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!

Because of Some Reading

After the 50 States Challenge part of my trip was done, there was still one last thing I had to do in Seattle.

A view from the water tower in Volunteer Park

But first, a flashback.  Just imagine your screen is doing that cheesy wobble thing and playing some stereotypical flashback sound.

When I was a color belt, I practically lived at the dojang.  One student quipped that I was there so often, the instructor was claiming me as a dependent on his taxes.  But it's impossible to be training every minute, so when I wasn't in class or practicing at home, I would read.

One particular book that I read was a collection of essays written by martial arts instructors.  One essay was about how instructors can adapt teaching techniques to help students who learn in different ways.  I thought the author might have some insight into a problem I had in sparring that had confounded both me and my instructors.

Between the references in the book and the wonder that is the Internet, I found an email address for a Sensei Carol Gittins.  I eagerly drafted an email explaining my situation and asking if she had any advice.  And then I didn't hear back.

I was disappointed, but not terribly surprised.  6th degree black belts (as she was at the time) are busy.  School owners are busy.  Published authors are busy.  6th degree black belt school owner published authors probably have better things to do than worry about some color belt clear on the other side of the country.

So I was quite surprised a couple months later to get a reply.  She apologized for the delay since their email had been down for a long time due to computer upgrades, and proceeded to write a detailed answer to my question.

I was excited and grateful, but some of what she suggested were drills specific to her style that I had never heard of before.  I had to sheepishly admit that I had no idea what she was talking about, and ask for some clarification.  She again sent back a detailed reply. We traded emails for months, and she always seemed just as happy to be answering my questions as I was to be getting those answers.  At one point, she recorded a video of her with one of her students performing one of the drills that she recommended, which she then burned to a DVD and mailed to me (stop laughing, it was the most convenient way to do it back then).

We kept in touch, and I promised that if I ever visited Washington, I would visit her in person.  It was the better part of a decade later when that finally happened.

Since I had no car, she picked me up in hers.  I thought it was funny to post on Facebook that, "I'm getting in a car with someone I met on the Internet!"  My family thought it was less funny.  Then she gave me a tour of the International District, Volunteer Park and Bruce Lee's Grave.

And the shore.

That was fun, but then I got a chance to train with her.  I have never seen, or even heard of a school like that before.  It's tiny.  There are only a handful of students, and they are all black belts.  The school has no website and almost no online presence, so I never would have found it on my own.  I feel very lucky to have been invited, though, because their approach was fascinating.

The classes were led by Sensei Gittins, but they were taught by everyone.  One might expect a class like this to be chaos, but it wasn't.

The class, minus the photographer.

The cliché about teaching being the best way to learn is a cliché for a reason.  Sensei Gittins is a professional educator with years of experience teaching both in public schools and in the dojo.  It's safe to say she knows what she's doing when it comes to the process of learning.  She directed each student to lead a part of the class, often just barely outside of their comfort zone, and often giving them some leeway in specifically what techniques they would cover.

I got a crash course in their curriculum.  There wasn't enough time to go into anything in depth, but I got a taste of quite a bit, spanning striking drills, sparring drills, one steps, joint locks, and forms.  She would direct someone to lead the class through five drills, then the next person had to lead us through a few more, and so forth.  Since I was completely absorbed in trying to make the most of my brief introduction to their material, I was surprised when she assigned me to lead the class through two techniques.

As luck would have it, before class one of the students mentioned that when she trained in taekwondo, she found a certain kick to be very difficult.  Class was about to begin, so I promised to show her a trick to make it easier afterward.  Class hadn't ended, but I found myself in a teaching situation and decided to use that time to answer her question.  I cannibalized part of my pivoting class that I had just taught, thereby making myself look much smarter than I actually am.  It looked like I came up with that lesson on the spot.

Sensei Gittins later told me that they operate the class with the philosophy that when you are struggling with something, you teach it until you figure it out.  It is a very different approach from any other school I've trained in, taught at, or even visited.  Even though this wasn't an official stop in the Challenge, the time I spent there was very much in the spirit of the project.  This is a project about teaching and learning and experiencing new ways of doing things.  I was beyond lucky to end up here.

What Does 400 Pounds of Food Look Like?

When I first spoke with Kris Wilder about the 50 States Challenge, he immediately suggested collecting and donating fresh fruits and vegetables, because those are scarce in food banks.  I liked the idea of everyone bringing a "ticket" to my class, which could be anything from a head of lettuce to a bag of apples.  But after discussing it with the West Seattle Food Bank, they came up with an even better idea.  It's a targeted program addressing a very specific problem.

Supporting an award-winning not-for-profit in Washington.

Some kids simply don't have enough healthy food to eat at home, so they rely greatly on school lunches.  That makes the weekend a tough time.  Often they're home alone for at least part of the time that their parents are at work, leaving them to prepare their own snacks and meals.  When they get back to school on Monday, even if they're not hungry, they're not necessarily nourished if they've been eating cheap snack food instead of balanced meals.

That's all unfortunate enough by itself, but it comes with some scary side-effects. Without the vital ingredients to build a healthy body and brain, malnourished kids get sick and miss school more often, have more trouble concentrating, and can lack the energy to participate in class.  Since their bodies are still growing, malnutrition in childhood can interfere with development and cause long term or permanent damage.  It can affect the whole class, too, because a child with poor nutrition is a staggering 7 to 12 times more likely to exhibit behavioral problems.

Fortunately there are programs like West Seattle Food Bank's Backpack Program.  They provide backpacks for latchkey kids to assemble their own healthy meals over the weekends when they might otherwise go hungry.  The very generous students at West Seattle Karate donated an impressive 400 pounds of food to this program.

I thought that since the 50 States Challenge is just starting out, there would be a slow start.  We might only collect a couple bags of food and some lessons learned for next time.  Please enjoy these pictures of the students proving me wrong.

One of the classes hiding behind a whole lot of healthy meals.

Piled into the van, on the way to the food bank.

So what does 400 pounds of food look like?  It looks like a bunch of kids with a better shot at an education, a healthier childhood, and a greater chance of growing up to be healthy adults.

If you would like to support a cause like this in your community, get in touch with your local food bank.  Even if they don't have a backpack program, they may have something similar.  Volunteering or donating can make a huge difference to a lot of people.

A Martial Artist's Look at Seattle

In between some of my more ridiculous antics in Seattle, I had some rather sobering experiences.  Here are a few of them.

Seattle Dojo - America's Oldest Judo School

Seattle Dojo has been in this stand-alone building since the 30's, but the school was originally established in 1902.  The building looks and feels old, and the way the room shakes when students practice their breakfalls is only a little disconcerting.  I am sure this school has many stories to tell, but here I am telling only one, regarding the calligraphy on the walls.

Inside the oldest Judo school in America.

Seattle Dojo's calligraphy was done by Jigoro Kano, who is more famous for founding judo than he is for calligraphy.  However, the calligraphy on the walls today are copies of the originals.

It happened during World War II.  The Japanese Internment is a shameful chapter in America's history, in which Americans of Japanese ancestry were uprooted from their homes and relocated to concentration camps.  It was driven by fear in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Anyone of Japanese descent was given a few weeks notice to pack a single suitcase and leave everything else behind.  Many believed that they would not survive the ordeal, and even if they did, they would never be allowed to return to their property.  Many chose to destroy their farms and homes rather than allow them to be confiscated.

A sign at the entrance to Seattle Dojo.

The school had to close from January 1942 to September 1947 during the Internment, but the building survived thanks to one of the students, a Jewish corporate attorney, who kept the deed to the school and many other Seattle area Japanese-American properties in the vault at Seattle First National bank. The FBI did not attempt to confiscate it, as they did with almost all other Japanese-American property.  It was gutsy, but it paid off.  When the people were released from the internment camps and allowed to return home, the school had survived.

 

However, after reopening the school, it was discovered that the calligraphy was missing from the walls.  It is unclear if there was a break-in or if the calligraphy was removed for safe-keeping, and then accidentally lost, during the chaotic three weeks in December 1941 when Japenese-Americans were forcibly removed to various camps. Jigoro Kano had passed away even before the start of the war, so the school had to commission copies to be made to replace the originals.

One of Kano's last visits to Seattle Dojo.

Even though it's always sad when a piece of history is lost, that's not my takeaway from this story.  This is a story of resiliency.  This is a story about a community coming together in the face of adversity.  One might attribute it to the martial spirit of the judoka who carried the school through events that should have killed it, so that today it has not only survives but even thrives.  I have never trained at Seattle Dojo, but I think if I did, I would be very proud to be part of that legacy.

Japanese Garden

Completely surrounded by city, Washington Park Arboretum includes the Seattle Japanese Garden.  This would be an amazing place to sit and relax, read, or just enjoy a leisurely walk.  Of course, I did none of those things.  I zoomed through, hoping to save time to experience as much of Seattle as possible.  Yeah, I fail at vacation.  Though the sky was just a little too overcast to take perfect pictures, I did get to take some good ones.

Every few steps there's a completely different but equally beautiful view.

I've never been to a Japaense garden before, but this park reminded me greatly of certain venues in Korea.  The style is one of people whose open space is at a premium.  While I certainly appreciate Western botanical gardens and arboretums, they have a very different feel.  Here, every few steps provides a view substantially different from the views around it.  There's no symmetry here.  Taking a picture from one side of the pond could never be confused with the view from the other side.

A lantern by the water.

This park was built in 1959, with its construction delayed from the anti-Japanese sentiment in the wake of World War II.  Despite its newness, I was acutely aware of the history here.  The Nihon Shoki includes the earliest written mention of a Japanese garden. This is an art that has been in development for literally thousands of years.

Duck-sized koi in the pond.

In true Seattle fashion, it began to rain shortly after I arrived.  Not an unpleasant rain, but the kind of thing that is awful for taking pictures.  I'd love to return on a clear day and do it justice.

Bruce Lee Remembered

Bruce Lee is buried in Seattle.  I've only dabbled in kung fu, but even if I hadn't done that, I'd still feel his impact on martial arts.  He inspired so many people to start training.  He opened doors for so many people by advocating for kung fu to be available to everyone, not just Chinese.  He is less known for his involvement in promoting women in martial arts. I think it's fair to say that the martial arts landscape in America would look pretty different if not for what he did.  I took a moment to appreciate how much richer my martial arts experience has been because of him.

Thank you, and rest in peace, Mr. Lee.

It also crossed my mind to wonder what he might think of the reason I was there.  He is well known for his mixing of styles, and that gives me hope that he would have liked the spirit of this project, even if the execution is, for the time being, unproven.

The Wing Luke Museum had an exhibit for him called Do You Know Bruce?  They didn't allow photography, but the surrounding area was fascinating.

The Western entrance to the International District.

I want dragons to hold up power lines everywhere.

Seattle has a lot to offer the martial artist.  Should you find yourself there, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Coffee, Trolls, and Seattle Antics

The Space Needle as viewed from Volunteer Park.

Seattle is not the cheapest city to visit, and I'm trying to do this project on a budget. Fortunately I had friends I could rely on for transportation and a couch for sleeping.  They were also very cool about helping me run around and experience Seattle.

One of those friends raises alpacas!

I skipped the Space Needle since here are plenty of nice views available for free.  When the sky was clear, the colors were remarkably vibrant.  Crayola has nothing on Puget Sound.  I joked that I wanted it to rain during my visit or I wouldn't be getting the full Seattle experience.  When the rain finally came, it was accompanied by a wind storm that dropped giant trees on cars and left us without power for a day.  Others fared much worse.  Having survived the Ent Attack of 2015, I stopped joking about the rain.  I still felt completely free to mock the Fremont Troll, though.

It's a troll, eating a car, under a bridge.  Because of course it is.

Felicia Day was in town.  My friend's poor luck meant he wouldn't be using his tickets, so I got the chance to meet her.  It's hard for me to articulate why I like Felicia Day so much.  I find her work entertaining.  It doesn't hurt that she has built this online community based around what she loves, all without the benefit of a celebrity family or being born into money.  Nope, no reason at all why a novice blogger like myself might like Felicia Day. She kindly signed my... whatever you would call this thing.

Uh...

When visiting Seattle it is almost required to go to a Starbucks, since that's where it all got started.  One of my English students in Korea, a girl by the name of Luna, gave me a Starbucks gift card on the last day of class.  It's certainly a thoughtful gift for any soon-to-be jet lagged recipient, and the Korean Starbucks assured me I could use it in America. This turned out not to be the case.  So instead, I just looked like a doofus in a Starbucks. Which, for someone whose usual order is "candy that you drink and it keeps you awake," that's not a particularly unusual condition.

"Yeah, I'm going to order.  I just gotta take a picture of my gift card in front of the other gift cards."

Even though I was trying to limit expenses wherever possible, I did splurge on a ticket to the EMP Museum.  It's a museum dedicated to music and science fiction.  Not music IN science fiction.  It's two separate things.  The giant screen playing Michael Jackson videos is next to the Star Wars costuming exhibit.  You could say the museum has a little bit of a personality disorder.  It was a lot of fun, but I learned the disheartening reality that my knowledge of sci-fi weapons is not what I thought it was.

I don't know about you, but I couldn't name very many of these.

Everyone told me I absolutely had to go to Pike Place Market.  They also said the main attraction was seeing people throw fish.  I saw plenty interesting shops selling everything from antiques to novelty puzzles to literally profanity-inducing fruit and even seafood, but I could not find a single projectile sea creature.  My legs were tired from exploring and I was ready to call it a day.  I looked over at my friend, who seemed to feel the same since he was no longer swearing about delicious peaches and was sitting down to rest.  I told him, "I don't think we're going to see any fish throwing.  I think it's a prank Seattle residents play on visitors.  They tell everyone to see the fish throwing just so the tourists go around looking like idiots."

Tourists do not need help looking like idiots.  We do it just fine on our own.

As soon as I said that, the workers in the fish shop behind me started tossing a fish around.  But I didn't get a picture!  I'm leaving it as an exercise to the reader to figure out if I actually did see fish throwing, or if I just decided to join the Seattle prank and help spread false rumors of aerial fishmongering.

Lessons in Seattle

I expected that over the course of this project, I would learn a lot of physical skills and a few nonphysical ones.  I still hope to do exactly that.  Certainly there is a lot to be learned in martial arts besides movement, so maybe I should not have been surprised that most of the lessons here were not physical in nature.

I told Kris Wilder what I have told every instructor I've ever trained under:  "I am happy to try to learn whatever you try to teach me."  He took that more literally than most and spent that training time teaching me about teaching.  He is perhaps better known for teaching physical skills, but if you have read Sensei Mentor Teacher Coach, you will understand why I did not feel cheated by this at all.  (And if you have not read it, you may want to fix that sooner rather than later.)

It seems that after watching me teach on the first day, he got it in his head (correctly) that I would want to teach martial arts for a living someday.  Since he was happy with how I ran class, he focused on the meta-skills of teaching.

Seven Basic Actions instead of kicking for this class.

First he showed me his method for planning a class.  He keeps notes for each class in a subtle file on the wall.  The template is split into three sections, warm ups, basics, and skill drills.  He has pencil markings over a week's worth of pages for what he plans to cover. His lower level classes are just reductions of the main lesson plan.  Even though he stressed the importance of planning, he also highlighted the need to stay flexible.

He also talked about how important it is to "read outside of your industry."  He said that he learns things outside of martial arts that help him with his martial arts every day, because he has made a habit of exploring other fields.  He told stories of making connections overseas as an accidental byproduct of investigating cinematography, and at worst it has been "a neat little dead end," as when he learned the neurology of how the eyes focus while studying magicians' tricks.  He cited Malcolm Gladwell as a perfect example of success through exploring other industries, as his books tend to illustrate broad concepts by in-depth excursions into a wide range of fields.

If you have not read Outliers, you should fix that immediately.
Seriously.  Stop reading this blog and go do it.

But most of the instruction came through stories and examples.  He told me about how he motivated a young student with severe attention difficulties by making sure the kid knew he wasn't in trouble when he heard his name called again and again, but instead it meant that he was about to hear something important that would help him learn and excel.  He told me about his rules for managing disruptive behavior.  Kids who need a time-out sit at the edge of the mat, but if they leave the mat they have to go home.  It draws a concrete line between being in class and not.  He even told stories about how to deal with upset parents and how to kick a student out of the school if a severe problem can't be solved any other way.

He also told a story about how he helped an adult student overcome a drug problem and clean up his life after getting out of jail.  When I suggested telling this story in detail on the blog, he seemed to think the story was not unique enough to be interesting.  While I have to respectfully disagree on that point, what he said next was plenty interesting by itself. He said, "That's not what teaching is about."

Kris Wilder, between classes.

He went on to explain that the goal is not to help people change, but to help them find something inside of them that was already there.  This launched us into a discussion about why people sign up for martial arts classes.  If you ask them, they will often say they want to learn self defense.  But why do they want to learn self defense?  Most of them do not face violence on a regular basis, so most new students' desire to learn self defense doesn't come from a fear of what will happen if they don't have those skills.  Instead, they often hope that this will be a solution to something that is missing in their lives.  For example, everyone has an innate need to feel competence.  Someone who does not feel competent at work or feels unappreciated there might seek to fulfill that need through martial arts.  In other words, students are already looking for something inside themselves.  The instructor's job is just to help them find it.

With kids it's different, of course, since sometimes they join because of the parents' interest and not their own.  He suggested a scenario where a kid's parents are "the Charlie Brown teacher," where it becomes the instructor's job to reach the students in a way the parents can't.

But he also pointed out that even though the objective of teaching is to reach students and help them find what is already inside them, reaching more students doesn't necessarily make you a better teacher.  Sensei Kris puts his money where his mouth is on this one.  He runs a small school, both in square footage and number of students.  By keeping it small he hopes to reach his students more deeply.  It's also worth pointing out that I never once heard him boast of his students' skill, but he was happy to tell stories of their achievements outside of martial arts.  There are no trophies or other tokens of students' karate accomplishments on display, but he does celebrate the students who have left him to go to college by displaying their schools' pennants.

The accomplishments of West Seattle Karate students.

In the end I interviewed Sophal and told his story instead of the one about getting out of jail.  It turned out to be another story about finding something within that was always there.  That was clever on Sensei Kris's part, but then he went all Mr. Miagi on me.  At one point in an unrelated conversation, I told him a story from when I was a kid.  One summer I taught a girl in Special Ed how to read, not knowing that everyone else had given up on her.  My point was that she obviously didn't deserve to be given up on, if a grade-schooler like myself could help her.  Sensei Kris suddenly took a serious tone and reinterpreted the story as evidence that I have always been a good teacher.

Now, please bear with me while I recap:

1.  Sensei Kris knew that I was not terribly confident about teaching his students.
2.  Sensei Kris was trying to teach me about teaching.
3.  Sensei Kris asserts that teaching is really about helping people find something they've always had.
4.  After hours of instruction on teaching, Sensei Kris finds a way to suggest that this is a skill I've always had.

I see what you did there, sir.

Sophal's Story: Professional Achievement through Childhood Dreams

Sophal Keo is an assistant instructor at West Seattle Karate.  He has stories to tell about being impressed by the strength of punches from instructors in their 40's or 60's.  He also has a lot to say about the importance of understanding how to do things correctly and understanding why they are done that way.  But the story of how he got to where he is leaves all that in the dust.

Sophal Keo, living the dream.

Sophal is the son of Cambodian immigrants.  Being only two years old when he came to America, he was blissfully unaware of the conditions his parents faced before that. Because of their experience, they strongly objected to violence in any form and raised their family accordingly.  While Sophal acknowledges a certain admiration for their adherence to their principles, he also tells of frustration when they disapproved of his interest in martial arts.

"I rebelled," he says.  His parents pushed him to achieve in school, to no effect.  His grades suffered from lack of effort.  Never having performed well in school, he thought of himself as a failure.

The turning point was during his senior year of high school.  It was a major assignment where each student had to choose a goal or project.  Sophal set the goal of getting his yellow belt in one month.  Since it was academic in nature, his parents finally relented.  He signed up at West Seattle Karate and indeed did achieve his yellow belt within the time he set for himself.

"It was a boyhood dream come true."  He loved it and stayed with it.  But he also has an introspective assessment of what happened.  He cites that senior project as the first time he pursued his own goal instead of the goal of a parent or teacher.  His success inspired him to achieve.

He recalls the realization that he was completely capable of achieving in academics if he only applied himself in the way he did with karate.  He turned his grades around and not only went to college, but graduated with a double major in Accounting and Supply Chain Management.  He now has a successful career as an auditor while working toward his CPA.

Bachelor of Science degree in hand.

I asked him what he thought would have happened if he hadn't done that senior project. He paused, as if the question were too daunting to answer.  Then he said, "I wouldn't be myself."  He can't imagine things being so different.

Today Sophal is a big believer in the value of martial arts instruction to students of all ages.  He summarizes his main takeaway from his own experience succinctly:  "Be diligent, put effort, and always make goals."  He's quick to point out, though, that there's more to martial arts than is illustrated by this story.  "There's a lot you can learn in martial arts, not just that one lesson."

Teaching Kicking at West Seattle Karate

When I realized my first stop on this project would be West Seattle Karate I was certainly excited, but I noticed one little problem.  I'd be teaching a group of students who were accustomed to being taught by Kris Wilder.

Between Kris Wilder and myself, one of us gets invited all over the world to teach seminars, and one of us came up with a hairbrained idea for a travel project that is, for some reason, actually happening.  I imagined students who learned from him regularly and thought they must be very happy with their normal instruction and might find me to be a disappointment.  A week later, I was certain that he had yellow belts more skilled than me.  A week after that, his yellow belts were all ex-marines who ran their own schools.  By the time I arrived in Seattle, I was envisioning a host of time-traveling Samurai from feudal Japan, who between their active careers in Special Forces and their side jobs as karate instructors, had no patience for my underwhelming kicking advice.  Thankfully my overactive imagination knows to sit down and shut up once class begins.

The first group:  novice karate students, or deadly ninja masters of disguise.
Who knows?

For all my worrying, nothing bad happened.  It's a fools errand to make any blanket statements about a group of students, since they're always individuals first and a class second.  But one trend I noticed at this school was that the higher the belt, the more eager the learner.  I hope I can foster that trait in my own students someday.

Very eager learners.

Given the broad assignment of teaching some kicking, there were a lot of ways I could have pared it down to a single lesson.  Eventually I decided to focus on pivoting.

In my opinion, pivoting often isn't given the attention it deserves.  It can seem like an inconsequential detail that can afford to be overlooked until the larger movements in the kick are mastered.  However, there are some very good reasons to correct it sooner.

First, correct pivoting can prevent injuries.  I know people who have done permanent damage to their knees because they kicked with poor pivots for years before correcting what seemed like a minor stylistic detail.  In fact, they were creating repetitive stress injuries by throwing their body weight against their knees at an unhealthy angle.

The second reason to correct pivots early is because it makes it much easier to correct the kick itself when the pivot is right.  When a student is having trouble with a kick, correcting the pivot almost always fixes the kick.  This is because when the standing foot is in the correct position, the hips usually fall into the right position with no effort. Conversely, if the pivot is wrong, it's almost impossible to kick correctly because the hip positioning won't allow it.

Some very flexible people can make a kick look right while not pivoting correctly.  Even in these cases correcting the pivot is beneficial.  By getting the standing foot and hip into the right position relative to the target, not only is the knee protected, but it also ensures that the strongest muscles are powering the kick.

This was my thinking as I filled the classes with drills, technical details, tips and trick for kicking.  I also got to tell a couple stories and the occasional joke.  Overall it seemed well-received, and thankfully my concerns about starting this project were groundless.  In fact, I was lucky to start here.  They were a great group, Sensei Kris was kind in his hospitality, I learned a lot and it was a lot of fun.

Not to mention donating 400 pounds of food to hungry children!

The first entry in the Statebook!  I know I missed some
people because I kept forgetting to tell people about it.

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.