When did it all start to flow for you?

[girlbug2]

So for those who have been training awhile...Can you look back to when you first started training and remember how you were, maybe clumsy and hesitant, unsure of yourself, performing moves awkwardly, and then figure out from there about how long before you finally started to relax into your martial art and let it "flow", for lack of a better term?

My first year at Krav was enthusiastic. I performed the newly-learned moves energetically, but I had to be stopped and corrected constantly the first four months, a little less so four months after that, and finally by the time the year was up all that practice seemed to start paying off. I realized that it had been awhile since my level 1 material had been interrupted by the instructor. Yay! It was a good feeling. But much of it was still self-conscious and forced, on some level.

Sometime during the second year of practice, the level one basics finally became subconsciously performed, they started to "flow" out of me. I don't know when that became true, but it obviously did happen. Now I will look forward to my level 2 material getting to a "flow" as well., hopefully by the end of this third year.

So for me, it takes over a year to get to the "flow state" if I am practicing diligently. What about you?

 

[Sukerkin]

Unhelpfully...

.. for me, I hold to the aphorism that if a sensei has stopped correcting you, it is not because you are perfect but because he has given up on you :lol:.

But that is possibly a Koryu attitude, as we say that we strive for perfection but never get there - instruction is ever necessary, it is just that the corrections become more and more 'invisible' to the eye.

 

[searcher]

I am still waiting for it to flow. Even the stuff I learned when I was 5YO.

I flow like concrete.

 

[jks9199]

The OP didn't say that correction had stopped... only that corrections on LEVEL 1 material had stopped. Subtle distinction -- but pretty important. I suspect it's been awhile since your sensei had to correct you on a basic vertical cut, no?

The time it takes for the material to come together and be internalized to the point that you're doing the right thing without thought or planning is going to depend on how you train (frequency, intensity, and general "manner"), the amount of material you're trying to learn, and your own personal talents.

I look for a student to be able to respond pretty well within 6 months to a year.

 

[Big Don]

When did it all start to flow for you?

This week, I hope.

 

[Carol]

It started to flow a bit at about 6 months. I had been trying for awhile to learn how to do a roundhouse kick, but it just wasn't happening. A couple months earlier, one of the black belts in class devised a way of teaching me that finally made sense, although I still could not pull off the kick. Finally...a month or two later, I was finally hitting the kick shield with a *thunk* instead of a tap. It was at that point a few other elements of my training started coming together. I can't really describe it...it wasn't quite like flow, but it was more than just a "Eureka" moment. That was the time when things started making a little bit more sense.

 

[stickarts]

I noticed many levels of improvement along the way but one that stands out is at Green belt level when a friend of mine playfully jumped at me me when I was unready and i actually used a technique without thinking to off balance him. It surprised me as much as him. I felt that was when it was all sinking in. Previousoy I had to think before using the techniques I had learned.

 

[seasoned]

I had more to over come then just techniques, but that feeling of being put on the spot. I had to learn to not worry about how I looked, and just concentrate on myself. I had no natural talent, let alone any flexibility, so it was a matter of building from scratch. It took me a few years to over come what I now would call hangups.

 

[Sukerkin]

Re-reading what I wrote in the early hours, it struck me that what I said could be read as being critical - that's not the way I meant it at all .

I stand by the intent of what I previously posted, which was that you will always be receiving correction on everthing you do but do emphasise that I am coming from a koryu sword art point of view, where there is no such thing as perfect (or even "Good enough") and there is always something to work on.

So, in answer to JKS's point above, yes, in Iai, you will still be receiving help with your techniques, even the very first one learned, right up to the point the sword falls from your hand. It may be simply that when we are talking about 'errors' and their corrections we merely talk of them with a different acuity?

At first the corrections will be for obvious flaws, mistakes that everyone makes. After a while, the corrections become fewer and for lesser mistakes in physical performance. Then they are for physical errors that an untrained observer might not even see but which make a difference to how a technique feels. Then you get into the area of the 'mind', how a kata 'feels', how you sense the potential actions of another swordsman (zanshin, seme, metski, that sort of thing).

One area that springs to mind as being of particular importance is that, over time, even the most experienced of us allow minor errors to creep in to our kata. In the early years these can be 'genuine' errors of martial technique which undermine the integrity of the attack or defence. But even when you are into the dan-grade-ladder such things still happen; the 'mistakes' can be imperceptibly tiny but they still need to be smoothed out.

For example, I am sandan and have been doing my particular sword art for seven years now and only yesterday sensei had to point out to me that, in one of our 'beginner' forms, I was developing a flaw. As I began to rise from seiza to deflect a cut from a standing opponent, I was a fraction of a second late taking firm enough hold of the saya with my left hand so that the tsuka dipped slightly rather than rising smoothly and continuously as I stood. Would that delay my draw long enough for my ukenagashi to fail? It would be almost unmeasureable, maybe a millisecond or two ... but it's still wrong and needed correcting.

 

[Ken Morgan]

Sometimes the errors don’t creep in, they have been there all along, and sensei hasn’t noticed or been concerned enough about the error to correct it. When a car has rust holes in it, you work on that, not the little surface blemishes.

There have been many times I have felt a light bulb going off and I’ll make a comment along the lines of, “eleven years of practice and you never said or showed that before.” Sensei will look at me and say, “No I always have, you’ve finally gotten to the point where you need it or it makes sense to you.”

The point is of course, is that we are always learning, and always getting better at our respect MA. In my opinion should you ever get to the point of knowing it all, or being incredibly comfortable with everything, you simply are not training correctly.

 

[grydth]

A difficult question..... one could say reaching a certain rank or when the meaning of a difficult kata finally became clear or when the transition moves in Tai Chi made sense or when the sword made just that sound through the air...

But if I had to pick one moment it was many years ago when some lunatic came at me on the street with a knife, and I beat him. This stuff really works, thought I later on .... and it works not just for some 10th dan, it works for me.

 

[Sukerkin]

Nice point to make on the importance of the measuring stick of "effective ability", Grydth.

As JKS mentioned earlier, I think that is what Girlbug is talking about really, rather than the "Polishing the mirror" approach that Ken and I have grown with in the Japanese sword arts.

 

[jks9199]

There's always room for correction and improvement, even on the most basic techniques. I do agree with that -- and my main practice is working on and reviewing basics! But there's a point where the corrections to the fundamentals drop off, either because you need a particular framework that takes more time to develop to add a new piece, or because the "corrections" have become catching and preventing errors or bad habits from happening.

 

[jda]

I noticed it in me about two years ago when a friend threw an unexpected, friendly punch toward my face and I blocked it and popped him in the mouth without thinking. He doesn't throw any more surprise punches in my direction.
Jim

 

[Franc0]

When I was able to "breathe & relax" throughout an entire application, it all started to flow for me.

Franco

 

[chrispillertkd]

Unhelpfully...

.. for me, I hold to the aphorism that if a sensei has stopped correcting you, it is not because you are perfect but because he has given up on you :lol:.

But that is possibly a Koryu attitude, as we say that we strive for perfection but never get there - instruction is ever necessary, it is just that the corrections become more and more 'invisible' to the eye.

Heh. Actually, last weekend my Taekwon-Do instructor said basically the same thing in the seminar he was giving.

Pax,

Chris

 

[Flea]

Starting last summer, I've noticed my Systema movements translating naturally to the rest of my life. I was out walking my dog one night; my neighborhood has a terrible litter problem and I'm always prepared to step on a chicken bone or a ___ before he gets to it. One night my leg shot out in a totally different way and I nearly kicked poor Fluffy in the face! There was no intention to it, it was simply there. Instead, we came home and polished our Leave It command.

There was another moment where I was pinned in an awkward place in my apartment - between the bed and my window. (And no, it's nothing like that. :angel I needed to back out, but I didn't want to move furniture to do it - ah! A quickie roll will do nicely.

These moments have come more and more often. Most recently I felt it at the grocery store as I maneuvered those 180-degree turns from one aisle to the next. It's fun!

 

[Blade96]

So for me, it takes over a year to get to the "flow state" if I am practicing diligently. What about you?

Uggg, please don't remind me of how much I sucked when I first started Shotokan........ Shiver me timbers......

White belt stuff? I suppose at about 2 and 1/2 months after I started.....that is when I got the hang of being able to turn. Because if you can't turn and walk with crescent step.....

and that 3rd movement of kata heian shodan when you have to spin around 180 degrees....I never got the hang of that til about a week before our tournament on dec 12.

Got the gold medal though and highest marks....must have learned it.