Teach stances or blocks first?
- Thread starter skribs
- Start date
What's the point?
ballen0351
Sr. Grandmaster
I guess it lets the kids learn to balance first without thinking about the pedals. Im not really sure my kids are all too old for them they learned on regular bikes
I don't think he's teaching for application use.
A lot of what he says seems to about everything else but application. For example:
1. Taekwondo is for defense, not attack - This is a moral value not a martial arts one. A practitioner may study Taoism for their moral values and kung fu for their fighting values. They are two separate things.
2. So if the first thing I teach in the early classes is the basic blocks, - The decision on this is based on the moral value that Taekwondo is for defense. The Martial Arts application perspective makes no such distinction of moral value which is why religion is often attached to fighting systems or some code of ethics is attached, but they are 2 different things. Most people don't know where one begins and the other ends so they see it as the same thing.
This sounds as if he has made up his mind of what TKD is so everything the OP will do will flow from #1 Perception of what TKD is for comes before the training according to his listing.
Kids don't sign up for these programs, parents do based on what they parent wants to child to get out of it.
Teach according to what the goal is. What is the goal? Are you trying to get students to learn how to actually use what you are teaching? Or are you just teaching without purpose or goals to students who really don't care if they can use it or not. If there is no goal then it doesn't matter what is taught first.
If you are teaching someone how use a fishing pole to someone who isn't going to actually use it, then does it matter what is taught first?
If you are teaching someone how use a fishing pole to someone who isn't going to actually use it, then does it matter what is taught first?
Danny T
Senior Master
Stance or blocks first.
I find this a bit comical.
If you teach blocks first do you teach such with the student sitting or standing?
I teach stance, blocks/covers, punches sequentially in the same session. Unless there is a physical abnormality most every person, adults, teens, and kids already know how to stand. I just have them stand in the particular manner I'm wanting them to. It only takes a few moments then we work on moving (footwork) again a few minutes checking and adjusting the stance. Then on to blocks/covers and strikes both stationary and with movement. Doesn't take long and we do it over the course of numerous classes all the while getting better on the particular stances, strikes, and blocks.
I find this a bit comical.
If you teach blocks first do you teach such with the student sitting or standing?
I teach stance, blocks/covers, punches sequentially in the same session. Unless there is a physical abnormality most every person, adults, teens, and kids already know how to stand. I just have them stand in the particular manner I'm wanting them to. It only takes a few moments then we work on moving (footwork) again a few minutes checking and adjusting the stance. Then on to blocks/covers and strikes both stationary and with movement. Doesn't take long and we do it over the course of numerous classes all the while getting better on the particular stances, strikes, and blocks.
it's not the 'latest thing', they have been around for a century or so. It's just a way for tiny tots to learn to balance. They started off as little wooden bikes.
Punching in horse stance only teaches you to punch in horse stance, it's a useful exercise but if you want to actually use your punching even in sparring let alone in a fight learn to punch properly using the correct stance ( whatever that is for your style) first then go into horse stance for the benefits of strengthening legs etc.
Seems odd. A bike balances itself at a fairly low speed, but a speed that would be difficult to achieve (except downhill) without pedaling. It would certainly let them learn to balance a bike for things like trial (not trail) biking, but it wouldn't be the same balancing as for riding normally.
I use this exercise, but not if my primary goal is to train punching. At most it helps isolated "movement" of a punch by focusing only on the arms, but it's not actually training how to punch,
I've long thought the primary purpose of this was to be able to work hands and legs at the same time, and the punches provide a convenient "thing" to count, which both passes the time and provides a metric for progress.
Honest it works, learning without petal kids learn a lot faster. It worked for my grand kids, it worked for the kid down the street. I was skeptical at first, but it really works.
You are starting to get it, but not really. Your body and mind feels comfort from your balance.
Like when I train in long fist, long periods of time in a horse stance humming achieve the by product of stronger legs, was not the main propose.
dvcochran
Grandmaster
I cannot agree with the summation. Explaining the English meaning of a Korean word(s) or giving a known definition of the word does not, in and of itself, exclude anything. Tae Kwon Do isn't a action verb so grammatically you may only know it is a Martial Art. It is one of the cool things about a MA. They all have a name with some kind of meaning. But knowing the name does not at all mean you know the Art. Tae Kwon Do, or any style for that matter, is only defensive if it is taught as such. So now we are talking about the Do, the way. It is what you make it. The common implication is there if you are familiar with TKD but a dojang could be offensive minded just as easily. Take a heavily WT TKD school for example. If they only practice Olympic style sparring they are an offensive minded school.
This is accurate. A wide range of things can be done. It doesn't have to be only punches. Blocks, grabs, breathing and kicking are things that can be done while in horse stance.
I use other exercises to address balance. The other exercises that I do are more effect in this area. I do stationary/mobile stance training mainly for leg strengthen and to build my awareness of shifts in the weight distribution. Unlike a lot of other martial artists out there, I actually fight in a low fighting stance, which requires an incredible amount of muscle endurance.
I'm not very zen with my martial arts. Comfort for me is less about balance and more about my dominance. Balance is a functional thing that allows me to better address what my opponent is trying to do to me. Balance is also an opportunity for me to exploit.
People just use it differently depending on the goal that they are trying to achieve.
When I say low stance. This is what I refer to as low. This is an actual fighting stance, that I'm applying. I'm not trying to pose for the camera. I was teaching students how to use use the low fighting stance in fighting, so I asked a student to try and take me to the ground. I dropped my stance the moment he came in and at that moment my wife took the picture. This type of low stance provides some very good defense and allows offensive attacks as well. But you'll pay a heavy price for it.
If you image me keeping my legs where they are and my height where it is and asked me to turn my waist to look at the camera, then you would see that I would be in a typical horse stance. If I were to train punching. Then I would do it from this stance and not from the traditional horse stance.
From this position I can do the following,
If you image me keeping my legs where they are and my height where it is and asked me to turn my waist to look at the camera, then you would see that I would be in a typical horse stance. If I were to train punching. Then I would do it from this stance and not from the traditional horse stance.
From this position I can do the following,
- quickly retreat a few feet (the length of my stance)
- quickly advance a few feet (the length of my stance)
- jab
- thrust punch
- grab
- kick low using rear leg my rear leg can reach his rear leg but his rear leg can not reach mine
- reverse punch,
- lead leg front kick
- rear leg front kick
- upper cut
- elbow
- defend my front leg from single leg take down
- initiate a scissor take down
- perform a similar technique called "ox rolls in mud" it's a lower scissor technique used to destroy opponent's knee joints.
- block incoming kicks
- redirect incoming kicks.
- There are certain martial arts techniques that only work at this height.
Attachments
Thanks that was a cool video. Not zen like, OK. There are 3 levels to a form.
1st level learning and practicing the form.
The second level is deep concentration that everything else is blocked. Kinda like rock climbing.
The third and best level is when you think the form before do it,
then go into automatic pilot and just feel the movement. Trust me its cool.
Thank you for the picture, is that your little girl in front. She looks the age of my middle granddaughter.
OP
OP
skribs
Grandmaster
I don't mean the full 60 minutes. I just mean the first few minutes of class the focus is on blocking and striking.
There's a difference between having students go into horse stance and teaching them horse stance. My old school taught you the way the stances look from the start. When you learned a front stance, you learned exactly what it was. When you learned a back stance, same thing, and you also learned why you would use each stance.
The school I'm at now teaches the stances very loosely at the white and yellow belt level, and gets more detail as you get to green belt. You learn a lot more details about the punches and kicks than you do the stances.
Because half the kids if we tell them to pivot their foot while they punch, they will step forward. Some of them step forward and then back, and others will walk forward until they're hitting the person in front of them. So we work on the arm motion first and work on the rest of the body later.
I'm not talking about being passive or defensive. I'm talking about morally the art is for defense, and to symbolize that you could teach defense first.
How do you get different quotes in same reply? Do you copy and paste?
