I have not heard "Quitting karate was a great idea!"

We love this picture - thanks Kris Hughes!

I have been teaching martial arts in the same town for over twenty years.   Our studio has been open so long that students whom we taught when they 7 & 8 years old are now bringing their 7 & 8 year olds to us.  We have taught literally thousands of students.

With so much history behind us it seems almost on a weekly basis I run into former students outside of the karate studio.  More often than not these former students will say “I wish I had never quit karate, just think of where I would be today.”   I never run into students who say “quitting karate was a great choice”.  Our response to our former students is simple “It is never too late to get back on the training floor.”

The purpose of this post however is not to talk to those that have quit, while we certainly would love to see them resume their training, our philosophy has always been to focus on those who are actively training.  This post is intended for those students (and their parents) who are contemplating quitting.  Today’s society throws an infinite number of opportunities in front of us.  Often times a student who quits is motivated by the short term gain of something new, or wanting to follow a certain crowd.  I would ask them to weight these options against the long term benefits of martial arts training. 

There are few activities today which can so profoundly impact a person’s long term growth, development and understanding as well as martial arts training. When you walk away from training you are walking away from a continual path of self improvement, surrounded by like minded individuals who believe personal excellence is a never ending journey and are eager to pursue that journey with you.  The friends you play sports with, while enjoyable to be around, are  focused on winning the game, not on winning the game of life.   For the great majority of people when school is done there is no more to sports other than to look back at the glory days.  The former students I meet who left martial arts to pursue sports always say “I wish my parents had never let me quit.”

Grand Master Shin has a famous quote “Kick Punch Easy Stuff”. This simple saying has many meanings. For the student in general its meaning relates to the changes that occur in the character of the student more so than they physical health and self defense skills that are attained by continuous training in martial arts.  Tang Soo Do training is a never ending journey of discovery and enlightenment.  With each new challenge that is overcome the student grows in their knowledge of the task at hand but also in their knowledge of what they can accomplish.  Achievement begets the desire for additional achievement.  Quitting begets regret.  Perhaps not in the short term but definitely in the long term. 

Kicking and punching in the martial arts ultimately leads to the opportunity to learn leadership skills. This starts early on when you are partnered with a less experienced student and you have to help them perform the skill at hand better.  Later on the student gets the opportunity to lead multiple students by conducting warm ups at the beginning of class.  After becoming Black Belts they are invited into our Instructors Training Program where they learn the specific skills of teaching each aspect of our martial art. These Black Belts are then given the opportunity to practice their teaching skills by leading various portions of class.  As their proficiency as an instructor improves they are eventually given the opportunity to be a substitute teacher for our classes, and then be assigned a permanent class to teach.  From this group of class instructors there is the additional opportunity of learning the business and administrative side of studio operations with the ultimate goal of someday having their own studio and continuing to spread the art. 

Not every student will grow into a studio owner; life’s circumstances may preclude this.  However, the skills of leadership translate easily outside of the dojang.  A teen student who is capable of leading a group of teens and adults through a portion of their karate class will be less susceptible to negative peer pressure often seen in high school.  This same student who has learned to be self motivated and goal oriented through their martial arts training now enters college.  With this major life change they experience more personal freedom.  The martial arts student is better able to stay focused on their academic goals and additionally make good social choices as opposed to the typical freshman in college.  As they are seeking career employment as they graduate college they are able to confidently handle the questions thrown out them by job recruiters.  Our experience shows that upon being hired they quickly establish them themselves in their new companies as both confident and competent workers.  As they become trusted employees they also begin to climb in leadership within the corporations who were smart enough to recognize their talents. 

When a student, or a parent of a student, is contemplating quitting; it is not karate they are walking away from.  They are walking away from the life lessons that martial arts teaches about goal setting, overcoming obstacles, challenging themselves to learn continually and leadership.  When seen from this perspective I would hope the student, and parent, is able to overcome the short term desire to quit and stay the path to a lifetime of positive growth and development.

PSPSP-C Tower to improving technique in all styles.

Regardless of the style of martial art that one practices, there are certain universal aspects of technique that are necessary to perform at a high level of quality and proficiency.   It is not profound to say that good technique contains: precision, speed and power.  But what gives rise to these elements of a technique and furthermore is there a relationship between these three and the fundamentals that are used to build these.

 

Power is a catchall that can be defined a number of different ways. For the purpose of this discussion we will focus on external power (weh kong) as opposed to internal power (neh kong) or spiritual power (shim kong). For our purposes in this discussion we will look at power from the perspective of mass transfer.  When we strike an opponent we desire to transfer as much of our body mass into the adversaries vital point with as much velocity as possible. The force we strike with is a function of mass X acceleration. To increase our power we either need to move faster or transfer more mass.  The study of martial arts to a large degree is a scientific examination of mass transfer. We are “Mass Transfer Specialists”.  We study the art and science of transferring our mass or our opponents mass explosively in the direction we specify. 

The last sentence of the paragraph above contains two important elements: explosive (speed) and specify (precision). Being able to move a large volume of mass slowly while an interesting skill, does not necessarily provide martial value in an dynamic self defense environment.  Bench pressing 300 or even 500 lbs does not readily translate into a useful combative skill.  Strength training is valuable to our overall health and development, however in regards to executing technique I am focusing on explosive movement.  The faster we move any given mass the more force we transfer to our benefit.  Furthermore while I wish to move that given mass fast, I do not want it to move randomly.  When I am striking I want to be able to focus the mass transfer quickly into a very specific target (Kup Soo).  The human body while strong has certain week spots that can be exploited for our self defense benefit.  Additionally if we look at the unit of force lbs/sq. we see that a given amount of mass transfer into a small area vs a large area results in a greater amount of force experienced. Someone who steps on your foot with a sneaker imparts less experienced force than the same person who steps on you with a high heel. 

Hitting effectively with power in combative training therefore requires both the elements of speed and precision. But which should you work on first.  The military and law enforcement communities use a phrase that sums this up best.  “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast, fast is lethal”. Precision starts by training slow, as you hit your target consistently at a slow speed you then are able to increase the speed until your accuracy fails.  You stay at this speed of training until such time that your accuracy returns and you are once again consistently hitting the target at your new speed.  This incremental process allows you to achieve a high degree of accuracy at high speed by programming muscle memory at achievable speeds.  When you are taking your time and going slow you are giving yourself the opportunity to take corrective action.  If you work to hit a target at full speed without first trying at slower speeds, you do not develop consistency in your motor skills and will not achieve the desired results consistently or quickly.  Precision therefore should be focused on before speed. The way I present this to my students is: “Precision allows for speed, speed provides power”.

This then begs the question, what tangible factor can a student of the arts work on to improve their precision?  The effective use of mass transfer requires an intuitive understanding of body structure. Body structure is most directly, but not exclusively, evidenced by stance. The platform (stance) a student uses to apply a technique requires stability, consistency and durability. When the student is working on the precision of a technique it is important that they do so from a stance that is consistently strong. If the stance is unstable, inconsistent or collapses under duress it is impossible for a student to consistently program muscle memory.  Through dumb luck they will occasionally hit the target, but we do not want our safety to rely on dumb luck, we are aiming for 100% accuracy.  In the martial arts our stances provide the consistent platform on which our techniques are launched.  In order for a student to establish consistent precision in their technique they must first develop consistency in the strength and durability of our various stances. Understanding of course that each stance has its own inherent benefits and weaknesses.  Part of stance training is to understand which is the optimal stance to use with different techniques and circumstance and how to transfer effectively and efficiently from one stance to another. With a well developed platform the student is ready to more diligently and effectively work on developing their precision which allows for speed and produces power.

What then is the critical element of all stance work, regardless of style, that we should establish first and foremost?  The simple answer is posture.  Poor posture, aside from being unhealthy, causes a cascading series of problem in the student’s technique. When the posture is bad it is impossible to have a stance that is consistent, stable and efficiently mobile.  Poor posture is the critical visible element where most techniques begin to fall apart and problems arise.  Once posture is corrected, the difficulty a student had hitting the target will often go away. Good posture allows for consistency and stability in the weapons platform (stance). When you see a student struggle with a technique it is easy to see that their stance is often bad as well. Bad stance is not the causative factor it is an indicator of a deeper issue. The causative factor is usually their posture. In the process of fixing their stance you will often unknowingly have them fixing their posture as well.  If you focus on the posture first the stance will almost always correct itself.  The more you can get the student to self correct their posture the quicker you can move them onto more advanced material.

Everything we have discussed up to this point is visibly tangible or measureable. A force meter can measure how much power is being imparted into a target, an accelerometer can be utilized to measure the speed of a technique at impact, we can visually see if a target has been hit with precision, we can video or photograph the student to show them the quality of their stance and posture and directly show them how these factors affect their precision, speed and power. Is there an additional element that has a demonstrable impact on the quality of their posture?  If we compare this example to building a house. We have framed in the house (stance) using good lumber (posture).  The solid framing allowed us to put up the roof, make the rooms, install utilities, finish, paint and furnish.  Making the house functional (precision, speed, power). We can do all this work but if the foundation is not sound in very little time the house will begin to experience problems and ultimately crumble well before its time. Most people think that our stances are analogous to the foundation of the house but this is wrong, there is something which offers a better correlation.  The foundation of our martial arts house is core muscle strength.  The below the surface strength of our bodies serves the same purpose as the below the ground foundation of our house. A person’s posture, balance, mobility and overall strength is profoundly dependent on their core muscle strength.  Our core allows us to connect the disparate parts of our body into one unified whole.  This allows us to increase the mass we strike with and the speed at which we efficiently move our mass. Developing core strength improves our posture which affects our balance and mobility. In short core strength develops our center, when you understand how to move your center and how you move your opponent’s center you will have the tactical advantage.

Core improves posture

Posture improves stance

Stance improves precision

Precision allows speed

Speed provides power

If you invert this series of equations you create a tower.

P             power                                  measurable

S             speed                                   measurable

P             precision                             measurable

S             stance                                  visible

P             posture                                visible

---           -----------                              -----------

C             core                                       unseen

In a tower if one level fails all the levels above it also fail.  You can have good stances but still be working on precision; if the precision is lacking then the speed and power are not relevant.  You can be faster and stronger than your adversary but if you cannot hit the broad side of a barn your technique is not effective.  Once we understand this tower we can begin to effectively and efficiently improve the quality of our techniques by looking to see which levels are well established and which are not, then put our focus on the level that needs our attention not the ones above it. If you are struggling with developing power in your technique begin to climb down the tower until you find the root cause of the problem.  Most times when helping students I find the fault in the posture and core areas – with a little attention in these areas we see dramatic improvement in a short period of time.

Please share this with your students and martial arts friends; my personal experience using this tower has definitively impacted my personal understanding of Tang Soo Do and also allowed me to better help my students.  I hope it provides you with similar results.

Tang Soo!

Master Scott C. Homschek

A martial artist knows…..If you expect to succeed, embrace hard work.

Photo courtesy of Kris Hughes - all rights reserved.

Every generation of humanity has benefited in many positive ways from the technological advances of that generation.  The most tangible evidence of this is the advancements in the medical field. Illnesses and injuries that just a few decades ago would have debilitating or terminal are now diagnosed and treated with ease. These advances not only increase the quantity but also the quality of life. The development of the mechanical engine has allowed a single individual to do the same amount of work as scores of men in previous times. The increase in productivity has not only benefited the individual but his community as well as the individual has been able to bring an ever increasing variety of goods and services to his neighbors.  However there is a potential downside to these advances.

When technology allows us to do more with less effort, the desired byproduct should be for the individual to channel that freed time into additional productive pursuits. Instead we often see the opposite; where the individual is only focused on completing the task at hand and not focused on what he or she can still accomplish in the time they have made available. This is not to say that we should not enjoy the benefits of this increased productivity by investing additional time into our families, hobbies and personal interests. 

The challenge arises when the individual who has committed to a certain amount of time to work, rests on his laurels when technology allows us to accomplish the same tasks in less time. Instead of recommitting themselves to accomplishing more in the time they have allotted to work they say “job done, I can take it easy”. When this happens on a consistent basis the individual gets accustomed to spending less time working and more time taking it easy.  We as a society are seeing this more and more often particularly in our children. 

Today’s children seem less capable of self motivating themselves to accomplish their own tasks.  Technology has made it easier for the tasks to be done, and we as parents have not filled in the work void with additional tasks to accomplish. The children have gotten accustomed to maximum benefit for minimal effort on their part. This has imparted upon them a lazier attitude than previous generations, and we as parents are the culprits. 

We need to teach our children the beneficial attitude of hard work, not just the material benefits of hard work. The person who embraces hard work will succeed in life, regardless of the circumstances they find themselves in.  We all face hardships at different times in our lives; how we attack those hardships is the ultimate deciding factor of the final result. Those that embrace hard work lift themselves up by their boot straps when they find themselves in difficult times and immediately begin working on a way to resolve their problems.  Whether it is loss of a job or natural catastrophe those who have embraced hard work will resolve their problems much faster than the person who waits around for someone else to solve the problem for them.

We need to cultivate this attitude in our children in as early an age as possible. In our family there is an expression “When we work we work, and when we play we play”. When there are projects to be done all hands, regardless of age, chip in.  Everyone works at the task until the task is done. Growing up in this environment teaches children that adults value hard work and if they are to be respected by their elders they should do the same. 

If you want your children to embrace hard work you have to give them age appropriate tasks to accomplish.  As they succeed the tasks get more involved and more challenging. Hmmm… kind of sounds like progressing in the martial arts. Helping our children to understand good time management; budgeting appropriately for both work and play along with fostering an attitude of accomplishment will go a long way to putting them on a path to future success. Teach them to focus on how much they can get done, instead of how little they can do to make their boss/parent happy. Those who embrace hard work will always rise above those that only want to get by.  Which do you want for your child?

Tang Soo!

Master Homschek