Posted by: mbac640
What do you learn from new classmates? - 02/24/06 12:38 PM
The experienced classmate is great to tell you that you're turning too much/too little in a back kick (etc), but even more enlightening and fascinating is the student who is taking the first Taekwondo class of their lives.
You can see their muscle memory is uncoordinated -- muscles fight each other, misinterpret their brain's signals. Legs and even arms fly in directions that the student just can't get any control over.
Their sense of balance is totally unprepared for the motions they put themselves through. Weight shifts awkwardly, they search for stability but never find it.
The master instructs them to try to punch faster, and they push as hard as they can and still strike much too slowly.
I do not say this to mock the new student, or believe they should be embarassed. Quite the opposite. I learn a lot from their innocence. It reinforces in my mind just how essential these things we take for granted are, and that they really are the core of the art.
You can see their muscle memory is uncoordinated -- muscles fight each other, misinterpret their brain's signals. Legs and even arms fly in directions that the student just can't get any control over.
Their sense of balance is totally unprepared for the motions they put themselves through. Weight shifts awkwardly, they search for stability but never find it.
The master instructs them to try to punch faster, and they push as hard as they can and still strike much too slowly.
I do not say this to mock the new student, or believe they should be embarassed. Quite the opposite. I learn a lot from their innocence. It reinforces in my mind just how essential these things we take for granted are, and that they really are the core of the art.