Not All Dojos Function The Same

[Rich Parsons]

IMO, things should be taught whenever the student is ready to learn and understand them. That is, having absorbed the previous lessons and having the foundational structure and experience to put the new knowledge to effective and proper use. The timing of this is dependent on the student's dedication and skills, and the benchmarks set by the instructor.

However, I am also a believer in some "time in grade" waiting periods at certain points along the journey. Like taking a pause during a mountain hike to appreciate the sights along the way, what it took to get there, and what it will take for the next leg up the slope.

The view of looking up the mountain at the path to come is different than looking down at the path already travelled. There are times that learning new techniques and concepts gives new insights on things already "learned." Ample time should be spent re-examining these things before going to the next level.

Depth of knowledge is at least equally important as breadth. And there is more to earning a new grade (especially more advanced ones) than simple, pure, technical skill.

Such pauses do not stop the learning process, but rather aids it in the long term. It goes without saying (and yet I will say) that withholding knowledge to extend time till advancement simply for commercial reasons for additional monthly fees is not admirable.

So, speed of learning should be tempered with patience and reflection.

For me and my students part of that pause is to not only practice it, it is to also teach and demo it to people who may not know it.
This put them into a place to have to think about it from usually a different perspective for the student.

As some who race up on natural talent and physical skill, cannot teach or work well with others, only do it at their speed.
This pause can give them some insight and the teaching can provide some insight on how to work with others .

Of course I agree with the other part as well of when the student is ready teach them a technique.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Up to and including first degree black belt, and beyond that if you want to progress further.

Agreed, with the addition of “whatever those ranks mean”.

 

[Buka]

Going into the wayback machine, I remembered something.

Went to my first dojo for about six months, had to leave because it was just too far away, two and a half hours by public transportation for a 45 minute class. In those six months I had never sparred. I had never even watched sparring because it wasn't allowed.

A dojo had just opened in the town next to me, so that’s where I trained. After so many years I was a green belt. Two guys I knew from the first dojo, but also knew from my town, stopped in to watch.

I was sparring, they were watching. They kept saying to each other “brown belt technique” or black "belt technique.”
Afterwards I asked them what they meant. They told me you weren’t taught those techniques until you reached a certain belt color.

That didn’t make sense to me as I was using those techniques and hitting people with them every night. At that point, I was already making friends from other schools through competition. They invited me to come work out, so I did.

What I noticed that year was - the schools that taught techniques as soon as the students could handle them, fought much better than the schools who taught certain techniques based on belt color. I’m not saying that’s a universal thing, just that it was the way it was in the places I visited.

The two guys from my first dojo came in on a Saturday and sparred with me. One was a black belt, the other brown. They couldn’t touch me, I had my way with them. What I found interesting about that was two things. One was - I sucked. I’d get smoked in every competition I had ever gone to. I said to myself, "hmmmmm.”
The other was, both of these guys would, at the time, kill me in a street fight. Again I said to myself, "hmmm."

So when I started to teach full time, I taught students anything and everything as soon as I learned they could handle it. It’s easy enough to figure out, you’re teaching them every day, seeing their progress, helping them figure things out.

It worked well for us at the time, and still does to this day. That's not to say it will work for everyone, mileage may vary.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

If you're in class you're expected to do the drills, at least that's my experience with the dojos I've been to.

Yes, but just doing the drills isn’t the same as training, sometimes. I’ve had training partners who went through the motions. They were just attending.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

That is more or less how my Goju Ryu instructor does it, he does do some formal testing but all too often when you're being tested you won't know it. He does run quite a small dojo though so its easier to do it that way.

And yes with formal testing there is stress involved, formal testing gauges your performance under pressure which is important if you ask me.

That describes the way I ran my program. Some of the testing was…surreptitious, so the student didn’t know to pay special attention and work harder (or prepare for it). Other testing was meant to introduce some stress.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Going into the wayback machine, I remembered something.

Went to my first dojo for about six months, had to leave because it was just too far away, two and a half hours by public transportation for a 45 minute class. In those six months I had never sparred. I had never even watched sparring because it wasn't allowed.

A dojo had just opened in the town next to me, so that’s where I trained. After so many years I was a green belt. Two guys I knew from the first dojo, but also knew from my town, stopped in to watch.

I was sparring, they were watching. They kept saying to each other “brown belt technique” or black "belt technique.”
Afterwards I asked them what they meant. They told me you weren’t taught those techniques until you reached a certain belt color.

That didn’t make sense to me as I was using those techniques and hitting people with them every night. At that point, I was already making friends from other schools through competition. They invited me to come work out, so I did.

What I noticed that year was - the schools that taught techniques as soon as the students could handle them, fought much better than the schools who taught certain techniques based on belt color. I’m not saying that’s a universal thing, just that it was the way it was in the places I visited.

The two guys from my first dojo came in on a Saturday and sparred with me. One was a black belt, the other brown. They couldn’t touch me, I had my way with them. What I found interesting about that was two things. One was - I sucked. I’d get smoked in every competition I had ever gone to. I said to myself, "hmmmmm.”
The other was, both of these guys would, at the time, kill me in a street fight. Again I said to myself, "hmmm."

So when I started to teach full time, I taught students anything and everything as soon as I learned they could handle it. It’s easy enough to figure out, you’re teaching them every day, seeing their progress, helping them figure things out.

It worked well for us at the time, and still does to this day. That's not to say it will work for everyone, mileage may vary.

My approach evolved over time. What I was taught was to teach techniques at a specific rank. I changed that to expecting a certain level of proficiency in a technique at a specific rank. Students could learn earlier if they were ready.

 

[isshinryuronin]

Taking a pause and appreciating the sites now and then is all fine and dandy as long as you make sure that you're still going to arrive at the summit within the time period that you hope and plan to get there. Remember, time is precious.

Setting a time period to get to a certain level in MA is worthless as one doesn't really know what that path entails and what will be encountered along the way. It's like planning to fall in love within a certain time frame! Putting emphasis upon the goal rather than the process is the antithesis of TMA's view of training.

 

[isshinryuronin]

My approach evolved over time. What I was taught was to teach techniques at a specific rank. I changed that to expecting a certain level of proficiency in a technique at a specific rank. Students could learn earlier if they were ready.

This seems to be a question of two teaching strategies: Teach a little till proficient, then teach more, vs teaching a lot and then gain proficiency over time.

Each way has its dangers. The first way may fall into trying to be a perfectionist and slow the rate of learning new things, spending too much time at each step. He will know fewer techniques but know them well. The second way may cause the student to sacrifice quality over quantity. He will know more techniques, but not fully develop some of their fundamentals.

I favor the first way. Some, like you and Buka, may favor the other road. Maybe somewhere in the middle is OK, too. There is no best way and I think they all should even out by the end of the road.

 

[Buka]

This seems to be a question of two teaching strategies: Teach a little till proficient, then teach more, vs teaching a lot and then gain proficiency over time.

Each way has its dangers. The first way may fall into trying to be a perfectionist and slow the rate of learning new things, spending too much time at each step. He will know fewer techniques but know them well. The second way may cause the student to sacrifice quality over quantity. He will know more techniques, but not fully develop some of their fundamentals.

I favor the first way. Some, like you and Buka, may favor the other road. Maybe somewhere in the middle is OK, too. There is no best way and I think they all should even out by the end of the road.

Just wanted to point out..... Not all of my students used every technique they were taught. Not a one of them fought the same way. However, every one of them learned how to defend and counter each technique they were taught. Usually by trial and error. There was a lot of error.

Seemed to work.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Going into the wayback machine, I remembered something.

Went to my first dojo for about six months, had to leave because it was just too far away, two and a half hours by public transportation for a 45 minute class. In those six months I had never sparred. I had never even watched sparring because it wasn't allowed.

A dojo had just opened in the town next to me, so that’s where I trained. After so many years I was a green belt. Two guys I knew from the first dojo, but also knew from my town, stopped in to watch.

I was sparring, they were watching. They kept saying to each other “brown belt technique” or black "belt technique.”
Afterwards I asked them what they meant. They told me you weren’t taught those techniques until you reached a certain belt color.

That didn’t make sense to me as I was using those techniques and hitting people with them every night. At that point, I was already making friends from other schools through competition. They invited me to come work out, so I did.

What I noticed that year was - the schools that taught techniques as soon as the students could handle them, fought much better than the schools who taught certain techniques based on belt color. I’m not saying that’s a universal thing, just that it was the way it was in the places I visited.

The two guys from my first dojo came in on a Saturday and sparred with me. One was a black belt, the other brown. They couldn’t touch me, I had my way with them. What I found interesting about that was two things. One was - I sucked. I’d get smoked in every competition I had ever gone to. I said to myself, "hmmmmm.”
The other was, both of these guys would, at the time, kill me in a street fight. Again I said to myself, "hmmm."

So when I started to teach full time, I taught students anything and everything as soon as I learned they could handle it. It’s easy enough to figure out, you’re teaching them every day, seeing their progress, helping them figure things out.

It worked well for us at the time, and still does to this day. That's not to say it will work for everyone, mileage may vary.

Pardon the use of the Chinese....I have said for years... a good shifu knows when you are ready to learn something before you do.....

Took me a while to figure that out, even got a bit fed up with my taiji sifu after I asked him about something and he told me he did not know what I was taking about.... and I knew there were a couple students who were doing what I asked about....only to have him teach it to me a few months later.... that by the way, is when I figured that out... it was also around the same time he started doing a lot of push hands with me and nocking me to the floor on a regular basis.... (Linoleum floor by the way, not pads)

 

[Gerry Seymour]

This seems to be a question of two teaching strategies: Teach a little till proficient, then teach more, vs teaching a lot and then gain proficiency over time.

Each way has its dangers. The first way may fall into trying to be a perfectionist and slow the rate of learning new things, spending too much time at each step. He will know fewer techniques but know them well. The second way may cause the student to sacrifice quality over quantity. He will know more techniques, but not fully develop some of their fundamentals.

I favor the first way. Some, like you and Buka, may favor the other road. Maybe somewhere in the middle is OK, too. There is no best way and I think they all should even out by the end of the road.

I think you may have misunderstood my approach. I'll allow students to get exposed to new stuff as it is available (comes up in class for others, or something on my mind, or answers a question that comes up) when they are ready for it. That simply adds to the slow progression that is my official curriculum (never had anyone get their first rank in less than a year). So there's material they're required to be working on over a long period of time, and they'll pick up other stuff along the way. It's a bit of both of the approaches you refer to. Because of the nature of some of NGA, there's a lot I won't normally try to expose students to early on - they won't have the foundation to make sense of it yet (unless, perhaps, they have training in another art that uses some of those principles).

Some students absorb better when they get more pieces. Some students absorb better when they focus longer on a single piece. I'm okay with both, to some extent.

 

[PhotonGuy]

Setting a time period to get to a certain level in MA is worthless as one doesn't really know what that path entails and what will be encountered along the way. It's like planning to fall in love within a certain time frame! Putting emphasis upon the goal rather than the process is the antithesis of TMA's view of training.

But we set time periods all the time. Most people set a time period of 13 years to get a high school diploma (kindergarten and then grades 1-12), people set time periods in which to get college degrees, more advanced degrees, promotions at work, ect.

And people do set time frames to fall in love, they might hope to get married by a certain age or whatever.

The fact of the matter is, life has time limits. You've only got so long to live, that's your time limit right there.

 

[Xue Sheng]

But we set time periods all the time. Most people set a time period of 13 years to get a high school diploma (kindergarten and then grades 1-12), people set time periods in which to get college degrees, more advanced degrees, promotions at work, ect.

And people do set time frames to fall in love, they might hope to get married by a certain age or whatever.

The fact of the matter is, life has time limits. You've only got so long to live, that's your time limit right there.

You try as hard as you want to force or impose time limits on life… but life simply does not have to comply to your limitations. You have to accept how much control you actually don’t have. And college is not a good example of how life works

 

[drop bear]

If the rank system is built right, and the training is aligned with it, you shouldn’t have to do anything special to get there. Train like the class is meant to train, and you’ll make it to the next rank.

I think it would be nice if you did have to do something special to achieve rank.

Then not only would you get rank. But you get to do something special.

 

[PhotonGuy]

You try as hard as you want to force or impose time limits on life… but life simply does not have to comply to your limitations. You have to accept how much control you actually don’t have.

Well you could try to meet goals within certain time limits. You might not always be successful but there is no reason you can't try, although you should be reasonable with your goals and time limits if you hope to meet them.

And college is not a good example of how life works

Why not? College is a part of life for many people.

 

[PhotonGuy]

I think it would be nice if you did have to do something special to achieve rank.

Such as pass a test?

 

[Xue Sheng]

Well you could try to meet goals within certain time limits. You might not always be successful but there is no reason you can't try, although you should be reasonable with your goals and time limits if you hope to meet them.

Why not? College is a part of life for many people.

There is no reason you can't set goals..... but understand, you may not meet them and when that happens you need to accept it, and move on

Trust me, college is not an example of real..out of college life. It is simply something you need to obtain the goals some wish to have... it can help you along the way...but it is not a model of real life at all.

 

[drop bear]

Such as pass a test?

Even more special.

 

[PhotonGuy]

There is no reason you can't set goals..... but understand, you may not meet them and when that happens you need to accept it, and move on

Perhaps, but you should also learn from your mistakes, you should learn why you didn't meet your goal (which includes meeting it within a certain set time period) and what you could've done different.

Trust me, college is not an example of real..out of college life. It is simply something you need to obtain the goals some wish to have... it can help you along the way...but it is not a model of real life at all.

Well college is an example of something where you might set goals, people set goals about getting through college, about earning degrees, and about earning them within a certain time period.

 

[PhotonGuy]

Even more special.

Passing a test can be special enough, depending on how hard the test was.