Lock In What You Learned

From Washington to Arkansas:  A teaching technique from Sensei Kris Wilder

One of my favorite things about the 50 States Challenge is passing on what I learned at previous stops.  After taking some time to process everything I've been taught, I pass along a Takeaway Technique that exemplifies the lesson from the previous school.  Then after I pass it along to the next school, I put it on the blog for all to see.  You can blame Iain Abernethy for this, since it was his idea.

When I was in Seattle, I got a lesson in teaching.

Which is kind of like saying this fish got a lesson in static electricity.

I got a lot of good stuff out of Sensei Kris, but it was easy to choose what piece of it should be the takeaway technique.

I had just finished teaching the oldest group of students about kicking mechanics and pivoting theory, with a digression into two-person forms.  Just as we were wrapping up, he asked each student in the class what they had learned.

Each student in the class had an answer, and those answers were diverse.  Some of them mentioned specific techniques that were new to them.  Others mentioned details of techniques that they didn't know before.  Others came up with observations about life.

Whoooo, that was fun.  I wanna go back.

I instantly loved what Sensei Kris did.  By doing that, each student had to reflect on the class and think of something that was useful to them.  That by itself made it far more likely that they would remember it.  It was sort of an on-the-spot personalized mini review session.  I imagined that once a student has been put on the spot with a question like that, in future lessons they might keep it in mind that they might be asked again.

For example, say a student is told to throw a punch for the thousandth time.  As the class gets busy throwing punches, that student might be just going through the motions.  Until someone points out to him that he could get more power if he adjusts his stance.  The student could file that information away for later, thinking, "There's a good thing to mention if I get asked what I learned today."  And by filing it away to be recalled at the end of the class, it could also be recalled later, say, the next time he was throwing punches.  And he would remember it whether he actually got asked at the end of class or not.  It was brilliant.

Later Sensei Kris pointed out an aspect that I hadn't noticed.  He said that while it's really useful to the student, it's equally useful to the instructor.  He said it gives him insight into his students and how they learn.  He said that some students mention very specific mechanical things, while others mention general feelings of techniques, and others cue off of stories or jokes.  As he said this, I remembered examples from the class I taught.

I have incorporated this into my teaching, and I'm so happy with the results.  I've gotten responses from tiny details like, "I should turn my foot more when I throw roundhouse kick," to grander observations like, "The power isn't coming from where I thought it was coming from."  And, not gonna lie, it's pretty cool as the instructor to hear all of your students articulate their learning and how much they got out of your teaching.  Try to trip over nothing on your way off the mats so your head doesn't get too big.

Is it cool with you guys if I just spend the whole blog post bragging on my students?

If you're interested in trying this out yourself, here's how.

For Instructors:

1.  Don't warn the students that you're going to ask them what they learned.
2.  Ask each student individually and give them time to answer.
3.  Everyone has to come up with an answer.  No sitting out.
4.  No one is allowed to repeat someone else's answer.
5.  If a student can't think of an answer, let them think about it and come back to them later.
6.  You may want to ask the least experienced students first.  It's a little harder to answer last because if someone else gives your answer before your turn, you have to quickly think of a new one.

For Students:

This part is me riffing off of what Sensei Kris taught me, so don't hold it against him if you don't like it.

If your instructor doesn't ask you what you learned, you can still ask yourself.  Do it right after the class ends.  Write it down, if you like.  Just reviewing it in your head will be useful, but having a record is even better.

You shouldn't have any trouble thinking of something you've learned in a class.  If you're consistently having a really hard time, it might be time to take a long, hard look at your training and see if anything needs to change.

-

Full disclosure:  I kind of messed this up when I was in Arkansas.  When I saw the huge turnout, I realized that there was no way everyone would be able to provide a unique answer.  So instead I asked for a handful of volunteers to give it a try.  Even with the smaller group, I didn't leave enough time for it at the end of the lesson.  It was really rushed trying to get answers out of everyone, and on a couple of them I had to let them slide without providing their own unique answers.

Just my luck that the first time I foul this up, it's at a seminar for the 50 States Challenge.

Photo Credit

Photo Credit

Photo Credit

Well that was embarrassing!

Kicking the Snot out of Cancer and Other Arkansas Stories

For my second stop on the 50 States Challenge, the kind folks at River Valley Martial Arts agreed to host me.  The dojo is in Russellville, Arkansas, a town of less than 30,000 people, few enough that I got teased for being from the city.  That was funny to me, because being so near Milwaukee and Chicago, Madison seems small to me.  But later I realized they weren't joking--Madison has a higher population than any city in Arkansas.  It was a bit of regional culture shock that I didn't expect.

Kicking in the How To Learn Any Kick event.

Their main program is faith-based, which had me curious.  I wondered what a faith-based program would be like.  The first thing I thought was that so many of my martial arts friends and students were not Christian, and how I would never have met them at a specifically Christian school.  The idea of religion in martial arts is as weird to me as doing martial arts during a church service.  But here is a whole school of people who specifically signed up for religion in their training.  And the whole point of this project is to see and experience other ways of doing things, and Sensei Kyle Bennett offered me a great opportunity to do exactly that.

Sensei Kyle Bennett (right) and some weird blogger (left).

In a striking coincidence, Sifu TW Smith released a KungFu Podcast episode about Christianity and Asian martial arts only a few weeks before my visit.  I was eager to listen, but I waited until the return trip because I didn't want his perspective to color my experience at River Valley Martial Arts.  Now that I've listened, I don't think it would have influenced my visit.  He gives a really thoughtful and well-researched account as always, which I can strongly recommend to anyone interested in exploring the idea of Christianity in martial arts more deeply than I will cover here.  Also, it was cool to hear him reference my Training is an Engineering Problem blog post.

I drove into Russellville after a day of sightseeing and arrived at the dojo just as the youngest students' class was starting.  The center of the training floor was set up with a huge pile of training equipment arranged into the shape of a life size car, complete with seats, seat belts, and swinging doors.  After a warm up, the meat of the lesson was about how to get out of an abductor's car.  The religious element was not pervasive--it was obvious in the beginning of the class and later during the occasional bible-referencing joke--they weren't praying in between sets or anything like that.  At least in that class, I think a non-Christian could have participated with a minimum of discomfort.

After that class ended, I was up.  Sensei Bennett introduced me to the students and handed the class over to me.  It was a wide range of skill levels and ages, which makes the class a little more challenging to teach, but not insurmountably so.  The topic was How To Learn Any Kick, and I went over kicking theory, balance drills, and conditioning exercises that can help people kick better regardless of their age or experience level.  My goal was to make sure everyone got something useful, to make sure everyone felt like they got their money's worth, even though that money wasn't going to me.  It was going to St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital.

Karate and Krav Maga students learning the nuances of pivoting.

There are lots of good reasons to support St. Jude's, but the main reason is because they efficiently turn money into kids not dying of cancer.  We asked attendees to make a donation instead of paying for the class.  The very kind representative at St. Jude's set up a website for us to take donations, but most of the donations ended up being made in cash, which River Valley Martial Arts sent in by check.

Hundreds of dollars worth of cancer treatment and research.

With only $20 being donated digitally, and $437 being donated via check, we ended $43 short of our goal.  Maybe a few generous readers would like to chip in a few bucks and get us up to that $500 mark?  You can still donate on behalf of the 50 States Challenge here.

Either way, it's easy to feel good about raising $457.  That money goes directly toward treating young cancer patients, but the research is freely shared throughout the world so that other families can benefit from new treatments as well.  Each donation to St. Jude's is effectively helping twice.

After that it was time to train.  The school's main program is karate, but they also have a thriving Krav Maga class, which is the one I took.  This was my first Krav Maga class, though I've had some exposure just by casual training sessions with martial arts friends who cross train.  I was looking forward to trying something new.

The first part of the class was an intense workout of exercises that could be found in general fitness classes.  This was very welcome because I had basically been sitting in a car for a week leading up to that class.  My workouts on the trip had been limited because I had to train outside, and there was only so hard I was comfortable pushing myself in the oppressive heat.  It was good to finally do a real workout in real air conditioning.  I suspect that was one of the main draws for most of the people there.

After we were all reduced to quivering puddles of sweat, we were paired off to work on knife defense drills.  All of the specific techniques were new to me, but they all made sense from a general martial arts perspective.  Basically I relied on my understanding of the underlying principles of movement, timing, balance, etc., to keep up with the people who actually knew the techniques.

You're not going to get hurt, but it's still uncomfortable to get poked, so don't mess up!

My absolute favorite part, though, was when we were paired off to wrestle over training knives.  One of my partners (primarily a BJJ student, I think) specifically sought me out.  I instantly felt like I understood him, because that's the kind of thing I would do.  Visitors, if they've trained before, always behave unpredictably.  Visitors present new challenges, even if they're not very good, because they'll spar/roll/drill differently than anyone else you've trained with before.  That day I held my own against some partners, but not him.  He soundly bested me every time.  But I did surprise him a couple times, like it seemed he was hoping I would.  One of those surprises was when I used my foot on his wrist to push his hand off the training knife.  Then he turned around and did the same thing to me, only better.  And I thought, this is how training is supposed to be.

I really enjoyed my visit, and I left feeling a little sad that I was so unlikely to see any of these people again.  But I still have the Statebook, at least.

Thanks for signing my book, guys!

Conspicuously absent from this post is my Takeaway Technique that I learned in Washington and taught in Arkansas.  That's because I'm saving it for the next post.

A Drill for Very Straight Punches

Even though this trip to Korea wasn't part of the 50 States Challenge, I would be remiss if I didn't come back with a Takeaway Technique for the blog.  

The idea of economy of movement is not a unique one.  In a life-and-death situation, a fraction of a second can make all the difference in the world, so the idea of not wasting any time during your movements is just common sense.  

When Grandmaster Park talked about this, it boiled down to a simple phrase that I have heard from him many times, "Straight is fast."  You can get very academic about proving that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but really it just means your punch is faster when it goes directly to its target.  

Eh... I just can't bring myself to crack a joke about Grandmaster Park.

He liked to draw an analogy to Wild West shootouts.  He said that gunfighters had to learn to draw their weapons very quickly in order to survive, and they did so by very straight direct movements.  The shootouts from movies are a creative interpretation of historical fact, but drawing a weapon as quickly as possible has obvious benefits, and not just in the Old West.  So for the sake of Grandmaster Park's explanation, imagine the quick draw from the stereotypical Western shootout, which is convenient for its simplicity.  The gun was likely holstered on the hip (not the leg) of the shooting hand.  The very fast movement to remove the gun and shoot from the hip is intended to optimize speed.  Presumably those who weren't as fast as their enemies died and were unable to pass on their technique.  The surviving technique involves a very fast, very short movement with the elbow tucked in, which you might notice, does not look terribly different from a punch from the hip.

The moral of the story is that straight is fast, and keeping the elbow in toward the body keeps the movement straight.  Even people who conceptually understand this mechanic sometimes have trouble adhering to it.  Twisting the fist from palm-up to palm-down necessarily moves the elbow, and for many people it naturally drifts away from the body during that movement.

Master Jang from Sunrise Taekwondo (who I should mention is not Grandmaster Park's student and, to my knowledge, they have never even met each other) showed me how he teaches students to keep their punches straight.  He breaks it down into three steps:

Master Jang teaching, because he always seems to be doing that.

1.  Start by holding both fists out in front of the body to be aware of alignment in the end position.  Without twisting the arm at all, pull the hand halfway back to its starting position on the hip/belt/floating ribs/etc., according to your style.  During this movement, the forearm should brush against the side of the body.  Pause, then complete the movement. Ignore the punch, and reset the hand at the punch's end position and repeat the return movement.  Practice one side only, then practice the other side.

2.  Now add the punch.  As the returning hand pauses in its intermediate location, the punching hand should pause next to it.  It shouldn't twist at all in this stage of the movement, and the forearm should again brush against the side of the body.  Complete the movement and end in a punch with the back hand returned.

3.  Now take out the pause in the middle.  It should be a normal, full-speed punch at this point.

Here is a video of Master Jang demonstrating the progression.

And the same thing viewed from the side.

To my thinking, this drill provides three main benefits to the student.  First, it emphasizes brushing the arm against the side of the body, which will straighten out a punch all by itself.  Second, the pause in the middle allows the student to check their technique at the point where the mistake is usually made, whereas performing the punch at full speed can obscure the mistake.  And finally, it delays the twisting movement.  

This delay is correct according to the styles I have learned, though I'll certainly concede that others may teach punching differently.  But setting style differences aside, delaying the twisting movement allows for a straighter punch.  The elbow simply can't move very far laterally when the arm is more extended.  As an experiment, give this a try.  When your fist is near your body, it is easy to rotate the elbow, though you run the risk of looking very silly.  If you try the same shoulder movement with your arm most of the way extended, you can probably only move your elbow by a few inches.  So even a mistake in the shoulder movement can be minimized by delaying the twist.

It's a very specific drill to address a very specific problem, but if you happen to have that problem, I hope this helps.

Taekyun - Inside Jegi and Outside Jegi

For each class I teach in the 50 States Challenge, the goal is to include one technique that I learned at the previous school in the Challenge--something I've learned that I'm passing on to a new school.  But what about the first school?

The last time I traveled out-of-state for martial arts, I went to Korea and studied taekyun under Master Do.  Adding a little taekyun to the lesson seemed interesting.  Since I was asked to teach kicking, it was reasonable enough to add it to the lesson, considering "taekyun" literally means "contest of kicking."

I am not a black belt in taekyun, but Master Do gave me permission to include what I know of taekyun in my lessons for this project.

Master Do and someone else... I forget who.

Taekyun, like judo or taekwondo, is both a martial art and a sport.  What makes taekyun stand out is the how closely it is tied with dance.

Master Do is quick to point out the aesthetic similarities between different cultures' traditional dance and their fighting styles.  In Michael Rosenbaum's "Kata and the Transmission of Knowledge" he expands on the intersection of martial arts and dance, citing examples in pentjak-silat, capoeira, Langkas of Filipino arts, Motobu-ryu karate, and sword dances from all over the world.

In taekyun, dance is used as a vehicle to teach timing.  All martial arts require good timing. Just like balance, speed, precision, and power, it's a fundamental that every martial art has to teach.  Taekyun is the only martial art I've ever studied that teaches timing first. The way they do this is by making it as simple as possible.  Instead of practicing your technique against a non-compliant opponent moving according to his own agenda, beginners time their movements to a steady, predictable rhythm that they can hear.  Later they take away the music, make the movements more complicated, and base the timing off of an opponent's movement instead of a predictable rhythm.  But for the beginner, it starts with a step.

Start with the feet shoulder-width apart, turned slightly outward if you like, and keep the knees and hips relaxed.  On the count of 1, step forward with your left foot, then drop the hips to make a little bounce.  On 2, you do a technique.  For now just lift the left foot and bounce the hips down again.  On 3, put the left foot back where it started.  Then do the same for the right foot on the next 3 counts.

Each time you step forward, your stepping foot should go to the tip of  the triangle.

There are a lot of different techniques that can be done on the second count, and in fact there are variations on the stepping as well, but for the purposes of what I taught in Washington, I kept it simple with an inside jegi.  

A jegi is a traditional Korean toy, similar to a shuttlecock but used like a hacky sack, and that's where this technique gets its name.  The movement looks a lot like someone is kicking a small ball into the air, although the application is not a kick at all.  

The outside jegi is a little more challenging.  The heel comes up to the outside of the body. When most people first try this, they keep their knees and upper legs mostly stationary and just bend the knee to flip the heel up.  To do this movement correctly, raise the knee along with the heel.  It should produce a distinct feeling in the hips.

While both techniques are great for warming up and conditioning the hips, they are not strictly exercises.  The application for both is to whisk the foot away when an opponent attempts to sweep the front leg.

If you want to know more about taekyun, resources in English are hard to come by. Fortunately some Korean videos are still interesting even if you can't understand what is being said.  This one shows part of a taekyun tournament, and this one includes demonstrations of techniques that are not allowed in competition.