I believe I have defined ātechniqueā.
Techniques are movements; the way that a person performs basic physical movements. That is what kata and forms are. A series of techniques.
Application is what one does with the technique/s.
For example; an āupper blockā technique is the movement one does to the upper block position or structure. The technique can be presented with or without footwork. How it is utilized by a practitioner is application. It can be applied as a āblockā, a āfist strikeā, a āforearm strikeā, a lift action, with a knife it can be a backhand stab, and it can be a part of a combination of movements just to give some examples. One technique ā numerous applications.
Yeah, I get that. I've argued that point myself. What I was trying to say, without offending anyone, was that there are some nonsense techniques - movements if you will - that do not do what they purport to do and cannot.
I think I was a bit frustrated because it appeared to me that you were saying that all techniques are valid because if a technique does not work, it's not a technique. Uh, yeah, but that's just a word game.
What I meant was that I've been shown some movements, some kata, some 'techniques' that the person teaching it appeared to believe were valid - typically they were not traditional movements, but 'made up' newly by some enthusiastic younger person. They can describe it, they can appear to apply it to a willing uke who cooperates, but they cannot be made to work on the unwilling or even mildly uncooperative partner.
If no-touch knockouts don't work as a technique in your vocabulary, I'll use another example. I went to a seminar (when I was still going to seminars, before I realized what crap 90% of them are) where a gentleman was teaching a 'rope' defense. Just a piece of rope, which he advocated carrying around in the pocket for self-defense purposes (strike one, who does that?). He described and then demonstrated various trapping techniques that he had invented. He had us practice these techniques ourselves. Sure, if our partners let us do it, we could wrap the rope around their incoming fists and then apply a twisting motion like tying a bread wrapper and control their hand. However, if the partner didn't throw exactly in the way we needed them to throw, or resisted the technique by spinning out of it (a pretty natural movement, since they all seemed to think of it on their own), or used any amount of power or speed, it didn't work. In fact, the design of the defense seemed to intentionally put the rope-wielder's face in line with the incoming punch, which seemed unwise to me.
When questioned, the instructor could not really seem to make the technique work either, or to explain why it didn't.
My conclusion was that the instructor's technique was invalid. Maybe it's valid and he just could not do it himself, but since he claimed to have invented it, I have my doubts.
At the same seminar, I saw some other 'questionable' techniques by other instructors. One involved a defense to a side kick which involved actually receiving the kick on the hip and THEN trapping it. Uh, no. Getting kicked to stop a kick is bad technique.
Now, I suppose I could call those not actual techniques at all, since they did not and (apparently) cannot work, but I see them as simply invalid techniques. They are described as techniques, they are taught as techniques, and they're pure B.S. as far as I can tell.
While I accept that most traditional techniques are quite valid, even if the instructor can't properly demonstrate them or the student can't properly apply them, some of these 'make-um-up' techniques being peddled these days are frighteningly dangerous, IMHO. Invalid because they can't actually work, ever.
