Pre-Emptive Techniques in Kata

[maxwell ainley]

If sanchin is the choice kata ,it wise from a teaching viewpoint to allow the natural entry into the program of the conflicts ,at some point there will appear a conflict with the attention span ,not every work out will be a buzz or good progress is made .
Here again if concentration is fed into matters ,once our attention loses its enjoyment factor ,these are seed moments for the more evolved learning to gradually fill the shoes of our ingrained habits .
These life ingrained patterns coming from those three fields ,don't normally have a exellent attention span ,unless its of interest ,so a work out should eventually build upon this fact .
Our ingrained patterns are built around like and dislike ,I am attracted nearly always to my likes ,I attempt to block out things that don't fit into my little world view .
my point is mostly lots of these built in three field habits stop true learning ,and we wish to quickly internalise the movements of a specific kata of our choice ready for instant realistic combat .
With one kata conflicts that are in sanchin appear or surface out sooner .

[MikeK]

How then, in our relaxed and friendly dojo, do we ensure that these skills are not just practiced but actually learned? And how, if it can exist, do we avoid the "logjam"?

Dana, what's working for me, however glacially, is one on one training and it's all hands on. We did away with kata training as it wasn't needed for what we were doing. The other thing an instructor has to do is see what works for a person and go from there. IMO trying to embed techniques that don't fit the person can also cause the logjam.

[diegoz_ar]

Hello friends in the forum, the same concept expressed in this discussion came to mi mind reading this article, I think it is extracted from one of the books of Sensei Mattson. I do not have the books now; but I do have the article in:
http://cablemodem.fibertel.com.ar/diego ... inuo.html
but it is in spanish.

Saludos,
Diego

[maxwell ainley]

Deigo ,lots of concepts are in Gem senseis books , yet they can be expanded upon .

Mike ,you don't use the kata at all?

Internalising the kata moves ,pure and simple is one objective ,testing then that they are quickly or readily available for use is the proving ground ,that one can fight from those simple moves first of all ,spin off variation /application will follow in due course .

[maxwell ainley]

I have tried to address the very simple basics of applying ones own attention first of all ,finding your best learning route ,then graduallly improving it untill that old habitual learning is absorbed into the new ability to be capable of focussing to a one kata principle .
max.

[MikeK]

Hi Max, I'm doing two methods of training. The one I was talking about started out with kata and was really to help me make them better. But early on we then moved to training without them and started to train live. Working with someone skilled hands on really embeds the techniques as getting hit is no fun. There is a progression going on with concepts and techniques so it's not willy nilly.

Now under Bill I train kata, but until I started under him I hadn't done much kata at all for over a year. Learning Uechi kata is great because I can see the applications of many of the movements, it's more like reading a book than learning another kata.

[maxwell ainley]

Thanks for the reply Mike ,and you are in good hands with Bill ,plus uechi ryu as many areas that your teachers will direct you to ...all the best in your study .

max.

[Mills75]

The thing that attracted me to Uechi was knowing we had few kata and like stryke said I feel less is more also and knowing something deeply and having a few sharp tools is way better than trying to get a grip on alot of stuff that you'll never be able to internalize fully.

I love that Sanchin our very first kata is a unique foundation that builds upon and is the root of everything we do as we continue on. It sets up a basis to be found in everything so we're lucky in that respect that our art was built in such a logical fashion.

I've been training sanchin, kanshiwa, and kanshu now for almost two years and i'm a gokyu and I must admit I never get bored and always feel i'm gaining something each time I go through them. I'd rather train these very useful few kata and know them well than to train alot of kata and hardly know them.

It's sad that I do believe that most people who don't understand the big picture would get bored and want to rush to learn more kata and gain another belt status before they took time to really get acquainted with the fundamentals and foundations and to me this is time wasted cause if the building doesn't have a good foundation then everything above it will be mediocre as well. So I think it pays off to take your time and know something well.

I'm just glad we have a system that builds on it's foundation and was setup very logically to take us one brick at a time and make a wall somewhere down the line.

Jeff

[maxwell ainley]

Great stuff Jeff.

Working a limited no of kata is a step closer to working one no kata ,this is why the focus is very different for the one kata .
Basic facts are the building of this focus is a primary objective ,and because its one kata focus the problems we would encounter are of a different order thats why special treatment is a absolute essential requirement to bare in mind ,its one thing talking of pre-emptive skill placement into our system or to internalize .carrying out another.

Obiously anyone with no experience of this type of focus will not be able to help much with the finer details one would encounter enroute ,such as the problems likely to encounter after a year or two of focus .If the focus is on target ,internalizing one kata will be far sooner than attempting to internalize ten ,or even a few .
The attention will have to become powerfull to stay with the one kata workouts ,all interest must be generated from this one kata .
How to teach and develop one kata can vary ;but the important ingrediant is we are not going to take our attention off it ,we want those seizing skills and internalization ,we want sharpened weapons that equate those seizing skills .a sharpened singleminded purpose goal to do it ,carry it out .
Single mindedness is only a aspect of mind ,we must have it sooner than later ,even though these methods foster incredible levels of patience ,we want these things sooner ,thats a outcome of single kata study .

[maxwell ainley]

Lets say we develop a singleminded attitude and purpose ,we can now learn at a faster rate than we did before ,this brings us to single minded thoughts such as ; Loyalty.
Our attitude now is full of loyalty ,this can only be very positive for our family ,friends etc,etcetra.I mention this because it would be very short sighted to limit single mindedness to pre-empting alone and internalizing ,so our thoughts are now colored with new ingrediants .single mindedness now proves to be not a clinical thing .
Any thing apprehended can now be held in the forecepts of the minds attention span ,but these are only stages and uses at the moment .
One set of movements ,little meaning ,this is were single minded thought helps this stage .

[Stryke]

Thanks Max , reading with interest

[maxwell ainley]

Thanks Strike.

Attempting to qualify something as internalized ?is a bit like trying to hold on to the wind ,yet there are levels of it ,total concentration to the movements alone [one method ] will internalize ,yet we have little or no meaning [application .But the most important fact is we have single mindedness to accompany those movements ,this method is travelling very light we carry little or no baggage [theory application /practical too] there is a special intense discipline involved ,we don't let the mind stray to thoughts of application ,yet thoughts of application will pop up ,we notice them okay but we do not follow them yet .
We are creating a bare situation ,single minded to the movements ,we internalize this .
Now we possess for the very first time in our lives true single mindedness ,with thought ,singleminded thoughts ,these can be turned to any subject at will ,because we now possess a[ will ] these thoughts have a very strong will behind them or within them .

This will is very important ,we have reached a state in this singleminded focus upon one kata ,of the will .Real true learning now can progress with this will ,such as we don't now have to keep saying I will do this I will do that ,then break of and do something else .
So we have internalized something ,baggage would have slowed down reaching this will, but we now have a stream of thoughts ,these thoughts will be narrow ,and not broad .
We can now internalize within this narrow framework,but the main thing is we now have a single will at our disposal.

[maxwell ainley]

We now have real focus ,so we can drop the mantra "internalize at all costs" because internalizing is more complex than previously thought ,meaning can be layered into the established framework ;via a bunkai ,our own natural assumptions too .
I said in other posts those movements can be acid tested, Which will also reveal if the programing works .
Now we have a single mind behind the bunkal plus the improtant will
We can now make rapid tracks into the idea that a single kata is a entire system in its own right .

[maxwell ainley]

We have developed strong concentration ,and will,by a single focus to the movements ,but this does not imply we have aquired observation skills ,we realise we are less scattered in our attitudes ? it did involve pain to do this ,our scattered attitudes wanted dominance ,but we now have a foothold by not following these scattered ways .

Due to our scattered ways we only learn within that framework ,such as-; I set of with good purpose and intentions yet after ten mins I now want something else .
I want wide observation skills ,those pre-emption skills within that framework too ,yet all I possess are a few movements and a concentrative focus ,plus some application thoughts that were not followed up on ,this would have scattered intentions in deveoping the single will .
This is quite similar in effect to the homing in skill of a blood hound that is on the scent ,it can follow the movements without straying ...this is now internalized in all honesty .
We can now quite simply add to this senario ,our bloodhound needs observation skills within the narrow frame work ,we know now he can't be enticed out of this narrow framework of scent,and feel .Observation leads to vision ,so observation can be layered in ,in other posts I said there will be less observation data if we lack the ability to stay within a area of study ,we know we can stay now that this objective is internalized .we are not encountering discipline pain to stay put ,plus we are now encountering a new way of learning .

[maxwell ainley]

Internalizing is a complex matter .

A few things I have tried to address in the pursuit of pre-emptive techniques within a single kata study ,and the method /methods .
1. it is a bare method at first glance yet as far reaching possibilities .
2. This bare method stands in stark contrast to our bundle of habitual ways and habits ,and illuminates them ,by illuminating them ,a instinctive grasp or sift to make use of the very best of these habits for initial learning purpose ,under the test of single kata study .
3.A underlying in built test produces a reach to those habits .
4.Paves the way for a single focus to a single kata ,without this focus we would scatter our attention through out the kata ,this initially avoids becoming [bee -like ]to soon inside single kata focus .
5. Normally our habitual ways can't focus for long periods ,instinctively we would counter this by becoming bee-like to retain focus and interest ,our attention span is still weak .
6. So the initial methods address the attention span ,this then will counter the habitual tendancy to buzz from flower to flower .
7 . powerfull focus ,powerfull learning possibilites.