Karate

Karate and Self Protection from John Titchen

performance

Three things that will revolutionise your karate

1. Treat each demonstration by an instructor as if it is the first time you have ever seen it.

We look, but we fail to see, We listen, but we fail to hear. We observe, but we fail to understand. We’ve all done this and in many respects the longer we’ve been training the easier it is to fall into the trap of not paying attention to a demonstration or teaching point. It’s easy to look at something and say “Oh, I know this” and not give it your full attention, or not look closer to pay attention to the finer details which may be left unsaid.

One of the most difficult challenges I faced when writing my most recent series of application books, the Pinan Flow System, was choosing how to describe and illustrate the actions of the application drills. Next to each picture I had space to write about thirty words. Thirty words and a picture to sum up a little element of an application drill when I could quite easily spend at least a good twenty minutes talking through all the different nuances and underlying principles of that particular element of the drill.

In similar vein when a drill is taught it is usually layered, with different elements being emphasised for the different audiences, and a normal lesson time explanation cannot begin to cover the depth of understanding needed for good practice.

The simple step of assuming you don’t know anything about the demonstration that is taking place in front of you and trying to view it with fresh eyes to always seek extra details will make a huge difference to your karate.

2. Question everything.

I don’t mean sticking up your hand in the middle of the class all the time and asking your instructor for more information. Your instructor is teaching on a tight schedule, they are giving you as much information as they feel you need to know and have to balance the training needs of all the other students. If you need to ask your instructor a question, often it is best to wait until the end of the class; it’s not good manners to interrupt everyone else’s education and training.

If you are given a rationale for a drill or exercise, apply a solid BS filter to it. This will mean that you have to put in time to get the background knowledge to understand whether it is BS or not. The nature of your filter will depend not only upon your knowledge level (and the quality of your source information), but the purpose of your filter; are you looking for optimum training for strength, balance, flexibility, aerobic fitness, competition success (in kumite or kata) or self defence?

A lot of people peddle information that may have passed a BS filter back when they were first being taught, but time and research have since shown to be wrong. They may not be aware what they are teaching is inaccurate or flawed. Other people peddle false information because they’ve never done any real research on the topic and are relying on their imagination, their own very limited experience (which they may not realise is limited simply by being personal) or movies.

Do your own research. How does this work? Why does this work? When should this work? Where does it come from? How can I improve this? What do I need to change to improve?

 

3. Train at home, no matter how little time or space you have.

As an instructor it can be frustrating when you run several classes a week but students only make it to one. What we often fail to realise is how lucky we are to get that student at just that one class. Often on chatting to students I find that they may be out another one or two nights a week pursuing other physical hobbies (such as running, or tennis, or swimming), looking after the children at home on another night while their partner goes out to an activity, acting as a taxi service to children on other nights for their activities, and if they are lucky actually getting to spend one or two evenings a week at home with their partner. All this on top of working throughout the day earning money!

The reality of modern life is that it isn’t easy for many students to come to class more than once a week. The reality of karate is that you need to train regularly to see improvement. The two are not mutually exclusive.

You do not have to train in long sessions to have beneficial karate training.

Every good repetition of a movement counts. That means you can train for 30 seconds standing on one leg or rotating your hips while waiting for the kettle to boil, or a partner to come down the stairs before you go out rather than pacing in front of the TV. You can do a lot in a five minute session, and it is easy to find a five minute or ten minute moment in the day, and probably better for you than sitting down. Anyone can find time for personal training if they want to find time for personal training.

You do not have to break a sweat or change clothing to have beneficial karate training.

You can’t train because you don’t have time to change or shower? That shouldn’t be an issue. You don’t need to break a sweat for good training. Training comes in many forms, and as I’ve written here, often the best form of training is slow movement focusing on precision, good biomechanics and balance. You can sweat when you go to your karate class, or engage in any other form of exercise you practice.

You do not have to have lots of space to have beneficial karate training.

You can achieve a lot standing on the spot. There are lots of different upper body, hip movements and weight transference exercises you can do on the spot. It’s great to have a fair bit of space, but you can easily improve your karate just by standing on the spot.

You do not have to have a training partner to have beneficial karate training.

Paired and multiple person work is obviously a big part of karate, but you do not need company to improve your kihon or kata. If you have a kick bag, speed ball traditional strength tools or a makiwara at home you can work on those. Playing tug of war with reasonably sized dog is a great way to improve your hikite, and you may learn a lot about good biomechanics by observing how your ‘training partner’ utilises its whole body.

Try these three things for just one month and see how your karate improves!

Why I train alone (and so should you).

Your instructor’s class isn’t designed to improve your skills.

 That can’t be right surely?  Your instructor’s aim is to help you improve.

Yes and no.

In theory your instructor’s aim is to help you improve, but he’s also trying to do that for all the other students in the class, and their needs aren’t going to be the same as yours.  As a result every instructor makes compromises.  Every time they try and help one specific person, other people aren’t going to be training what they need the most.  So training with your instructor will help improve your skills, but not as fast as if you also work on them alone.

You can’t drill your technique enough in class.

 Most people who’ve trained for any amount of time with a good instructor will have memories of one of those classes where you did one technique over and over for 60 – 90 minutes, so surely this can’t be right.  You drilled that technique for a long time.  You got lots of practice.  So surely what I’ve just said is wrong?

 Yes and No.

Lots of repetition of a technique is good and performance enhancing.  Lots of repetition of a technique for a sustained period of time however can lead to fatigue which means adaptation (or sloppiness) and can create poor technique.  As an instructor I still do long classes where I focus on one technique, but I try not to do them in such a way (ie different speeds and intensities and/or thin air/partner/pads) that the technique itself deteriorates.  For all the time a student is drilling that one technique the instructor has chosen they’re not drilling others, which takes us back to the original statement.  If the class is working a technique in which you have an  average to good ability and not addressing one in which you are poor, you need to train alone to make up for that.

Your instructor’s class is too fast.

In a lot of classes techniques are drilled at a steady medium speed pace, but as I explained  a number of years ago in Jissen magazine, that isn’t necessarily the best approach – it’s a compromise to enable the whole class to cover as much as possible in the time available.  When training alone you don’t have to compromise this way, you can set best the pace to achieve your goals.

Your instructor’s class is too slow.

See above.

There’s too much impact in class.

Impact is good.  But it isn’t always what you need.  Sometimes you have to step away from the pads and look at your biomechanics, work through the movement at varying speeds and make adjustments.  If there isn’t enough impact in class then by contrast you need training time elsewhere against a bag to develop those skills.

There’s too much paired work in class.

I’m a great fan of paired work and in fact there’s very little time in my own classes outside the warm up and warm down where students aren’t paired up or working in groups.  Pairing people in martial arts training is logical, we’re not practicing something that is designed to be used against thin air (except you martial artists in certain styles, you know who you are).

Once you are paired up to a large extent you are playing someone else’s game: even when you are dominating the situation, it is the other person’s position that dictates the fine detail of your timing and position.  Training at home alone allows you to break down movements and refine them so that when you next do them paired your performance is improved.

 Training alone is not a replacement for training with other people, but it is one of the best ways to ensure steady improvement.  It doesn’t have to be for a long period of time, it doesn’t have to make you sweat, but it will make you a better martial artist. So the next time you put that kettle on, wait for that toast to cook, or just have a few minutes to spare, why not work something slowly on the spot?

Have fun.