I had an interesting discussion with a student today on their difficulty with memorization.
I let them know that martial arts is like learning a language - the fact that they couldn't necessarily remember the exact sequence of a combo they'd learned a week ago was of little importance - could they remember the exact syntax of their first conversation this morning? Probably not - but, could they replicate it if someone provided, or fed them, the same input?
ie:
"hey, how's it going?"
"Great!"
the fact that this was an automatic response made it less relevant if "great!" was followed by "how's your wife?" or "but I stepped on a tack" or any other millions of variations.
What mattered, was that the language was automatic, and shot from the hip without thought.
Martial arts is the same.
It doesn't matter if you remember "block kick punch duck punch block kick" - what matters is: if someone throws a punch, that you have an automatic and effective reaction. And, after that reaction happens, you have another, also automatic and effective follow up motion, and so on, and so on.
When syntax is important (and there are movements where it is), those motions should be treated as "one" motion, not as a sequence of individual motions ("y'knowwhatImean?" might be a language example) thereby freeing up the brain of remembering specific sequences, and leaving it to the reflexive motions to do all the work for us.
There is no time for thought, just as it might be difficult to sing a song in rhythm if one had to learn the language for each word on the karaoke machine's screen while it was playing.
I let them know that martial arts is like learning a language - the fact that they couldn't necessarily remember the exact sequence of a combo they'd learned a week ago was of little importance - could they remember the exact syntax of their first conversation this morning? Probably not - but, could they replicate it if someone provided, or fed them, the same input?
ie:
"hey, how's it going?"
"Great!"
the fact that this was an automatic response made it less relevant if "great!" was followed by "how's your wife?" or "but I stepped on a tack" or any other millions of variations.
What mattered, was that the language was automatic, and shot from the hip without thought.
Martial arts is the same.
It doesn't matter if you remember "block kick punch duck punch block kick" - what matters is: if someone throws a punch, that you have an automatic and effective reaction. And, after that reaction happens, you have another, also automatic and effective follow up motion, and so on, and so on.
When syntax is important (and there are movements where it is), those motions should be treated as "one" motion, not as a sequence of individual motions ("y'knowwhatImean?" might be a language example) thereby freeing up the brain of remembering specific sequences, and leaving it to the reflexive motions to do all the work for us.
There is no time for thought, just as it might be difficult to sing a song in rhythm if one had to learn the language for each word on the karaoke machine's screen while it was playing.
Sensei Ono
Shinka Martial Arts Founder
Winner of Best Dojo, Best place to work up a sweat, most innovative curriculum, best coach/sensei, biggest martial arts studio, and top 3 Richmond businesses
No comments:
Post a Comment