Friday, August 10, 2007

struggling for a sense of improvement

I thought I'd write down some thoughts on how I am trying to gauge improvement. There is a lot of things I know I just don't get...and I'm struggling to also see a big picture of where I have been, where I am now and may go as a student of martial arts.

It was helpful a long while ago when Sensei Coleman said that you get trained to take what you learn in the dojo to become part of you so you can take it wherever you go.

So I came up with some steps on where I can help gauge the quality of my learning so far. It's a work in progress.

1. posture and foot work
I'm getting a sense that working on footwork and posture needs to go beyond class practice to make them more natural and spontaneous reactions.

I'm starting to also see aesthetic qualities in posture and footwork and relate them to how one carries their center (of gravity) in relation to other body parts and those of uke's.

2. the entry and off bl => technique
I notice that there is often a relationship to the entry and off balance. After the entry, I am starting to ask, "what about this makes uke off balance?"

Then beyond the off balance, tori is in a position to act upon uke to do a jujutsu / jujitsu technique that is best fitting for tori.

3. strategic application
so after the above, i am thinking that, maybe after years of practice, tori will compile a range of techniques that will come naturally. and all those techniques will be diversified enough (and embedded in the muscle memory) so that tori can take down or project uke in many or most directions

being able to do this seems to give tori the ability to use uke(s) as extensions for defense in a multiples situation. like u can project one uke against other ukes, throw uke upon uke, use an uke as a shield, distraction, whatever.

and i'm also thinking that good strategy is one that uses techniques to resolves the conflict quickly and effectively.

getting to this point seems quite a leap in proficiency, so i find it good as well as very interesting to think more about this now...

and another thing: is to be able to switch up to a different technique when something doesn't work or you make a mistake.

4. continuous review / practice on basics / advanced
on top of learning new things, i am learning it's important to not let what was learned before deteriorate in quality. particularly now that i have to fix my breakfalls. so i am guessing a practice of basics and what was learned before will help with retention...

I guess not everything you learn will come spontaneously, but they are still worth the review. even if there are techniques that work better for others and not for me, it is probably worth understanding/reviewing to help with strategy in kumite / sparring...

just my 2 cents....

1 Comments:

At 9:27 PM, Blogger Sergio said...

Having watched you across these last six months - even with my limited understanding of Jujitsu - I have seen improvement. In the last class alone, I saw a significant difference in your breakfall with just five minutes of focused practice before class.

What I'm trying to say is that the it looks to me that the improvement is there and maybe it’s only the sense of it that is lacking. In my opinion, it is not that you stopped improving, but rather that the same rate of improvement isn’t noticeable. This is the concept addressed in Weber’s law.

To give you a parallel; to when you play music at 5 Decibels and raise it to 10 DB, you will probably notice a big difference. But when you play music at 80 DB and raise it to 90 DB you may not notice it at all even though the incrimination was greater than the original.

I can’t say that my advice is to not let it frustrate you, but at least, you might want to take this into consideration the next time you do not notice much progress.

 

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