Karate

Karate and Self Protection from John Titchen

teaching

Spinning Plates

That was really hard!

That phrase, sometimes combined with an expletive, is usually the first thing one of my team says to me after I’ve asked them to teach a full lesson for the first time. Sometimes I’ve given them the chance to plan in advance, on other occasions they’ve just had a moment to look at the group dynamics and ‘go’.

A planned lesson is something I ask all potential Dan grades to do before I’ll put them forward to attempt the physical exam. On other occasions I might ask it because I believe the challenge of teaching will improve their technical ability and understanding. No-one gets thrown in the deep end without some experience; they’ll all have had to teach or supervise some element with a small group within the main class on a number of occasions.

I choose not to teach using line work.

I teach fundamental techniques against pads or partners in armour. For thin-air refinement of stepping, turning and techniques I use Kata. In addition to Kata and pad work Kihon is further reinforced and assessed through static, dynamic and alive Kumite which is taken directly from the Kata I teach. To do this I try to limit how much time I spend in class on ‘solo kata’ because I believe that when you have training partners you should be using them. Solo Kata in class is the teaching and assessment of a training method that I expect Karateka to be working on in their own time.

Students won’t always explain stuff the same way as you…

One of the consequences of teaching without line work is that there are always a lot of different activities taking place. Sometimes everyone is doing pad work or doing sparring at the same time, but due to the kit involved and the broad student age and grade range, no-one is ever going to be doing the same thing or working at the same level. We correct general points before and after a section of class, but in most lessons every student will get individual coaching feedback of some kind. The result of this is that while an instructor might not be training, they are constantly moving round the class talking to participants and demonstrating. It is physically and mentally demanding and an eye-opening experience for those doing it for the first time. They don’t realise how busy the instructor is.

Videoing coaching can help reinforce feedback.

Not everyone likes to teach or train this way. Some people prefer everyone in class to be doing the same thing or at least moving to the same count. That does make life easier for the instructor, it might also help those on the autistic spectrum. Personally, I have always felt that enabling students to set their own pace and explore their own options for the majority of the class allows for better learning opportunities. I was first exposed to this method in the years I trained regularly in Aikido and I chose to drop line work in my classes within a year of developing the Heian Flow System (now Pinan Flow System) in 2004. I don’t use line work in my Shotokan or DART classes.

Students can learn a great deal coaching under supervision.

One thing I do use is the instructor potential of my students. Is a 3rd kyu or 5th kyu going to instruct something as well as the Dan grade supervising them? No. I don’t expect them to. Are they likely to cover enough of the foundations of a drill or combination to enable a grade below them? Yes. If they weren’t they would not have been awarded that higher grade. Teaching may not be for everyone, and it’s certainly not something I’d expect anyone to do all the time, but it does show both student and instructor the scope of their technical knowledge. That is invaluable introspection. The junior grade receiving the instruction is not likely to take away any ‘more’ at their level from teaching by a senior instructor, developmental repetitions are more important than continuous coaching interventions, but the intermediate grade will benefit tremendously from having to teach. That creates a positive development loop.

Whatever the teaching subject area, kumite, kata, or kihon, any student can teach a pair or a few pairs with supervision from one or more Dan grades. You don’t have to change the training method, you can still use line work, you just split up the class into as many or few groups as you choose, for as much or as little of the class as you want, and supervise.

So, if you don’t do it already, perhaps it is time to get your students to spin a few plates.

the constant student

Last week I sat down and attempted to schedule my working hours to better accommodate the increased training time my changed weight training programme demands. It provided a refreshing opportunity to review how I allocate my time and brought me to a startling conclusion.

I invest more time each week studying to learn new useful information and practices than I do revising or repeating material I already ‘know’.

Like many people that took up martial arts at a young age, there are some things that I have practiced for decades. There are kata that I drill every week that I have known for many years. I may feel different when doing them, I may be more aware of what my body is doing, I might aesthetically look better, have better motor control and balance, but I am essentially ‘revising’ or refining my understanding of ‘old’ material. In similar vein, while there are some elements that I currently train in classes that I’ve introduced after a few months of trials in comparison with past approaches, there are other techniques and drills that have been a staple of my training for ten, twenty or thirty years.

Most of my physical training is spent revising and refining previously learned material.

Outside the dojo I’m constantly learning.

I will reread texts because as I learn and change there will be elements of other people’s work that will resonate differently with me. For example, from my own books, people with a narrow understanding of karate may sometimes be put off my application texts because the stances or kata are slightly different to their own. After gaining more experience they may see the parallels with older versions of the same kata as depicted in books or how other styles use the kata and realise that such details can be adjusted according to requirement. In similar vein some people may read one of my kata books and simply take a single application or two they like, whereas others might look beyond the techniques and instead adopt the flow system method of failure cascade that I’ve been using for over twenty years and apply that to their own sparring, with or without my actual applications. Others might take my training assessment criteria and apply them to their own repertoire to assess the efficacy of what they do as I did (with some tweaks) from Bill Burgar’s criteria.

The value of any book or information to a reader depends on the individual’s experience and understanding.

I’ve been teaching since 1989 and have formal teaching qualifications across a number of different disciplines, but I regularly look at how my own students teach, how other instructors teach and listen to podcasts on coaching to try and see how I can improve that element of my work.

I used to lecture on personal safety and self protection, but mainly now deliver information relevant to that vast subject through my syllabus and my sim days. It remains however the field where I still feel I have the most to learn even though I am currently writing a book on the topic. Over the decades the focus of my study has shifted and of course over the years I have been researching a number of my peers in the field have published their own books and the drive towards evidence-based crime prevention and policing has meant that the resources and information available to draw upon keeps growing. I do not anticipate ever reaching a point where I will feel I ‘know enough’ in this field.

I first qualified as a fitness instructor in 1995, the same year I was awarded my Shodan in Shotokan Karate. Sports Science is another continually developing field as we expand our knowledge of the human body and how we can enhance performance across multiple fields and recovery from injuries. I’m continuously trying to improve my knowledge in this field to see how I can enhance my personal training, my classes and the supportive information I give to my students in their syllabus.

I enjoy my current physical training and feel that in terms of what I do and what I teach I offer a useful holistic combination of skills to my students. My curiosity to learn more goes   beyond that. As I depend on being injury free to work, I am very cautious as to how I cross train these days; I’m wary of being at the mercy of a student with less control than an experienced instructor, but I do seek to learn more through watching others (and then trialling with my own instructor team) and through judicious cross training.

As teaching karate is my main occupation, I have the luxury of the time to continually endeavour to further my knowledge. Every day is a school day and I love learning. The thought of limiting myself by not continually seeking to improve my understanding of something is anathema to me.

I am always going to be a student and that makes me happy.

A matter of perspective

Perspective in martial arts, karate, self protection and self defence.

Picture a standard six-sided dice.

No doubt you have handled or seen one before. You know that it will be numbered with Arabic or Roman numerals or dots, a different number on each face. If you are particularly familiar with dice you might know that 1 and 6, 2 and 5, 3 and 4 are on opposite faces.

Has it ever occurred to you that you know this because you have viewed or handled the dice from multiple perspectives?

If you place a six-sided dice on a surface, without moving either it or yourself, the most you can see at any one time is the top and two sides: three faces, only a half of the whole.

The nearer you get to the dice the more detail you can see, but when really looking closely you inevitably end up seeing only one face.

To see all of the dice you either have to exchange information with others who have different perspectives, or you have to take those different perspectives yourself. One might say that to understand it you have to throw it many times, or at least observe the process, perhaps learn from those who seem to be able to skew the odds by feeling the indentation of the dice with their fingertips or by using loaded dice.

I am not really talking about dice.

The same could be said for almost every facet of knowledge and experience. Taking multiple perspectives yourself and exchanging information with others leads to greater understanding, even if (to stretch the metaphor somewhat) some perspectives are skewed by cataracts or dirty glasses. That just means you need more sources of information.

Throughout my martial arts training I have read, watched, trained with and learned from instructors from multiple systems and backgrounds. Regardless of whether they were orientating what they did towards a particular competition format or to what they perceived to be appropriate self defence, they all had the common element that they were using the human body against another human. They had the same dice, just a slightly different perspective.

In similar vein, when it comes to how I teach and structure my syllabus I have not limited myself to solely following the example of my karate sensei but have taken on board lessons from my professional teaching qualification; my low and high ropes qualifications; the varied vocational instructor qualifications in self defence, conflict management, control and restraint; my first aid instructor qualifications; and the varied military instructor qualifications that I once held.

I continuously look to learn from other instructors and from disciplines beyond my own.  I endeavour to share what I have learned with instructors and students through my books, seminars, videos and blog. I understand more from my interactions with them.

I do not imagine that I will ever reach the pinnacle of knowledge or best practice in my chosen field. The ever-growing sum of human knowledge continuously raises that peak.  Rather I will actively pursue that through combining detailed study of my own perspective with information from others whose approaches either share the same view or take a different angle.

There is more than one side to the dice. If I want to focus on just a few, then to keep perspective I need the help of others with eyes that see differently to mine.

Creating and delivering self defence courses for women

Every year I deliver a number of single sex and mixed sex personal safety and self defence courses or lectures. A moderator on the online forum Martial Arts Planet recently approached me to write a short article about how I approach the subject of female self defence. The subject is far too large to sum up in a single article, but what I can do is give my opinions on the starting points for creating a worthwhile course.

 

Planning and Preparation

  1. Know your audience.

This is crucial for creating course content. The age group (or groups), ethnic mix and general social background will determine both content and approach. Regrettably there is a high probability that within your group you may have women that have suffered some form of violence or abuse, and while the participants will normally have opted to take part, they have not done so to get traumatised by off the cuff remarks or generalisations, nor may they wish to share any experience. The audience determines both the content and teaching style of the course.

  1. Trainers and the elephants in the room.

(i) Experience. I believe that honesty is the best policy. A trainer should give a very short summation of their background to help put things in context. A trainer should be open about their experience (or lack of experience) and knowledge and the basis on which the course is designed.

(ii) Gender. Can a man deliver a self defence course to women, as he is not a woman? Yes. I know some exceptional self defence trainers both in the UK and abroad of both genders. Their knowledge, experience and ability to empathise and teach are far more important than their gender. Some men will only listen to men talking about self defence and some women will only pay attention to a woman (or have suffered a degree of trauma that makes a same-sex instructor a better option for participation and engagement), but that does not mean that a trainer of your own gender is always the best teacher on this subject.

  1. Teaching style.

Teaching style is a very individual thing and I have seen a range of different styles used effectively. Although self defence is a very serious subject, humour can be used, although I would advise against poking fun at students that you barely know. A good self defence course should be driven and paced by the instructor but provide the opportunity to include the students as what you say may encourage them to share something that has been weighing on their mind and such sharing may benefit both them, the other attendees and you.

Regrettably the length of the course (and each session) is often decided by the host rather than the trainer. Most trainers still take on constrained courses on the basis that providing some training is better than no training, but in doing so there will always be compromises on both teaching style and content. As a result it is important to prioritise. The mental aspects of self defence are more important, more useful and more permanent than any form of physical training and should be prioritised.

 

Personal Safety and Self Defence – the mental framework

The mental side of self defence is about empowering your audience through knowledge and personal motivation. What needs to be covered will depend upon the age and social background of your group. The following list and order is flexible as in forming a course certain elements will naturally tie together and cross-pollinate.

  1. Use of force and the law.
  2. Accurate crime picture (including risk) based on government, police and ED data (where available).
  3. Natural human reactions to actual or potential abuse, aggression and violence, both in anticipation of, during and after events.
  4. Rationales and motivation for action or inaction in self defence both before, during and after events.
  5. Avoidance strategies.
  6. Deterrence strategies.
  7. Awareness – common tactics and patterns in abuse, sexual crime and violent crime.
  8. De-escalation and no contact escape strategies – body language, use of voice, phrasing.

The list above is very much tied in with your credentials as a trainer. Being a martial artist or having personal experience is not enough. There is a huge body of high quality literature available for research (too much to recommend one single text) based on the experiences of large numbers of people.

 

Self Defence – the physical framework

Once again what can be delivered will depend upon the age and ability of the group and the time allocated. In my opinion the mental training is the key to unlocking the maximum potential of the physical training.

There is an elephant in the room when it comes to physical training. Realistically not everything works all the time, no matter how good a technique is. Skill, motivation, adrenaline and the element of surprise give an edge but so do aggression, experience and strength. With that said it is important that what is taught is material appropriate to the context of real scenarios and relative positions, is simple to do (even under pressure) and has been shown (to the training deliverer at the very least) to be reliable under pressure.

The following elements should form the basis of the physical part of the course.

  1. Biomechanics and weak points of the human body.
  2. Gross motor strikes that utilise otherwise natural and everyday movements.
  3. Impact training.
  4. Paired or group work based on HAOV (habitual acts of violence) to build confidence.
  5. Optional participation in scenario training.