Traditional HRD Syllabus:pros vs. cons?

[floweringknight]

Getting back to the original thread....Bob, what have you changed in the original syllubus? What would you change? I'm talking about actual forms, techniques, kick tests, etc.; not necessarily theory at this time. We can revisit that part later; and we will!

 

[Bob D.]

So Chris, What is your opinion on the trad. HRD syllabus and the trad. method of teaching it?

 

[Bob D.]

We must have posted at the same time. I'm stepping out for awhile. I'll answer you question later today.
Farang, B

 

[floweringknight]

Basically, I like the traditional syllabus as is. I do agree that there are gaps in the knowledge base and training curriculum. As Bob stated, the grappling / groundfighting is wanting. As I stated before, I love the fact that there is both quality and quantity! Is the amount of technique overkill? Possibly. But I think that the shear repetition is part of what helps to fully develope and assimilate the techiques; in all their forms and variations. Now as far as teaching methods? That is a tricky one for me, personally. All my masters are so different; their teaching styles, their personalities, even their HRD! I'll have to think on that one.

 

[glad2bhere]

Dear Bob:

Hmmmm. I think we are teetering around on a very fine point but are both still picking at the same thing.

Certainly I agree that most of my students don't sign up to spend half their time doing push-ups and sit-ups. And I certainly don't think that even perfect technique makes up for the need to be in decent condition and have a reasonable level of endurance and coordination. And I will even kick into the pot that a "complete MA" needs to have both good technique and good conditioning. The piece that I think is being missed is the manner in which people are conditioned--- say, "motivated"--- to make the sorts of efforts and sacrifices that are necessary to do what the training requires. This is hard to put into words, but here are a couple of thoughts of what I am working to get at.

a.) A person who enlists in the military is expected to assume and live the values of the Service. Basic is designed to show a person how to do this. If a person fails to adapt, however, they don't start changing the Basic training Course.

b.) Having trained in both a Suburban and Urban environment I can tell you that city kids are a lot more motivated to put up with hard training than their Suburban counterparts. The difference seems to be that in the Suburbs if the kids have trouble getting motivated teachers start changing the curriculum.

c.) Some people like contact sports. Most people don't except as spectators. If you take people who don't like contact and make a non-contact version of the contact sport just for the non-contact people are you still enjoying the same sport?

d.) Years back people trained in sword. To make things a bit safer they started using padding and sticks instead of real swords. Now we have the sport of Kendo and its getting harder and harder to find the original swordwork. Are we talking about the same activity?

To tie this off my thought is that we need to figure some way to get people to take the art on its own merits. Hapkido arts are hard to learn, hard to practice and not meant for everyone. Somewhere along the line I think we have to look at how we are conditioning people to think about training not just change out what people might find objectionable. Thoughts?

Best Wishes,

Bruce

 

[Bob D.]

what have you changed in the original syllubus? What would you change? I'm talking about actual forms, techniques, kick tests, etc.; not necessarily theory at this time.

Actually I like and still teach the original colored belt material. Think about Bruce's comment about the material seen through begginers eye's. I remember my first three years to blue belt. I thought everything was awesome and at the time (early 80's) was way more sophisticated then the other arts out there. The basic locks taught in baby steps, the 3-step routines all fit at the time (with supplemental focus mit drills, full contact sparring, and basic wrestling). They were new to me and I thought good basic building blocks.
What I am changing is number count. There is just too much of each set. I would re-organize son mok sul as its a mish-mash of tech. from a static wrist grab. Organize it acording to how your opponent graps you (palm up or down, bent arm or straight, pulling pushing) or by type of lock. For Il bo dae ryun, insted of 30 different, six is plenty. Just have them do it more, so instead of trying to memorize they actually will build muscle memory and learn timing-distance (which is what its for).
I also start teaching locks from white belt. This is where static grab and cooperating partiner is needed so they can learn a lock without distraction.
Six different wrist lock angles in the static to understand the basic and six self defense tech. - usually emphasizing first an escape, then a stalling or shocking strike, then a simple follow up.
Then when SMS is introduced they can think more combatively and ad punch block, footwork and more animated attacks.
On a side note, one thing lacking in my early training and most of HRD is falling or rolling naturally from every technique. I used to disagree with what I thought it was from watching Aikido classes and got annoyed that they where just cooperating with each other , never learning to deal with resistance. But if you train both ways it's invauable to learning flow and conditioning.
It is when we get to the geen belt material and above that I see major renovation needed. That should probably be discussed amongst ourselves as its way detailed and complicated.

 

[lulflo]

I think that was a very good post Instructor Sims.

I have tried and tried to motivate myself to follow a schedule/program/attitude that promotes my own discipline, but it seems that there are only a few people who actually latch on to the attitude no matter what I say or how I try to motivate them. At least it is not an immediate result. It seems that individuals are truly motivated by example and sometimes peer pressure. It is not easy to maintain a healthy uplifting environment in the school when it is necessary to constantly monitor the students who lack motivation to do their best. I know there are times when my whole self are not in it and that can bring others down too. Is there something that you have found to help/assist/motivate students that can be posted here for my/our enlightenment. I would be very interested, maybe even to start a new thread on it, words of wisdom within the dojang that can keep the "spirit" in the training?

Great post!

Farang - Larry

 

[glad2bhere]

When I reorganized the Yon Mu Kwan material of GM Myungs' the challenge was to keep the same material but teach it in a process of progression. The single hardest things I found for students was A.) retention and B.) confusion. Even those students who were able to retain the material from belt to belt often had a helluva time keeping the requirements of one belt distinct from the requirements of the next belt whose techniques might be the same but executed in an alternate fashion. Of course this approach is fine for a Confucian teaching model. But it played hell with the Academic approach. What I did was lay out all of the techniques (so to speak) and began to match up techniques which were actuated in the same manner to follow the same progression of development through the belts. The result was that by 1st BB both systems got the student to the same place, but the Academic approach had less confusion and redundance. In fact, while the system I teach still takes about 5 years to get a person to Chodan, the number of ranks is only 6 as compared to the WHF system of 10 gueps. As I see it the teaching approaches have been modified as follows.

1.) Each rank has its own premises or concepts. The material for that rank only serves to reinforce the concepts of that rank.

2.) Succesive ranks like wise contain material that only reinforces the concepts at that rank AND build directly on the material of the previous ranks.

3.) The progress for one rank to the next rank is both logical AND intuitive.

4.) Techniques are "named" not "numbered" and the names of the techniques either help identify the concepts one is learning and/or the manner in which the technique is executed.

5.) Students are heartily encouraged to discuss and "teach each other" rather than just use each other for a "crash-dummy". They are encouraged to negotiate how much authority they want to use, and to give feedback when the technique is not producing the intended result.

6.) Students are encouraged to identify the manner of execution that feels the best for them. By this I mean that unless their execution is blatantly at odds with the intention of the technique a student needs to be doing the technique in a way that feels natural and not contrived. FWIW. Thoughts?

BTW: My curriculum is published on my website at

www.midwesthapkido.com

if you want to see the result. Of course I am still working on the BB material. This project (called the DOCHANG JOURNAL Project) has only been going on since 1991. Consider it a labor of Love :asian:

Best Wishes,

Bruce

 

[Bob D.]

a.) A person who enlists in the military is expected to assume and live the values of the Service. Basic is designed to show a person how to do this. If a person fails to adapt, however, they don't start changing the Basic training Course.

No, but they do constantly update and optimize! But Military basic is not the same as voluntary martial arts training.
We have all tossed around the idea of two separate curriculums; one for kids, weekend warriors, hobbiest, etc. and one for the serious, willing to sacrafice, completist that will not need outside motivation. Hard to make work though.

b.) Having trained in both a Suburban and Urban environment I can tell you that city kids are a lot more motivated to put up with hard training than their Suburban counterparts. The difference seems to be that in the Suburbs if the kids have trouble getting motivated teachers start changing the curriculum.

Yes, that is the wrong approach but whats wrong with adding to curriculum? If students are doing the same routine class after class they'll die of boredom before loosing motivation. I can honestly say I never got bored in a HRD class, there is too much different material to work on. I was bored stiff in a trad Hapkido class after 4 monthes of basically the same class night after night. (Certianly the teachers fault, not the art). If a student is not motivated then either they just don't want to be there or the teacher should adjust their own energy and maybe emphasize something different for awhile. Modern attention span!!!
(

c.) Some people like contact sports. Most people don't except as spectators. If you take people who don't like contact and make a non-contact version of the contact sport just for the non-contact people are you still enjoying the same sport?

I feel you still have an issue with contact, sparring, or grappling with another person. You keep catagorizing these forms of training as "sport" and somehow different then real martial art. I think it an essential part of any martial training and martial arts. So we'll agree to disagree.

d.) Years back people trained in sword. To make things a bit safer they started using padding and sticks instead of real swords. Now we have the sport of Kendo and its getting harder and harder to find the original swordwork. Are we talking about the same activity?

I won't argue that most Kendo is a far cry from practical sword combat. But again, if your training your hyung and repitition drills with proper form, angle and power you still need to experience sparring. To feel the power of a cut blocked or not. To learn distance and timing. There is no other way.

 

[Bob D.]

Bruce, Your "reorganization" is exactly what I think we are after and to some extent the Phoenix group has done under KJN Corona.
Where a technique or group of tecniques fit in the system is a notch more important then filling in gaps in content. I will be checking out you site!

 

[glad2bhere]

Dear Bob:

Your comment about splitting the curriculum between the "so-so" practitioners and the "hardcore" is something that I have seen a couple of times. I suppose to some extent one could make an arguement along these lines for the TaeSooDo of GM Lee as a supplement to the HwaRangDo, yes? The only experience I can speak to was my efforts to do that with my own students. My private students were schooled the "old-fashion" way and the students I teach at the college got the benefit of the newer academic approach. The trouble came in when I tried to interface the two. Those who had been trained the "old fashion" way copped an attitude, and saw themselves as somewhat above ("elite") the college campus group. I think the science was right, but the experiment was a dismal failure. Thoughts?

As far as the "contact"-"Sport" issue, I just plain don't know what to say. Its all pretty predictable to me. Take a trained person against a larger trained person and the larger trained person is going to win. "Can" the smaller person win? Sure but consider the amount of training, time and resources one will need to produce a person who can triumph over a more powerful opponent. How many people not in competition are going to make that sort of commitment? And for how long does that status last?

I guess the long and the short of it is the word "appropriate."
After all is said and done I see the sort of "contact" training as a kind of niche' activity. Maybe people should be aspiring to it. Maybe some people DO aspire to it. Maybe it has a purpose for Mr. Joe Average. I just don't know. What I seem to run into over and over again in any discussions that come back to that kind of training is a lot of issues about winning/losing, power and control and not a little narcissism (image). Maybe some of that filters into Hapkido, but I don't think in the way I see it pitched by its advocates. FWIW.

Best Wishes,

Bruce

 

[Bob D.]

After all is said and done I see the sort of "contact" training as a kind of niche' activity. Maybe people should be aspiring to it. Maybe some people DO aspire to it. Maybe it has a purpose for Mr. Joe Average. I just don't know. What I seem to run into over and over again in any discussions that come back to that kind of training is a lot of issues about winning/losing, power and control and not a little narcissism (image). Maybe some of that filters into Hapkido, but I don't think in the way I see it pitched by its advocates. FWIW.

IT's funny, but it seems like those who don't spar or rondori are the same who won't hear or acknowledge the benefit or necessity of it.
The "winning/losing, power and control and not a little narcissism" sound like personal problems or maybe the object for some, but it has nothing to do with the purpose I'm talking about. The fight is with yourself, it's about composure, heart, conditioning, calm under stress, focus, flow, relaxation, stratagy, all of these are best tested with someone trying to knock your socks off. To me it's so simple a point I don't see how one could not understand the necessity of Mock fighting, sparring or whatever you want to call it in order to learn to fight.
In fact I'll stand by this; There never has been or will ever be a "master" of martial arts that has not spent considerable time at some point in his career training technique against an opponent in some form of "competition" (for lack of a better word).
Besides having nothing to do with what's being talked about, your conversation about it has nothing to do with what I'm refering to. Who ever brought up sport competition or tournament?

 

[Paul B]

To me it's so simple a point I don't see how one could not understand the necessity of Mock fighting, sparring or whatever you want to call it in order to learn to fight.

Traditional HRD doesn't do this now?

I agree fully that w/o this kind of practice,certain valueable insights into your technique will never be realized. I am a staunch advocate for this kind of training. "Freestyle" may not the best for absolute newbies,but after the basics of technique are learned and if the introduction is gradual,I think it is a true gauge of where your understanding is at.

 

[Bob D.]

Paul, WHRDA as far as I know only does inner school point type sparring. I couldn't say for sure what they do now. I doubt anything has changed though. B

 

[glad2bhere]

Dear Bob:

I know what you are saying and I have to admit that within the context of the society that we have, I suspect that your position may, quite rightly, be the wave of the future. I think, for myself, there is a point at which I simply will not accept some substitute activity for the intention upon which the original Korean MA were built. This is not simple romanticism. There is a very handy simile' that I can draw on.

Right now, as I write this there are people in Germany who join Country-and-Western groups, dress-up in costumes of the American Old West and even practice quick-draw competitions. A person who might have actually grown-up on a Wyoming cattle ranch would have a tough time accepting the authenticity of this behavior though I am sure there is a social place for it.

In like manner, when I train in KMA the thought process in my mind draws its strength from my own experience at war and no matter how much I might roll-around on the ground with someone as in BJJ, or put on armour and hit another with a stick as in Kendo, or cut a target with a sword as in Kum-Bup, there is nothing that these substitutions-for-the-reality-of-warfare can offer me. Its not a very sophisticated thought process, I confess. I was raised in an American culture predicated on Illusions. I spent two and a half years in an environment which operated with practically no illusions at all (despite the best efforts of our governmental agencies to impose some). I came back to the States and was given a choice to resume the life of living illusions or to accept that my value system had been irreversibly altered for all-time.

The only reason that I thought I would take time to share this with you is that I have been part of so many of these "real combat" discussions and must confess that each and everytime I have done my best to respectfully regard the positions of people who would believe that what they are offering is in any way akin to a martial experience. For my part all I see are people doing their level best to approximate what they "think" it must be like to fight for ones' life--- without actually having to do just that. On the other hand, as many times as I invite people to talk about real change-- the real battle that goes on between ones' ears in the conflict between how one sees Life and how it truely is, I have been lucky to find no more than a handful of exchanges before people move on to something a bit more entertaining and a little less scarey to contemplate.

I think I understand what you are working to do and I wish you ever success, but the fact is that what you have to offer--- at least to me--- has no attraction. FWIW.

Best Wishes,

Bruce

 

[Bob D.]

Bruce, As usual you don't/won't get what I'm talking about. We've been here before and it seems you refuse to see what is written and reply on a different tangent. I don't see how a student will ever learn movement, timing, and distance without facing an opponent doing the same. How does one condition the body for the stress and speed of a fight without doing it? How does one train the mind to stay calm, focused and determined without ever experiencing a fight? There is no other way to accomplish the above without some form of sparring during training. If you have some secret alternative please share?
BTW I never implied it would be the same as "real combat"
Further you don't know who I am, what I've done or what I have to offer so your comment is meaningless. Do you even realize how elitist your last comment sounds? It's silly!


Edited By me!

 

[floweringknight]

"Techniques are "named" not "numbered" and the names of the techniques either help identify the concepts one is learning and/or the manner in which the technique is executed."

One of the advantages that I have found in having techniques numbered is this: In learning, by knowing there are say 30 techniques in a set, I make sure I am learning and remembering them all. In teaching, I want to make sure that I am teaching ALL the techniques I learned originally. The numbers themselves serve as merely a crutch. A crutch to facilitate learning and teaching; making sure the full body of knowledge is being passed on in its entirety. However, we do have names for them as well (most) which does make initial learning and recall easier. Both sides of the coin, if you will.

 

[shesulsa]

Mod. Note.
Please, keep the conversation polite and respectful.

-Georgia Ketchmark
-MartialTalk
-Sr. Moderator

 

[glad2bhere]

Dear Bob:

Oddly enough I know exactly what you are talking about. You are simply speaking to someone who is not interested in what it is that you have to sell, thats all. Nothing personal. It doesn't make you wrong, or me right. The only thing I could possibly add to what I have said already is that your inability to accept that someone might not accept what you have to offer does seem to bespeak a kind of intolerance. I wouldn't even mention this except that I have seen this behavior pattern so many times in the past that it is becoming predictable.

The conversation starts with an innocuous enough comment such as the bit about a syllabus here. Then, somebody responds. The next step is that the theme of contact comes out and if somebody does not accept the "obvious" benefit of doing "contact" the sort of exchange we have had follows. It will not matter what rationale I offer or explanation I give, Bob. You have already made-up your mind that what you have to offer is the answer so we are not actually going to have a discussion as much as I will provide you with a foil against which to advertise your views. Along the way there are the inevitable opportunities to tell me that I can't be a "real martial artist" unless I accept your solution and that I must be "elitist" since only an irrational "elitist" could fail to accept and reflect the "obvious" correctness of your position.

Now, since this is a "martial" Net which focuses on "martial arts" I suppose it remains for you to explain how what it is that you are planning to add to a HRD curriculum will improve the process by which a person adopts an attitude of service for, and deference to, his community and does not just become a better fighter. Thoughts?

Best Wishes,

Bruce

 

[Bob D.]

Bruce, If you took a vote on who has a past writing with intolerance you would win. I have nothing more to say to you as you can't seem to have a civil conversation without twisting things to your agenda. Thank you very much, B
And no, apparently you don't have a clue what I'm talking about as your comments keep proving.