Posted by: wristtwister
Whatever happened to "one technique-one movement?" - 08/08/07 09:11 PM
Ever since I started martial arts, I was taught that all techniques were "one movement"... not a collection of the parts of each technique, but a smoothe, flowing and continuous movement.
Watching students in all kinds of classes tonight, it was clear that:
1. The karate students didn't have a clue where the target was that they were supposed to be attacking.
2. The kickboxing students had "one shot or nothing" with their techniques.
3. The Aikido students couldn't stop stopping in the middle of their techniques to admire something and then trying to finish up the movement (by struggling).
4. The jujitsu students couldn't move on their knees, and couldn't switch from top to side mount without help.
It was amazing... it looked like we had just dumped a busload of movie extras out there and told them to "do something that looks 'martial artsy' for an hour". There was no off-balancing of anybody, no side movement or off-line movement, and all the techniques looked like they were chopped apart and put back together as they found the pieces.
It was a mere 112 degrees in the parking lot when I left work, so I'm going to give the heat credit for making everybody go blank, but watching what was going on in the dojo tonight was astounding. I have never seen so many people trying to do something that nobody could do correctly... not the students, not the teachers, and hopefully no one was filming anything that went on. Did the planets all align or something?
Geez... I gave some of the Aikido students instructions about how to fix their problems with some of the techniques, and they walked right back over and did exactly the same thing they had been doing all along.
I've never seen that many people struggle that hard before to do simple things.
Watching students in all kinds of classes tonight, it was clear that:
1. The karate students didn't have a clue where the target was that they were supposed to be attacking.
2. The kickboxing students had "one shot or nothing" with their techniques.
3. The Aikido students couldn't stop stopping in the middle of their techniques to admire something and then trying to finish up the movement (by struggling).
4. The jujitsu students couldn't move on their knees, and couldn't switch from top to side mount without help.
It was amazing... it looked like we had just dumped a busload of movie extras out there and told them to "do something that looks 'martial artsy' for an hour". There was no off-balancing of anybody, no side movement or off-line movement, and all the techniques looked like they were chopped apart and put back together as they found the pieces.
It was a mere 112 degrees in the parking lot when I left work, so I'm going to give the heat credit for making everybody go blank, but watching what was going on in the dojo tonight was astounding. I have never seen so many people trying to do something that nobody could do correctly... not the students, not the teachers, and hopefully no one was filming anything that went on. Did the planets all align or something?
Geez... I gave some of the Aikido students instructions about how to fix their problems with some of the techniques, and they walked right back over and did exactly the same thing they had been doing all along.
I've never seen that many people struggle that hard before to do simple things.