Originally posted by jeffkyle
Maybe the first move will work. If it does, GREAT! If not, and you have trained that the first move WILL work....then what? Wait until you get hit then try that first move again? Maybe it will work the next time?
There are no guarantees...no matter who you are.
The problem is the "Assumption of Failure" becomes a crutch. "If it doesn't work, I'll just move on." Students should be taught effective applications first. In our curriculum they are taught to "Survive The Initial Assault."Ā If you can't make the first move reasonably successful, there is no reason to learn the next application in that technique. Unfortunately most teach techniques "as a unit," and then confuse the crap out of students by sharing infinite "what if scenarios" before they have learned anything at all. An application is no better than it weakest link, especially if it's that first move. If you are not effective immediately, you won't get to the rest no matter how "skilled" you think you are.
Part of this problem in the commercial arena is created by voluminous material, and impatient students who pressure teachers for "more material" for advancement, creating a "quantity over quality" atmosphere. Instructors who are concerned about the impact on their revenue stream must retain students and promote within what the student sometimes feels is a "reasonable" time.
Someone coined the phrase "not overkill, but over skilled." Ed Parker laughed about that one and even used it himself to defend his motion concept even though he didn't really subscribe to its off-the-cuff philosophy. Parker used to say, "Actually, if you were truly skilled, you wouldn't need all those moves. If you get to the end of some of these techniques, you should give up kenpo and study track."
In our "Assumption of Success" concept, the student is simply not allowed to accept unsuccessful execution in the initial stages of an application (within reason for course level), therefore the technique is "built" section by section to be successful.
Of course no one is perfect, but by our curriculum design, all applications at all stages must be successful, and as your skill level rises as you move up in course material, you should need less and less of the mechanisms (of most applications) to terminate a situation. However anyone can have a "bad day" and should that occur the entire successfully proven mechanism is still available.
The difference is a "mindset" based on "success" first, and "failure" second, supported by instruction that supports that perspective. I've seen too many students (and vicariously their teachers) with no understanding of basic stances, footwork, and blocks, executing lengthy techniques that have less of a chance of success than some untrained "street" person. Unfortunately, this is not just in "Kenpo," but in Americanized Commercial Martial Arts in general.
I did a lecture for a very successful organization where I asked everyone to "step back into a fighting stance with your right foot forward and block with your right hand, a left roundhouse punch to your head, (setting up "Sword of Destruction) without telling them anything else. Everyone had a different interpretation of the "stance," and not one "blocked" in the same manner as another. Yet when I said do "Sword of Destruction," they were stepping, blocking, kicking, chopping, and covering like mad making menacing faces with matching kiai's. Not one of them moved the same way. Oh by the way, the ranks went all the way up to 5th degree.
The first thing visitors to our main campus learn, is everyone moves in the same manner, (you know like in the old Chinese movies with 300 people in a outdoor class training in unison). There is a reason for that. "Assumption of Success."
No practice and then many doctor/hospital bills later.
That's another story.
