Training Options, Spread It Out Or Concentrate It More?

[Kung Fu Wang]

He's also telling us he has the same attitude towards his students. When they can't make something work, it doesn't sound like he helps them figure it out. Just says "train more".

It seems to me that you still have problem to separate the difference between "technique" and "ability".

Skill development - A teacher can help his students to develop perfect technique in great detail (such as how to set up, how to borrow force, how to chose angle, ...).

Ability development - A student has to develop ability all by himself. There is nothing that a teacher can help his students in this training.

 

[drop bear]

Do you have sources for those facts? Because right now it sounds like myths.

 

[skribs]

It seems to me that you still have problem to separate the difference between "technique" and "ability".

Skill development - A teacher can help his students to develop perfect technique in great detail (such as how to set up, how to borrow force, how to chose angle, ...).

Ability development - A student has to develop ability all by himself. There is nothing that a teacher can help his students in this training.

If a technique doesn't work, it doesn't matter if it's because of technique or ability, the teacher should be able to explain to the student what they need to work on to make it work.

If you don't have an "ability" to do something, the teacher should absolutely be able to tell you what exercises, drills, or training you can do to get more ability.

If the teacher can't give that instruction, then the teacher doesn't know how to teach that ability. It doesn't mean it's unteachable.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

If a technique doesn't work, it doesn't matter if it's because of technique or ability, the teacher should be able to explain to the student what they need to work on to make it work.

If you don't have an "ability" to do something, the teacher should absolutely be able to tell you what exercises, drills, or training you can do to get more ability.

If the teacher can't give that instruction, then the teacher doesn't know how to teach that ability. It doesn't mean it's unteachable.

But that instruction should have already been given during the technique stage. So they should already know what to do (doesn't mean that they can't be reminded), and it's just a matter of them practicing it.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

That's how I read that they trained nothing else for that period of time.

If one can learn all different ways to

- set up a single leg, and
- finish with a single leg,

that will be a lot of information to train in that 6 months.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

If you don't have an "ability" to do something, the teacher should absolutely be able to tell you what exercises, drills, or training you can do to get more ability.

This is why a teacher tells his students to spend time to train

- "pole hanging", or
- "single head" weigh training,

to develop the leg twisting power.

 

[skribs]

But that instruction should have already been given during the technique stage. So they should already know what to do (doesn't mean that they can't be reminded), and it's just a matter of them practicing it.

If I did that, I'd lecture the whole class and nobody would practice. You can't give all the information when you demonstrate the technique. If you can, maybe you don't know much about the technique.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

If I did that, I'd lecture the whole class and nobody would practice. You can't give all the information when you demonstrate the technique. If you can, maybe you don't know much about the technique.

That doesn't disagree with what i said. The technique doesn't have to be just one day. But there still is a difference between you learning all the technique, and you refining it, which happens from practice.

 

[PhotonGuy]

If you learn 4 kicks on your first day, and only ever practice one of them, then you only know one kick.

Well no, I would still know how to throw all 4 of them its just that with the one I practice with I will have honed it to a much greater level than the other three.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

You can't give all the information when you demonstrate the technique.

For every technique that you have taught to your students, if you also give them the video along with Email that has all the technique detail, they should have everything that they will need. IMO, this is the best teaching method.

 

[PhotonGuy]

Just to elaborate on Kung Fu Wang's training tree - post #11 (nice artwork), less we get too caught up in a simplistic view of a single kick (or other move.) Knowing how to DO a move does not mean knowing how to USE a move. How do you set up/enter to have the best chance of landing it, how to get in range, how to adapt if the situation changes midway, how to recover if you miss, if it gets blocked where will you be open for counter attack, how can you follow up if it lands?

That's where combinations and footwork comes into play.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

working on just one move becomes much more complex (and interesting.)

Let's take the single leg as example again. When you have obtained your opponent's leading leg, you can have at least 9 different ways to finish it.

1. press your opponent's upper body down.
2. lift his leg over your shoulder and throw him backward.
3. pick his whole body up and throw him behind you.
4. pick his whole body up, rotate his body, throw him down in front of you.
5. press his neck down, spin his body, give him plenty of space to let him kiss the dirt.
6. sweep his rooting leg.
7. hook his rooting leg.
8. horse back kick his rooting leg.
9. lock his leg between your legs, press his upper leg down.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Lets take four basic kicks, the front kick, side kick, round kick, and back kick. Now here are your training options for a session, you can do each of those four kicks twenty five times each for a total of 100 or you can pick one of those four kicks and do just that one kick one hundred times for a total of 100.

In each of those two options you're doing a total of 100 kicks, the difference being that in the first option you're spreading it out among the four kicks in the second option you're concentrating all of your training on just one kick, so what option would you choose?

For somebody who is just starting out in the martial arts 100 kicks might be a bit much for a single workout. Likewise for more advanced and seasoned martial arts practitioners you might do more than 100 kicks in a single workout but for sake of discussion Im leaving it at 100 kicks, feel free to adjust the number based on what you would do in a workout but the point is, would you spread your training out among four kicks or would you concentrate it on just one?

In this example Im using kicks, obviously this same principle can also apply to hand strikes or other martial arts techniques.

I haven't read the rest of the thread yet, so may be repeating others' posts.

There's relatively recent research that indicates there's little skill-development advantage to large reps in a single session (arguably excepting the first few sessions, to allow opportunity to work through beginners' learning curve). Given that, the 4x20 is likely better for skill development.

Of course, there are other advantages to the long set (stamina, discipline through boredom, focus, etc.) that might matter to you.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Well to quote Bruce Lee, "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."

Yeah, but it's unlikely he meant that literally (as in ONLY practiced that one kick).

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I’ll go one further and say if you learned four kicks on your first day then you ought to find a new teacher because this one is an idiot.

I don't know the strategy is that bad, Michael. Newly in the class, any amount is overload, so maybe they're just assuming no actual skill development (a reasonable assumption for the first day) and just letting them see what the first four kicks are, so they won't be quite so strange when they actually get to the real learning in the next few classes.

 

[skribs]

Well no, I would still know how to throw all 4 of them its just that with the one I practice with I will have honed it to a much greater level than the other three.

A month in, you'd have forgotten two of them, and the third you'd have no way of throwing in an actual fight. At best, you'd know it exists at a theoretical level.

 

[Flying Crane]

I don't know the strategy is that bad, Michael. Newly in the class, any amount is overload, so maybe they're just assuming no actual skill development (a reasonable assumption for the first day) and just letting them see what the first four kicks are, so they won't be quite so strange when they actually get to the real learning in the next few classes.

I get that but just because something is new does not make it overload. It is only overload when there is too much new material.

I cannot see any sense in teaching material if there is no reasonable expectation that the student will remember how to do it when they wake up the next morning or when they return to their next class. In my opinion, that is the very definition of a poor teaching model.

 

[skribs]

I get that but just because something is new does not make it overload. It is only overload when there is too much new material.

I cannot see any sense in teaching material if there is no reasonable expectation that the student will remember how to do it when they wake up the next morning or when they return to their next class. In my opinion, that is the very definition of a poor teaching model.

Both of the Taekwondo schools I have gone to teach more than one kick on the first day. A big part of it is that you're in a class full of people, all training together. If we only had the newcomers do one technique at a time, then they'd spend half the class not doing much, or we'd spend half the class re-arranging groups so nobody feels "overwhelmed".

Another part of it is that the students don't have to memorize everything or learn everything on day 1. You do the 4 basic kicks (in our case: front kick, roundhouse kick, side kick, and axe kick) on Day 1. You do those 4 kicks on Day 2. You do those 4 kicks on Day 3. You can probably figure out the pattern here. Yes, on Day 2 they may not have those kicks perfected. And that's fine. They're building muscle memory that will help them learn those kicks.

I've taught the four basic kicks to literally hundreds of people on day one of their training. And they've all learned those kicks. 99% of them have learned them (at least the basic movement of them) in just a couple of weeks.

Do I fail to meet your Day 1 standard? Probably. But I'm not interested in what my students have retained from Day 1. In fact, I expect they'll forget 90% of what I taught them by Day 2. I also expect that after a couple of months of class, they'll know everything I've taught them up until that point. Barring really young kids or certain exceptions, that's also been pretty much true. This means your benchmark is meaningless, unless you only expect students to take one class.

 

[Old Happy Tiger]

You should practice the leg kicks 10 times front, side, back and roundhouse in one training session. Be careful of your knee joints. The most important kicks to learn, are the front kick and low side kick.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

It is only overload when there is too much new material.

I like to teach my 1st day new student how to deal with:

1. punch (against boxers).
2. kick (against MT, TKD guys).
3. leg shooting (against wrestlers).

The new students need to know that MA training is to solve problems. Today, their problems are striker's punch, kicker's kick, and wrestler's leg shoot.

Also many important principles/strategies can be emphasized during day 1.

- The leg is longer than the arm.
- Catch a kick, borrow the counter force to move in.
- Create space, and lead your opponent into the emptiness (let attack to kiss the dirt).

If a new student can learn all these information, he has already stepped into the MA world.