Saturday, February 16, 2013

A Basic Question



The following is a basic question I've been pondering for a while.  Tony and I have been teaching together for many years now and continually revise our curriculum.  Over the years our thoughts have changed from our stock indoctrination how to teach each student in a way that is best for them, the individual.  This constantly changes over time and I'd like to think that we are becoming better instructors. 

One thing that has bugged me lately, and I can't believe it hasn't popped into my head before, is why are we teaching each kata in the raw skeletal basic form.  I was talking to some other black belts one day about how we teach each student a little different, depending on their abilities.  We've had students that can't walk and chew gum at the same time when they first entered the dojo, and we have students that are quite naturally adept.  When teaching the former I will rarely stray from the initial skeletal version while they are first learning a new kata, the latter I will usually get a little more detailed with them.  Not all karateka are created equal by any means.

During this discussion I was showing how with some students I start mixing in kake strikes and other higher level motions as they progress.  Then it dawned on me that I was actually adding some 'kake' motions to certain students skeletal kata forms as they got higher in rank.  Then I had one more revelation - that perhaps I'd been doing it wrong all along.  The following question popped into my head;

"Why are we showing basic kata to brown belts at all?"

I don't know if I am crazy, or what but it suddenly dawned on me that I've got two higher ranking kyu students that are going through the Pinan series now.  Note to others, we teach the Pinan kata last, not in the 'tape order'.  I won't go into the why of that now, but that is our choice.  They get all 12 before any shodan test but the Pinan are last.  At any rate, if you have students that have been training for 4-6 years to get to the upper kyu ranks, why should they be learning a kata and doing basic blocks and punches at this point.  I'm really starting to think that perhaps that is a little bit backwards.  By this time we have them regularly doing kake strikes, advanced punches, etc.  Why teach them a baby basic kata version?  Why teach them like they are still white belts?

I'm not sure at this point how to continue, but this was a bit of a revelation to me.  Even if you teach your kata in the 'tape order' for RyuTe® readers, then your brown belts would be doing baby basic versions initially of Pasai, Kusanku and Ni Sei Shi.  This doesn't seem logical to me now, though apparently that is how we (our current and predecessor school) had done it for 35 cumulative years.

I'm still pondering this departure from the norm and would welcome the thoughts of others.

Lee "Di" Richards

No comments:

Post a Comment

Moderated to prevent spammers who are difficult to Tuite via the web. Your post will be revealed to the world upon verification that you are not a spamming trolling anonymous coward trying to pick a fight behind your keyboard without leaving a name.