Brilliant Illustrations of Martial Arts Principles

Anthony Cheung has been compiling wonderful illustrated notes on the principles of Chen style taijiquan, and more broadly too!

Great stuff: check it out: http://brisbanechentaichi.weebly.com/skill-knowledge.html

Effortless jiu-jitsu and judo / first class back in 2011

On Wednesday we had our first class back for the year with eight regulars on the mat -- what passes for a small class nowadays -- plus one prospective student.

It was good to be back, even on a rainy night; never mind this Summer's floods and cyclones.

* * *

This year I'll be taking an over-arching theme of "minimal effort".  How can we become so efficient in our jiu-jitsu and judo that it becomes near-effortless?

Of course, the training for such masterly ease will entail a lot of hard work!

Do black belts have to start their own class?

Karate instructor Michele asked Do black belts have to teach? on her blog and lively discussion ensued.  I suspect that those who like teaching gravitated to the affirmative camp, while those who do not tended to the negative.

All I'd add to that discussion is that in our organization -- The Australian Jiu-jitsu, Judo, and Chinese Boxing Federation of Instructors -- I don't think you can make it to black belt without an affinity for teaching.  As the name indicates, there's a lot of teaching in our system, and by developing everyone into teachers as well as martial artists there's a lot more hands-on instruction available than if teacher status is reserved for a select few.

Anyway, there's another dimension I'd like to explore.  The next step after doing some occasional class teaching -- typically stepping in occasionally for the full-time instructor -- is to start your own regular class.  In our organization this means that either you inherit and existing class or start a new club.

While this is something I recommend, you wouldn't want to rush into it.  I've just completed year 5 with my own club, and even only running one class a week (a two hour class, though!), it's a lot of work: Class planning, answering enquiries, record-keeping and collecting dues, maintaining equipment, liaising with the venue owners, submitting grading recommendations, advertising, scrutinizing candidate students.  There's a lot to do, and there's work and family life too, but once some simple systems are in place, most of that stuff becomes quite routine.  Blogging, by the way, should be strictly optional.

Oh, and there's teaching, too.  That's the fun bit!

It never rains, but it pours.  After four years of running my class on a Monday night I switched in 2009 to Wednesday and suddenly I went from a handful of students -- typically 3 to 6 per class, sometimes less -- to more typical class sizes of 8 to 12, peaking at about 14.

There's a lot less hands-on instruction by me on each and every student now.  The students who remain from earlier times sometimes say they miss that, but there's now more energy and camaraderie on our now crowded mat.  And next year should be that much better, with a core group who train week-in week-out solidifying.

Next step may be to increase the mat area!

* * *

Teaching someone else's class or running a short course is a bit like doing some baby-sitting as an uncle or aunt: hard-work, hopefully fun, but you get to give them back.  Starting your own class and/or club is more like parenthood; it's something you need to be ready for, and it's definitely not for everyone.

I highly recommend putting in a few years as an assistant to someone else first.

Superficial teaching, Real teaching, and Inspired teaching

Superficial teaching can sound good, but it's really by the numbers.  In The Anatomy of Change (page 121) Aikido teacher Richard Strozzi-Heckler writes:

Learning to ski last winter, I took a lesson from an accomplished skier and certified instructor.   He initially amazed me, as his instructions were very similar to the ones I use with my students.  He spoke of the importance of relaxation, going with the contours of the slopes, and trusting my body to feel weight, balance, and flexibility.  His images were creative and useful.  I  was inspired and immediately put to use what he was telling me.  But after a point, I got stuck.  The instructor came over, reeled off the terrific aphorisms, and I again tried to put them to use.  But there was no use.  Something was missing.

I realized that he wasn't making contact with me. He wasn't seeing me and what I needed to learn in order to move ahead. His wonderful information lacked a connecting bridge to the more essential part of me. ... Perhaps if he had tuned in, he might have brought forth the suffestion to turn my hip a little this way, or lean slightly that way, or even work with the energy of my emerging frustration.

Real teaching means more than passing on good information -- take it or leave it.  It also involves the contact that Heckler complains was missing from his skiing lesson, including observation and trouble-shooting, and establishing and maintaining a positive learning environment.

Much of the time I demonstrate with commentary, thereby passing on good information in visual, auditory and kinaesthetic (for my uke) forms, thereby catering to a variety of learning styles.  This is still superficial, but given good curriculum and personal technique, this transmission of "good information" is the foundation of effective instruction.

Next, I let the students get to work in pairs and try to leave them alone while they figure out the technique (or refine it) by themselves.  Part of good teaching is getting outta da way and giving the students space to figure stuff out for themselves.

Occasionally I'll intervene, or answer a question.  This is where the observation comes in,.  The student  starts to describe the problem.  "Show me your throw", I say.  I want to  see it in its totality, not hear what they think the problem is.  "Again", I say, so that I can get more data.  Sometimes I'll have them throw a different uke, perhaps with a different type of body.  If I can't identify the source yet I'll have them throw me, so that I can better feel what's going on.  Then I try to give one (sometimes two) succinct instructions, and apply the technique to the person so that they can feel how I do it, and/or to their partner so that they can see it.  I may also imitate what I want them to change.  With more advanced students, I might explain the cause of the problem and ask them to work out the solution.  In my book this is where much of the real teaching happens.

If I see that a problem is widespread, I'll make a particular point for the whole class.  If the problem is affecting every (or nearly every)  student in the class, it's time for me to have a good hard look at the likely source of the problem.  This usually involves a mirror, real or metaphorical.

Inspired teaching, by contrast goes above and beyond.  Sometimes it's when a new activity, or instruction clicks for a whole bunch of students at once.  On an individual basis, it can happen when the problems of the student seem intractable, the way to help uncertain, the likelihood of success low, all attempts at correction thus far have met with abject failure, and yet in a flash of insight the teacher realizes that there's something else that might just work.

Here is Brian's story about his experience tutoring Ali, a boy who was making no progress while attempting to learn mathematics, either at school and under the uber-systematic, yet non-directive Kumon method:

[T]here was one boy for whom Kumon did not seem to be working its magic. Ali was the boy's name, and he seemed to be in such serious trouble that Kumon seemed beside the point. When he did sums they were all over the place. Answers were totally wrong, and figures written the wrong way round. He could hold a pencil and write, but what he wrote was crazy. We seriously doubted if there was anything we could do, and we were ready to give up right there. He would make repeated mistakes, both of calculation and in the way he wrote numbers, and we even started to believe that he might be "dyslexic", or even brain damaged. Also, Ali seemed to be an extremely arrogant little boy. He had a way of lowering his eyelids and raising his head that made him look as if he thought the world to be populated entirely by fools.

At which point I got very, very lucky. I said, let me have a try with him. I decided to do some teaching.

I separated the task he faced into a succession of tiny steps and got him to do each step right before proceeding to the next. You start by writing your name there. No, there. What's your name? Ali. Good. Can you spell that? Good. Please write Ali there. Good. Now: what does this say? I point at a two. Two. Good. And what does that say? I point at a one. One. Good. What about that? I point at the plus in between the two and the one. No? That says plus. That means you are adding two to one. What does this say? Don't know? That says equals. That means what does two and one come to. What's it the same as? What is two plus one, two and one, two added to one? So. What's two and one? Don't know? It's three. Do you know how to write three? You do. Good. Please write three there, which is where the answer is supposed to go. Excellent.

And so on. I never made him guess more than once, and I was unfailingly polite. I always said please before asking him to do anything, and I never raised my voice. I never, that is to say, confused Ali being ignorant with Ali being stupid. I did nothing that would be unfamiliar to an averagely capable aerobics instructor working with a arthritic old-age pensioner, but for some reason this sort of thing, when needed by a child, is not always supplied, even in something as widely known as simple arithmetic.

Aside from not knowing the answers, Ali's biggest problem was writing the numbers the correct way around. He would routinely write mirror reflections of them instead. Not all the time, just rather a lot. (This was what had prompted the dyslexia diagnosis.)

When Ali did this - getting, say, the answer right but writing it mirrored - I would say well done, you got the answer right. The answer is five, and that's what you wrote. Well done. However, you wrote the five the wrong way round. Please rub out the five you did, and rewrite it the correct way round. Good.

As I say, you aren't supposed to do this in Kumon. If all the children were to get twenty minutes of solid attention, the way I was attending to Ali, the place would have stopped being the learning factory for everyboy and everygirl that it's supposed to be and would have reverted to being a few tutors helping a few rich kids. But I didn't care.

And the reason that I didn't care was that it worked. After about three sessions along these lines, Ali reached his personal plateau of arithmetical excellence (a few sums wrong but almost all of them right), just like any other Kumon kid.

So there you have it, a real-life an example of inspired, outside-the-box teaching.  You can read more in Brian's post.

We should all strive to do real teaching all the time, and aim to rise to an inspired level as often as insight allows.  It's worth it.

What is the ideal gender balance for a martial arts class?

Ideally, I would like a fifty-fifty male/female split in my class.

Most adult martial arts classes are male-dominated, kind of the mirror image of yoga, dance and aerobics classes. I think that this reflects cultural norms and pre-conceptions, rather than anything fundamental.

Oral tradition has it that the techniques of our school of jiu-jitsu were formalized by a group of Chinese buddhist nuns living in Japan in the 16th century, a group that no doubt would have needed effective self-defence! Consequently, our art is well-suited to women, although men can learn it too.

Melanie demonstrating the Nurse's Grip Gooseneck

Generally speaking, having girls and women in the class benefits the blokes. They bring grace, rhythm and a lower center of gravity. Usually not as strong, and often smaller, women and girls need to work hard on their technique from the outset. Their presence also helps diffuse the macho vibe that you tend to get in all male groups.

Conversely, girls and women benefit from having males in the class. If they are ever attacked, chances are that it will be by a male, and they need to feel and practice with the generally stronger and larger sex to achieve self-defence proficiency, and confidence in their own abilities.

A further argument for a mixed class is the same one for co-education in general: That we live in a mixed-sex society and that spending time together is good for our social development.

* * *

My own class has tended to follow the usual pattern of more males than females, although my senior student is female, and acts as a role model for other women who join the class. Lately we have had an influx of women, so hopefully we can keep 'em.

When I was working my way up through the student ranks I was part of a core group of 2 gals and 2 guys (Melanie, pictured above, was one of the gals) who trained together for about 5 years, and I found the mix beneficial.

What's the gender-balance like at your school? What would you like it to be? What are the factors that influence the balance?

Structure and chaos

In commenting on a nice article over at Mokuren Dojo --  Heads up: Drills ARE kata -- I made the following observation:

Broadly speaking there are two poles to training: kata and randori.

If it's pre-arranged, it's kata. Otherwise there must some uncertainty (i.e. "ran" or chaos) so it's randori.

And it is not just true of the martial arts.  Other disciplines also show this division.  

Take music: Classical music is primarily pre-arranged; jazz is more improvised.  But it is not entirely clear-cut: A classical concerto usually has a section -- the cadenza -- where the soloist gets to show-off with an improvised solo.  Conversely, there are jazz standards that jazz musicians improvise around time and again.

Take theater: Plays are usually written down and brought to life in productions, but in impro(v) there is no script (really!) and invention occurs on the spot.  Again, the division is not absolutely clear: The expression "the show must go on on" comes from theater, and seasoned performers must improvise in written-out plays when something goes wrong.  In an interview with the actor Michael Caine he explained how he learned to "use the obstacle".  For example if a chair unexpectedly obstructed his entry into a scene in a play Caine would either get angry with it (in a drama) or fall over it (in a comedy).  On the impro side there are many games (think Theatresports) and set-ups to give some structure for the creativity to hang off.

Take science: From school science many (most?) get the impression that science is about learning what has gone before -- Newton's laws, rules of chemical composition, what bits make up a frog -- or following set recipes to recreate an experiment.  But original science is about discovery, formulating and testing hypotheses, making sense of a bunch of observations, bringing order to chaos.

Which brings me to my first point: 

Once upon a time the structured stuff was the product of a creative act (or acts), more akin to improvisation than recapitulation.  

The masters who formulated and codified katas, Mozart, Shakespeare, Newton etc. although "standing on the shoulders of giants" were playing with chaos, and bringing forth structure.

What about the rest of us?  Perhaps partly because of the lofty standards set by the luminaries who came before we shy away from even attempting to be original, or deliberately put down the old stuff as being worthless or out-of-date, but surely both attitudes are too extreme:

Most of us will do well -- in whatever field -- to study what came before, and also attempt to not only recreate, but create anew.

Pablo Picasso was first a wonderful draftsman, in a realistic style, and then he started to play with the rules.

Personally, in the areas where I have manifested more talent -- that is, where things came easily -- I have wanted less structure.  Let me figure it out myself!  Let me play!  On the other hand, where I have shown less ability, then I have craved structure to help me learn.

The traditional martial arts are complex and difficult.  Structure is needed, but so is chaos.  Traditionally randori, sparring, push hands, etc. have supplied the chaotic element in the form of competition.  But alternatives like simple games; figuring out combinations,counters, and self-defence applications; researching bunkai for kata movements; inventing new kata; etc. offer additional scope.

This year I will be giving more time to tuning the balance between structure and chaos in my own training and also in my teaching.

Influx!

Last week I had four new people turn up to try out a class, three of whom I allowed on the mat, and one I asked to watch.

With hindsight I should have reversed the ratio.  Two of the guys that came on the mat were clearly interested in a more competition-oriented experience, and I was able to suggest some other classes that would probably suit them better. 

Happily, my class seems to be going through a transition from very small to a thriving smallish group.  I hope that people continue to find my class, but there are limits to how fast I can grow it.

Also, for some -- especially those who want or expect a primarily competitive experience with lots of randori, sparring, or rolling -- my class has little to offer, and this should be just as apparent from watching, as participating.

While in the past I was keen to get numbers up, it seems that I am now experiencing the opposite problem.

So a new policy is needed: Until I have a good chat with a prospective student and determine to let her or him on my mat, my new policy will be to ask that they watch rather than participate.  Especially when a heap of newcomers turn up all at once!

They come; they go

One of the distinctive things about teaching at a university martial arts club is that there are students who -- having completed their studies -- move away to continue onto the next phase of their lives.

Many of the members of the Monash Jiu-jitsu Club stay with the club following graduation, but a significant proportion of oversea students choose (or are obliged) to return home. One of the nice aspects of this is that one gains friends in other countries. On the other hand I miss seeing them in class.

Here is a message of appeciation from Leonard, who will be returning to his native Singapore in a few weeks:

Hello Sensei,

... I have been very fortunate to have stumbled upon a federation with such good methods of instruction and active participants. It will be hard to find another association that can compare, it has definitely enlightened me on the journey that is martial arts, and given me a finer appreciation of finding a discipline that one can relate to.

Best of luck to Leonard on his journey in the martial arts and in life.