Boot to the Head

The volume of silence

2010-09-28T20:55:00.000-07:00

As the saying goes, silence is golden. Sometimes speaking greatly aids in instructing, training, and learning, but sometimes it can be a hinderance. On Monday, I was fighting a sore throat, so I decided to use a technique teaching that I hadn't done in years: a silent class. I did speak a little, but only at particularly opportune times. Otherwise, all of the instruction came from demonstration and gestures.

For an instructor, such methods can be useful so that your instruction ends up being focused and clear. If you are instructing with no words, simple and explicit teaching is most beneficial. For instructors that talk a lot normally (like me), such a practice is a good reminder that holding back on comments throughout a class can be equally beneficial.

One of the benefits of this type of instruction for students is that it really forces them to focus. Concentration and awareness must be heightened when you cannot rely on conceptual information. It must all be visual — and you are forced to notice the minute details.

There is actually a tradition of teaching from Asia that does this sort of thing often. Explanations are almost never given, and a student is expected to learn technique through careful observation or diligent practice. This can either lead to prolonged ignorance... OR it can lead to a very affirming and deep understanding when one makes a breakthrough experientially.

If nothing else, instructors are encouraged to try such methods for the challenge it poses to yourself and your students.

2010 Soo Bahk Do National Festival

2010-07-12T17:04:00.000-07:00

This last weekend I competed at the 2010 Soo Bahk Do National Festival. In the advanced ranks division my partner, Master PJ Steyer, and I won first place with this coreographed routine, so I thought I should share.

I'm the one who starts on the right with the shaved head. Supreme kudos to Noelia Lago for the great filming!

Tempering

2009-02-04T13:30:00.000-08:00

Training in martial arts — or any skill — is like sword-making. When you create a sword, the metal is melted down and hammered, then folded over and over again. The more times the metal is folded, the stronger the blade will be. Folding is used to draw out impurities from the metal.

Similarly, martial art training is a discipline striving for perfection. Striving for perfection in technique leads to perfection in other arena's of one's life. This striving is the same as the process of sword-making. One must practice a technique over and over again, like the folding of metal, hammering out the impurities of a technique.

This repetition is the important part of training. It is not enough to "know" or to "practice" a technique. The quantity of techniques known is unimportant, but the quality of the ones you have is a reflection of your fortitude as a martial artist. Learning techniques enables you to use them in this process of "folding", to employ them towards the quest for perfection. Techniques are the means for achieving a goal, not the goal themselves.

Effective techniques are the symptom of the more important dynamic process of striving for perfection — disciplined training.

Your training is complete

2009-01-23T23:10:00.000-08:00

I may or may not decide to keep this as a public martial arts blog... we'll see. In the meantime, here is a post from my private martial arts blog:

I've noticed in popular culture martial arts movies, particularly those from the US, often a disciple studies under a master until a certain point when the master declares,"Your training is now Complete."

This is a great fallacy to martial art training — that such a state is attainable, or that there is a desire to be complete at all. Having a stated goal to attain only softens the potential that one can achieve. If we only train to be "good enough" to pass a test or win a competition, we are not maximizing our potential. We should strive to better than those that others expect of us.

Often, for many students a "black belt" is a primary goal — which is why many stop after getting it. They have reached the ceiling of their expectations, as opposed to realizing that their ceiling is limitless, and the belt is simply a marker.

Furthermore, if we train to fulfill our requirements for a rank, that is all we are capable of doing. Rank requires us to know specific rote combinations and practices — "Life" does not. If we train "for perfection" rather than "for a rank," passing a test seems like a trivial obstacle on our path of discovery. The amount needed to know for the test is miniscule compared to all that we have learned in our training.

There is no "completed" training. There is just training.

Perfection

2008-09-01T18:09:00.000-07:00

Training must be a path striving for perfection. If it is not, training becomes about "keeping up" or "staying afloat." This is not the mastery that one aims for, of both execution and mental focus.

In some sense, this is an indictment against training broadly instead of deeply. Broad knowledge cannot lead to perfection or mastery, only deep training can.

Of course, perfection may not be something attainable in a real sense, but the journey towards that goal is what makes the difference. The mission for such perfection empowers more than the attainment of it.

Action and Non-Action

2008-07-03T01:49:00.000-07:00

In recent years, I have experienced a debate between two methods of thinking regarding actions in martial arts/life.

On the one side, my personal experience has supported that overly "passive" behavior does not pay off, but aggressive behavior does in many regards. This should be clarified. I do not mean "aggressive" in a violent sort of way. Rather, a better definition would be "proactive behavior with volition." It means to move decisively and confidently towards a desired outcome.

On the other hand, Tai Chi type thinking would say to not be proactive, and only to be reactive — responding to the world in a way that guides one through life via "non-action." It is adaptive to what is offered — something that I have also experienced in life, though usually only on a gross scale.

What I'm really finding though, at least in terms of life, is that neither of these alone is sufficient — like the two halves of the yin/yang, both of these have to work in concert with each other. In some places, you have to be aggressive, decisive, and active. In others, you must be passive, reactionary, and adaptive.

And, like the yin/yang, there is part of each in the other. Within aggressive behavior, there can be passivity; within non-action, there can be proactivity. The key I think, is distributing the methods appropriately (and not that they are separate in execution).

An example from sparring: previously I encouraged for people to not care about one's opponent and move with one's own plan of action. This would be the aggressive behavior. However, such action can also be reactive — as in the case of counter-attacking. My proactive plan might be to never throw an offensive technique and be adaptive to an opponent's movements to counter-attack. It doesn't have to be a blitzkrieg of attacks. Here, the reactive is found within the aggressive.

As in all things, finding the proper balance between these forces is key.

Push hands

2008-05-29T21:44:00.000-07:00

My Tai Chi teacher Jarl has alerted me to a new post on her own blog about Push Hands. It's worth reading as a complement from the Tai Chi view to the types of things in my "three mantras" post. I plan my next post to discuss the relationship of these two views.

Training vs. Learning

2008-05-26T00:45:00.000-07:00

In training, beware the overvaluing of "learning" and the undervaluing of "training." Deep knowledge benefits more than broad knowledge in terms of application, sustainability, and retainability. Deep knowledge can only be attained through intense repetition of things one already knows.

Cognitive sciences now put the benchmark for mastery of any skill at 10,000 hours.

A good quote about this is echoed by Ginchin Funakoshi, founder of Shotokan. As he wrote in 'Ryukyu Kempo Karate' (1922): "The old masters used to keep a narrow field but plough a deep furrow. Present day students have a broad field but only plough a shallow furrow."

Three Mantras for Training and Life

2008-03-23T15:08:00.000-07:00

Three mantras for training and life:

1. "Get in the game" - Don't be a spectator for your matches or just passively enter into them. Be aggressive and try to control the rhythm, movement, and pacing of the match. Don't just be a "participant" - Be IN COMMAND.

2. "Keep moving" - Don't always maintain the same sparring stance and hand positions. Change the position of your body and hands, and stay fluid. By remaining still, your opponent can read your openings easier. You become predictable and give an aura of less confidence because of your rigidity. KEEP MOVING.

3. "Play your own game" - Don't care what your opponent is going to do or how skilled they are. Go with your own game plan and force them respond to it. Sparring (life) at its core is about willpower. If you cede your willpower to your opponent, you've already lost. EXERT YOUR WILL onto them - even when counterattacking!

Also, remember that no matter how good you are, sometimes you'll win and sometimes you won't. Losing teaches you more than winning. What matters most is how well you live up to your potential, not what the end "result" is.

On Discipline

2007-08-28T18:35:00.000-07:00

Discipline is the cornerstone of attaining success in the martial arts. It is arguably the most important component for achieving success in any aspect of life (with luck and skill thrown in too of course).

However, what is discipline? Often times discipline is evoked by instructors telling their students to stand up straight, focus, bow to seniors, or remember to keep their fist tight consistently. It is that thing that people lack, and that instructors often beat their heads against a wall trying to give to students. The problem is that discipline is not a thing that anyone can teach to someone else, which is what makes it such a valuable resource.

Succinctly put, discipline can be defined as “self-control.” It is the ability to exert one’s willpower over their actions.

This trait is entirely derived from one’s own self, of the control that the practitioner has on their life and the choices that they make. For this reason, it cannot be taught to others. It must be cultivated within a person, not handed to (or drilled into) them as an external idea.

Because of this, superficial discipline is easily discernable from real discipline. Superficial discipline may appear when practitioners excel at the niceties and politeness of protocol, but have sloppy technique. They have focused their attention to the aspects of discipline that are most on the surface, because those are the places that passively interact with others.

However, the manifestation of deeper aspects of that self-control never appear. They have not exerted that willpower over the mastery of techniques, of training, and of improving their skill in the actual martial art that they train in. More true discipline manifests by adapting to corrections in one’s technique, or pushing oneself to the limit of one’s ability, or even simply showing up on time to train at every opportunity one commits themself to.

Truly, real discipline emerges no matter who else is around. And, in fact, is most salient when no one is around, since it is self-control exerted upon a person’s own actions alone.

When true discipline is achieved, it permeates all aspects of a person’s life. The practitioner’s martial technique will show the devotion paid to it, yet their protocol will reflect the values they have learned from that development. Their politeness will pour from the wellspring of the lessons that training has shown them, not from being told what politeness is and how to show it.

True discipline emerges out of hard work and training, and cannot be taught as a “thing” unto itself.

If the training itself is not the focus, then what right do we have to call ourselves “martial artists”? If only protocol is stressed, then we forsake the “martial” — simply becoming polite shells of practitioners whose technique does not matter, in capturing only the façade but never the true lessons of the inner power of martial practice.

On Competition

2007-08-05T22:26:00.000-07:00

Many are mistaken about the nature of competition. In Volume One, Chang Ip Jang Nim clearly distinguished that Soo Bahk Do was an "art" not a "sport," because its training does not yield winners and losers. This is not an indictment on competition, but rather on the perceptions to which we bring to competition. The result of competition is not what is important, what is important is the process.

Perhaps the most "successful" coach in American history, John Wooden, has always stated that true success in competition comes not from winning, but from the preparation and effort along the way. He writes that:

"...there is great joy and satisfaction in competing against an opponent who forces you to dig deep and produce your best... The worthy opponent brings out the best in you."

The secret to competition is not that it is a place for deciding winners and losers, but that it challenges people to push themselves, both in their preparation and in the ring. If you never have the opportunity to test yourself, you will never push yourself to achieve something more. A martial artist who does not want to improve themselves is one who invites stagnation and death. Wooden describes this further:

"Most all good things come through adversity... We get stronger when we test ourselves. Adversity can make us better. We must be challenged to improve, and adversity is the challenger."

In Soo Bahk Do, we were challenged as a group when Chang Ip Jang Nim passed away. It created changes that we as a Federation still struggle to overcome. As individuals, we challenge our abilities through competition. Tests and clinics do not do this. They only allow us to push ourselves to fixed goals set out before us. The goals in competition are unlimited, because the abilities of our opponents are unknown. We are forced to strive to be our best, both in preparation and in the ring.

Personally, my best came when I fought the "Giant" from Minnesota in the team competition at Nationals a few years ago. It was a match that I didn't even win: we tied. Yet, I consider it my greatest achievement in Soo Bahk Do competition, because it forced me to challenge myself — to adapt, to dig deep, and to make myself better. I can only thank him as an opponent for giving me the opportunity to improve myself.

I cannot speak to any knowledge of it, but it would seem to me that those who wish to do away with competition do not understand its uses and benefits. Perhaps, instead of doing away with competition, we should strive instead to educate and promote a better understanding and perception of what good it serves. Otherwise, I fear we will be forsaking the "martial" for the "art" and ending up with neither.