before they even begin to paint. Along the way, things may change, or the he/she makes a mistake; but his/her skill to adapt or correct his/her mistakes/changes are what makes them great.

Kenpo has one nice palate of colors!

There was another thread a while back about "creative minds" or "right minded" in th martial arts and are they better at picking things up. I think there is a definite connection. Your creativity helps you see things play out.

As some have mentioned, the techniques are designed to engrain movements and make them part of our everyday motor skills.

 

[exile]

First, great post!

Thanks HKphooey (and Danjo and Flying Crane) for your kind words---just one of those cases where something someone says drags out of your memory some really striking parallel that you haven't thought about for years---decades, really...

Second,
This is were the "artist/painter" analogy in martial arts comes into play. A great artist sees the end product before they even begin to paint. Along the way, things may change, or the he/she makes a mistake; but his/her skill to adapt or correct his/her mistakes/changes are what makes them great.

That it's exactly. I remember reading an essay on prodigies in music, mathematics and chess once, in which the author noted that creativity in these areas---what distinguishes the greater from the lesser practitioners---is their ability to see define their art in terms of formal problems that can be solved with the resources at hand. It's almost never conscious, and it demands a grasp of the relationships among the parts of the system that most mortals don't get to. I think MAists are in the same position---there is a space of possibilities which their opponent is moving in and the problem to be solved is to force that movement into a smaller and smaller space until the opponent is immobilized (i.e., they can do nothing but comply with the MAist's controlling moves). I've noticed that kenpoists sometimes talk in these terms and I think it's a very good way of seeing the MAs generally.

Kenpo has one nice palate of colors!

Yes---it's quite beautiful---the emphasis on flow is particularly outstanding; in TKD we talk about flow and there are drills to practice it, but the kind of liquid grace in some of the better kenpo videos I've seen since joining MT is unique---the way the circular and linear techniques play off and feed each ot her is really impressive.

There was another thread a while back about "creative minds" or "right minded" in th martial arts and are they better at picking things up. I think there is a definite connection. Your creativity helps you see things play out.

As some have mentioned, the techniques are designed to engrain movements and make them part of our everyday motor skills.

Right, there is a connection, and I think at a certain point it becomes difficult for skilled practitioners to say just what it is that they are seeing. They can do it, but they have fused so many separate insights and components of the art together that it's difficult to identify the pieces.

This I think is why great practitioners aren't always the greatest teachers. To be a great teacher you have to see what separate pieces the student needs to master to eventually reach the level where perception, anticipation and action are all integrated---the kind of thing you know you're seeing when you watch MAist at the highest level. Looking at some of the kenpo videos that people have posted links to, I have to echo something that michaeledward said on another thread---there's just way too much information to take in past a certain point. But it's so smooth and, well, flowing...

 

[JasonASmith]

Holy crap, this thread got philosophical quick!
That's the nature of Kenpo though, isn't it?
Great responses!

 

[exile]

Holy crap, this thread got philosophical quick!

:wink1:

That's the nature of Kenpo though, isn't it?

I think it's just the fact that kenpo is so attractive an art, and hangs together in certain kind of way when it's done well which I find difficult to explain. It's not that other MAs aren't also beautiful to watch when performed by a master, but kenpo... well, I was going to say it makes violence seem almost lyrical, but that would be kind of going over the top, eh? Still, that's how it strikes me, when it's done really well...

 

[Pacificshore]

A well trained advanced student in any MA IMO, is pure poetry in motion.

I like that

 

[hongkongfooey]

Or can all of these moves be seperated and used individually, so you have a repertoire of responses?

You had the answer the whole time.

 

[exile]

Or can all of these moves be seperated and used individually, so you have a repertoire of responses

You had the answer the whole time.

JAS---HKph's right on target here. You don't even have to go as far as the very elaborate forms in kenpo. Taekwondo probably has the most compact (= compressed) forms of all the various karate-based MAs, but even here, you can break them up into separate sequences, each of which corresponds to a separate defense (= counterattack) scenario. In any given 20 move TKD form, like the early Palgwes, you probably have four or five separate scenarios implicit in the forms. As things start getting longer, the number of scenarios goes way up. The very first of the forms we teach in my dojang, Kicho Il Jang, begins with a down block in front stance followed by a straight lunge punch in a new front stance, then a 180 turn with a mirror image of the first two moves. Those first four sequences can be given a very plausible interpretation as a devastating counter to a grab (or possibly a punch) consisting of a wrist lock becoming an arm lock becoming a strike to the throat (with maybe an elbow strike setting up the attack on the throat), or strike to a vital spot in the arm, or an armbar forcing a throw, followed by a strike to the throat, followed by a hard punch to the base of the skull, followed by a throw across the defender's body (that 180 degree `turn'), followed by another punch to the base of the skull. Probably unnecessary, that last bit, because at this point the attacker is probably dead, and at best is not feeling too good. That's four moves out of a twenty move hyung. And they get a good deal longer... and that's short compared with the kenpo forms.

Part of what you would have learned in the old days in Okinawa (and China before that, I guess) would be how to `parse' the forms into modular defensive scenarios, giving you, in any one form, a huge repertoire of techniques for defending against just about any attack under the sun. Funakoshi studies the Naihanchi kata exclusively for nine years. When you see all the possibilities that the kata contain, it's not that surprising, eh?

 

[hongkongfooey]

People get too hung up on performing Kenpo techniques as a set in stone way to deal with an attack, ignoring the real reason they are in the system in the first place, to teach concepts and principles.

 

[exile]

People get too hung up on performing Kenpo techniques as a set in stone way to deal with an attack, ignoring the real reason they are in the system in the first place, to teach concepts and principles.

In TKD, and maybe karate too, that doesn't happen, because it's so abundantly clear that the hyungs/kata aren't really ready-made set-pieces to carry out literally in case of an attack, but are catalogues of (mostly concealed) fighting techniques, intended to be understood, trained and stored in muscle memory until such time as needed. A kiss may be just a kiss and a sigh just a sigh, but a `rising block' is definitely not a rising block. So no one goes around learning hyungs/kata as literal techniques to apply off-the-shelf in response to an assailant. But it sounds, from what you're saying here, that the kenpo technique drills are not like TKD/karate forms. They are meant to be taken literally and their bunkai are not concealed. Is this right, HKph? A elbow strike will not be concealed within the chambering phase of a down block but will be taught upfront as an elbow strike, followed by a knife-edge strike to the throat with the same arm, all of it transparent and meant to be taken literally? Is that the way kenpo technique drills work?

 

[hongkongfooey]

In TKD, and maybe karate too, that doesn't happen, because it's so abundantly clear that the hyungs/kata aren't really ready-made set-pieces to carry out literally in case of an attack, but are catalogues of (mostly concealed) fighting techniques, intended to be understood, trained and stored in muscle memory until such time as needed. A kiss may be just a kiss and a sigh just a sigh, but a `rising block' is definitely not a rising block. So no one goes around learning hyungs/kata as literal techniques to apply off-the-shelf in response to an assailant. But it sounds, from what you're saying here, that the kenpo technique drills are not like TKD/karate forms. They are meant to be taken literally and their bunkai are not concealed. Is this right, HKph? A elbow strike will not be concealed within the chambering phase of a down block but will be taught upfront as an elbow strike, followed by a knife-edge strike to the throat with the same arm, all of it transparent and meant to be taken literally? Is that the way kenpo technique drills work?

Yes and no. What I meant by set in stone is that many people never explore what is actually contained in the technique lesson, they never get past the ideal phase. The techniques are loaded with information, some obvious, some not so obvious.

In Parker's Kenpo you have 3 phases of learning techniques.
Ideal
What If
Spontaneous

In the ideal phase you learn the base techniques, as they are written to introduce a principle or concept.

In the what if phase, you add in different variables in the scenario. You start to resist and check each other off, in the execution of the techniques. Principle are reinforced and expanded on. The Kenpoist should start to formulate defense on the fly, not rely on a technique as written.

In the spontaneous phase you are adding and deleting, borrowing, rearranging, prefixing, and suffixing movements contained in the ideal techniques. Defense is spontaneous. The movements look nothing like the written techniques. In this phase the principle and concepts are ingrained, and well understood. This is the level that a Kenpoist should strive to be at.

It's funny. Sometimes people will watch others in a video, defend against an attack, with an on the fly sequence. The outcry of "That's not Kenpo!" "He didn't do Delayed Sword for that lapel grab!" These people missed the forest for the trees.

I'll probably be flambeed for my opinion, but that's ok. I have good teachers, I'll be OK.

 

[Carol]

Yes and no. What I meant by set in stone is that many people never explore what is actually contained in the technique lesson, they never get past the ideal phase. The techniques are loaded with information, some obvious, some not so obvious.

In Parker's Kenpo you have 3 phases of learning techniques.
Ideal
What If
Spontaneous

In the ideal phase you learn the base techniques, as they are written to introduce a principle or concept.

In the what if phase, you add in different variables in the scenario. You start to resist and check each other off, in the execution of the techniques. Principle are reinforced and expanded on. The Kenpoist should start to formulate defense on the fly, not rely on a technique as written.

In the spontaneous phase you are adding and deleting, borrowing, rearranging, prefixing, and suffixing movements contained in the ideal techniques. Defense is spontaneous. The movements look nothing like the written techniques. In this phase the principle and concepts are ingrained, and well understood. This is the level that a Kenpoist should strive to be at.

It's funny. Sometimes people will watch others in a video, defend against an attack, with an on the fly sequence. The outcry of "That's not Kenpo!" "He didn't do Delayed Sword for that lapel grab!" These people missed the forest for the trees.

I'll probably be flambeed for my opinion, but that's ok. I have good teachers, I'll be OK.

How DARE you pay attention in class!!

 

[hongkongfooey]

It's hard not to pay attention when it literally gets pounded into you!

 

[exile]

Hey HKf, thanks for getting back to me---this is an aspect of kenpo I'm really quite curious about.

Yes and no. What I meant by set in stone is that many people never explore what is actually contained in the technique lesson, they never get past the ideal phase. The techniques are loaded with information, some obvious, some not so obvious.

In Parker's Kenpo you have 3 phases of learning techniques.
Ideal
What If
Spontaneous

In the ideal phase you learn the base techniques, as they are written to introduce a principle or concept.

In the what if phase, you add in different variables in the scenario. You start to resist and check each other off, in the execution of the techniques. Principle are reinforced and expanded on. The Kenpoist should start to formulate defense on the fly, not rely on a technique as written.

In the spontaneous phase you are adding and deleting, borrowing, rearranging, prefixing, and suffixing movements contained in the ideal techniques. Defense is spontaneous. The movements look nothing like the written techniques. In this phase the principle and concepts are ingrained, and well understood. This is the level that a Kenpoist should strive to be at.

OK, I think I see what's going on. In the case of karate/TKD, you're basically told something by the kata/hyung sequence description which isn't the true combat application and was never intended to be, and you have to dig around to see what actual application that move has---`hey wait, this 180 turn with a down block is actually a thow (the turn) taking advantage of a hair grab/head hook (the `down block'), using hip leverage to project the (already pretty battered) attacker forward and down using the forward and down `down block'.' There's not a single actual block in the whole sequence. In kenpo, you won't be forced to thrash through the deceptive labelling, but what you're saying is, you still can't take the form literally, because it's really just the bare-bones general idea of the technique, and you're supposed to develop alternatives at every point in case things go sideways, so that you always have a technique at your fingers to apply that can implement the intent of the scenario, even if the `official' move isn't doable at that point. The problem for you isn't that the technique has been deliberately mislabelled, but that you can't depend on being able to use it , and so you have to go in with backup techniques. Something like that? This latter ideas would also hold in the various karates, but in addition, before you can even start to develop versatility along the lines you're talking about for kenpo forms, you have to figure out what the true intent of the form really was.

It's funny. Sometimes people will watch others in a video, defend against an attack, with an on the fly sequence. The outcry of "That's not Kenpo!" "He didn't do Delayed Sword for that lapel grab!" These people missed the forest for the trees.

I'll probably be flambeed for my opinion, but that's ok. I have good teachers, I'll be OK.

I appreciate your going out on a limb to anwer my query, HKf---hat you say makes sense. There are quite a few times when I wish the karate-type systems had a bit of the same straightforwardness to their form interpretation that kenpo seems to have ...

 

[IWishToLearn]

I've got a similar-yet-different feeling about kenpo forms - as I'm not Parker kenpo, but an offshoot thereof under GM's Sullivan & Le Roux. We've got exactly three forms and one staff set in the entire system - and the staff set is optional. The first blocking form is the first four blocks, what would be done in the original Ed Parker blocking set in a horse stance, done in a neutral bow, and moving around with step throughs and covers. The second form is a complete blocking set done in a neutral bow. The third, is the Master Form - which takes all 55 base IKCA techniques and strings them together into one 58 man mass attack.

Got a little off topic, but hey - it's 3AM and I haven't been to sleep since 6:45 yesterday .

Kenpo techniques and katas have a visible, demonstratable purpose from the get-go. We teach forms and techniques to build principles and concepts, and to reinforce existing ones. As to whether or not there are hidden moves - I don't care what you're doing - be it keyboard-fu, mouth-off-do, or any style of martial arts you want to insert here, you can ALWAYS take base moves and find other uses for them. People always call these alternate uses "hidden moves" as a way of either reserving knowledge - or bsing someone into thinking you know more than you let on. I make no claims to understand 1/1000 of what my teachers know - but I like to feel that since I have a cadre of students that seems to be growing - and the only reason I have them is they bugged me for 2 years to teach them - I must have something of value to teach. I don't teach anything as "hidden" moves. I teach them as alternate or add-on moves once you understand a base technique or form. Every one of my students is responsible and accountable at any time to pull out material from white belt all the way up to their present belt material, no matter what level that is. Often times just to prove the point that you can never extract enough information out of the basics - I'll take a raw noobie who just barely has gotten the idea how to move correctly down - and use them for a demonstration of a basic principle or concept and put a completely different spin on it/peel off another layer of extra material and my advanced students all get the "monkey doing a crossword puzzle" look on their faces. It's the most rewarding feeling to help someone learn something effective.

Have fun

 

[born_fighting]

I dont think that it's over kill.. i think it teaches what can be done. Thake Leap of death(Tracy kenpo) in wich you deflect his punch break his arm smash his testicles and rip him down to the ground onto his belly. then jump up and smush his kidneys with your heals then bounce his head off the grond, snap his neck backwards then break his neck, break his nose smash the head off the ground again leap up and stomp on his head.. long list of hits.. practicaly a mini kata right. But what it did was teach you principals for that situation, you rip a guy onto his belly you now have a hundreed things you could do and can combine them... and not just that besides the practical aspect... it just looks so cool..

 

[exile]

As to whether or not there are hidden moves - I don't care what you're doing - be it keyboard-fu, mouth-off-do, or any style of martial arts you want to insert here, you can ALWAYS take base moves and find other uses for them. People always call these alternate uses "hidden moves" as a way of either reserving knowledge - or bsing someone into thinking you know more than you let on. I make no claims to understand 1/1000 of what my teachers know - but I like to feel that since I have a cadre of students that seems to be growing - and the only reason I have them is they bugged me for 2 years to teach them - I must have something of value to teach. I don't teach anything as "hidden" moves. I teach them as alternate or add-on moves once you understand a base technique or form.

The problem with TKD hyungs and karate kata, compared w/kenpo, is that in most cases a `literal' application of the form makes no sense combatively. You have a down block, followed by a straight punch---then you turn away from the attacker who was the target of the straight punch and you do the same thing on the other side, leaving the guy you probably didn't take out with the straight punch now standing behind you, maybe nursing his ribs if he was dumb enough to stand there and allow you to hit him midbody. And now you go and turn to face the mythical second assailant... what is the guy behind you going to do to you when you act as though he weren't there, eh? :uhyeah: Rick Clark in his book Seventy-five Down Blocks and Iain Abernethy in Bunkai-jutsu give some beautify examples of how various karate kata, taken literally, make next to no sense as combat techniques. It's not so much a question of possible alternatives or extensions; there have to be alternatives, because the obvious bunkai for these moves, the one built into the textbook descriptions, are unworkable (this is the main reason why so many people complain about kata and think that MAs don't need them). My impression is that in Kenpo, that's not true---none of the `literal' applications are obscured (the difference between a mislabelled move and a `hidden' move is that in the case of the latter, you're positing a combat technique that doesn't appear anywhere in the kata---an interposed ear slap, say---to force compliance with the next overt technique in the kata. A mislabelled move is explicit there, present in the sequence, but given a deceptive description: a wrist-grab/arm-lock is disguised as a chamber-retraction/rising-arm-chamber to start a down block). With kata/hyungs, if you did just what the kata told you, you'd be dead in the first half minute, because the literal moves depend on the attacker doing things that no attacker is going to in combat. It's only when you get to the actual intended moves that your actions are plausible, because with the latter, what you do forces the attacker's response and sets up your next strike like a forced mate in chess.

Every one of my students is responsible and accountable at any time to pull out material from white belt all the way up to their present belt material, no matter what level that is. Often times just to prove the point that you can never extract enough information out of the basics - I'll take a raw noobie who just barely has gotten the idea how to move correctly down - and use them for a demonstration of a basic principle or concept and put a completely different spin on it/peel off another layer of extra material and my advanced students all get the "monkey doing a crossword puzzle" look on their faces. It's the most rewarding feeling to help someone learn something effective.
Have fun

I think the teaching technique of saying `OK, here's a move, what can you do with it?'---making it a problem to be solved---is about the best there is for getting people to understand how to use the resources of the fighting system effectively---I mean, that's how people learn anything---they solve real problems using the system, whatever branch of knowledge it is, as a tool. Making students work out applications on the fly is really the way they're going finally see what it is they've been learning. Sounds to me like your students are getting a very good education!