sensei8

What do YOU, the instructor, do when a student(s) argues with YOU against sound and proven technique(s) that are universally tactical and effective? I hope that nobody will suggest to me that there's no such thing as a universal technique(s). I'm quite certain that YOUR style of the MA has a numerous technique(s) within the curriculum that's unquestionably universal in both the stand-up and ground venue/arena. This is what I'm referring to in my question. Here's what I do... I'll remind them that it's ok to question everything, but it has to be done in a respectful tone, and not in a demanding and/or demeaning tone. Why? Because I'm the Sensei, and they're not!! I want my students to support their assumptions with an open mind because one of us might be wrong. I'll calmly explain it/them to my student in a clear and understandable description, and as many times as necessary. I don't attack my student with disrespectful words, but, the student and I will address the problem together until the student starts to have their AHA moment, no matter how long it might take. Then when that doesn't work and my student still want to argue with me in a disrespectful tone, then I'll SHOW my student just WHY this proven effective technique works. I'll guarantee that my student at that point will come up baptized a believer. No, I won't embarrass my student, nor will I hurt my student, no, I'll just SHOW my student just how effective 'it' is because actions speak much louder than words. What might you do?

As the 2nd anniversary of Dai-Soke Yoshinobu Takahashi's death on September 16, 2010 grows nearer, I run through a myriad of emotions; none more greater than another. This great man was many wonderful things to the entire student body, but nothing greater than this...he was our Sensei...he was my friend. He was Sensei of 10,871+ students; the active totality of our entire student body. The '+' is for those inactive students that are no longer involved with Shindokan for whatever reason(s), which is a mere 258. However, Soke Fuyuhiko Saitou only had one student during his entire fruitful MA journey...Dai-Soke Yoshinobu Takahashi. Dai-Soke became Soke's one and only student in the summer of 1940, and at the tender age of eight years old, Dai-Soke became Soke's Uchi Deshi, live-in student. Many, many years later, the two of them traveled to the USA, unknowing what was in store for them, Soke opened the Shindokan Hombu in 1961 in Canoga Park, California. Right from the very beginning of the Hombu, Dai-Soke, then Kaicho/Chief Instructor, at Godan, Soke unselfishly turned over every Shindokan student to him; past, present, and future. Does the mean that Soke was only on the floor to teach Dai-Soke? Does that mean that Soke only had a vested interest in Dai-Soke? Does that mean that Soke didn't care for the student body? Does that mean that Soke didn't want to have anything to do with the student body? NO! Soke was on the floor everyday and at every class teaching and nurturing each and every student alongside of Dai-Soke. The same can be said of Soke concerning every testing cycle, both the quarterly and annual cycles; Soke was center at the testing table with Dai-Soke on his right. Soke was always large and in charge, and in that, he knew very well what his role, duties, and responsibilities where. Soke was the ultimate taskmaster but the unyielding love he had for every MA student, especially any Shindokan student, had no equal. As part of the student body, I'm not sad for soke because that was his choice as well as his decision to bestow every student to Dai-Soke. No, I'm not sad, I'm comforted by Soke's solemn gesture to his one and only student and his friend. It's not the quantity of students, but it's the quality of students that was most important to Soke; Dai-Soke echoed those same sentiments wholeheartedly and without any reservations. So, when your MA school is either packed wall to wall with students or with only a few, remember this, my Soke only had one student.

Now that's cool!! What did you two talk about? Anything specific?

Danielle, I did watch the match between Obame (Gabon) and Molfetta (Italy), at least NBC got that one right. It was a great fight. Your last two posts were SOLID, and I mean S-O-L-I-D!! Thanks for all of the info and for taking the time to post them. I was expecting more continuous fighting but I wasn't expecting the Karate-tournament-like. Did the Olympics change the fighting format??

Oooohhhh...I wish I was a mouse in your pocket...I would've loved to have been there...lucky you!! USA Today, it's a big newspaper in the USA, had a 7 paragraph article with photo in the LONDON 2012 section, section D, page 5, entitled..."Taekwondo replay gives U.S. Bronze". The photo was of American Terrence Jennings; who beat Brazil's Diogo Silva for the Bronze. The OBS needs to, imho, do a better job covering Judo and TKD, after all, they've both been in the Olympics for some time now...sheech. However, the OBS did cover Fencing quite well. What's one to do? Sorry Bob, maybe I didn't explain that well enough. The OBS filmed everything: all TKD matches, all Judo matches and all of everything else. Any and every single match or heat or routine at the games gets filmed no matter what sport or what athletes are competing. That video footage then gets sent around the world to the broadcasters who have the license to show it and they can choose to put their own commentary and graphics etc. on top of the raw video before broadcasting to their country. What you see on television is the bits of the OBS filming that your country's olympics license holder wants to show. For you that's NBC, for us Brits it was the BBC. Sorry to hear that you only got to see a few TKD fights but I promise you every single fight was filmed - NBC must have decided there wasn't enough demand to see them so they didn't show it. Sucks because over here in the UK the BBC (the UK's license holder) gave us the opportunity to watch every single sport live as it was happening, you just needed to select which live stream you wanted. I watched the majority of TKD and Judo matches but didn't watch all simply because there was far too much for me to watch and I haven't had the time. I don't have a job at the moment so have all day to watch and have had several streams open and I still haven't seen everything. Still making my way through it all. That's the other thing, I don't know if NBC are doing or did it but the BBC gave us a catch-up service where we could watch any event that had already happened. So right now I can go and watch the ping-pong from the preliminaries all the way up to the finals if I wanted. If you didn't see an event on tv, its because NBC chose themselves not to show it. Maybe they didn't think there was enough interest Thanks Danielle for the needed info, it explained a lot. I need to move when you are. And to NBC...BAD NBC...just bad...you're grounded...go to your room.

In the USA, we'll get everything else BUT Hapkido and Karate. Whoa's me.

I needed that...I can't stop laughing...FUNNY stuff...and to the point. Thank you!!

Those practitioners of the MA that don't believe in Kata in the first place are hard-pressed to explain to them as well as convince them the importance and values of Kata. I'll always believe in the three K's...always.

Solid post and I wholeheartedly concur!!

I'm American, and in that, I speak and write in the English language everyday of my life, both personal and professional. My Soke and Dai-Soke were born and raised in Okinawa. Their English is horrible beyond belief, but ok enough to be understood by us, their students, and with visitors as well in any professional venue before them. However, they both had translators if need be, but they tried their best to always speak English. Now, in the Hombu, Soke and Dai-Soke spoke Japanese techniques and the like, however, in private, they spoke some Okinawan dialect between themselves. I consider myself well versed to a point in the Japanese language, and in that, I will speak the techniques in both Japanese and in English, but that's out of habit, not to be cool or loyal, it's just out of habit. I'll speak in English all of the other times, especially when teaching on the floor because my students don't speak Japanese and they wouldn't have a clue about what I was explaining to them and my students must be able to understand my words or their not learning anything helpful. I'm there to teach Shindokan, not Japanese!!

Solid posts from everyone thus far!!

I've the knowledge and the everything else, therefore, against another man/woman I'm complete in my totality. BUT... Me VS a Silver Back... I'M RUNNING AS FAST AS I CAN OR I'M DEAD!! Sorry for the caps, but I was yelling as I was running for my life!!

In this topic, I'd like for all of us, no matter ones knowledge base, to chime in ones own opinion(s). Knowing that, we've different ideas about what the hips do or don't or can't do. To me, my hips are not an immobile framework. Why? I agree that the our body sits on a framework, the skeleton, and the hips are part of that framework. However, the difference from our frame and the frame of a car is that our frame is ALIVE...it moves in all directions. How can one dance and do the cha-cha or shake their booty if their hips are immovable? How can I bump my wife's booty with my own unless I move my hips? How can own put their hips into any technique(s) without their hips? How can woman walk the way they walk, and the way they walk drives men crazy, without their hips? One lacks power in the MA whenever one's a beginner...from their very first day on the floor they're being drilled and drilled to learn how to put their entire body and hips into every technique. Why? The hips are the key to generating effective power: whether it be a kick, a punch, a block, a strike, and/or a manipulation. Yes, every fiber of our body plays a key and critical part in generating power, but the hips are key. The hips are the engine of ones power. The engine of my car sits on a frame of its own, and then the engine is mated to the transmission and then to the drive train...and if everything works...my car starts up and takes me to where I want to go. But, the engine needs three things for it to start, and these three things must be there always...Spark, Compression, and Fuel. If only one thing is missing...my engine and my transmission and my drive train are just going to sit in my driveway until it's fixed. Well, my hips are connected to thigh bone and the thigh bone is connected to leg bone and the leg bone is connected to the foot bone [i hope I connected the bone together properly], and this skeleton is alive and my hips are moving because I move them at the exact moment I want them to move. I snap my hips, in that, I twist violently to one side or another; back and forth if need be. I snap my hips like one would snap a towel...Ssssnnnnnaaaappppppppp!! How can I twist my forearm if it's immovable as well? How can I twist this or that if it's immovable as well? If my skeleton is immovable, then how can I even walk, I'd be static, unable to move across the room...I'd be like a stick propped up in some corner. Haven't your instructor stood behind you with his/her hands on your hips to help you understand the mechanics of using your hips? Or has your instructor ever wrapped a belt around your hips with him/her holding both ends of said belt while helping you to understand the mechanics of your hips and the movements of said same? If so, then the hips must be very important in generating effective power, and in that, I'm pretty sure that your instructor has told you that your hips must snap and drive your desired weapon(s) to their target(s) If not...OUCH...power ignored is power unattainable! How can I put my hips into it if it's immovable? Because it's an expression at the best. Still that doesn't disqualify the resulting action(s). I don't know what's moving but I'm going to move it with a terrible resolve against my attacker. Ok....that was my introduction... Let the discussion begin!!

Then what are you doing by "snapping and driving"? Hips are an immobile framework. If the hips are to do anything, it is because they are being acted on by the legs or torso. It's a bit like saying "The thing that makes this car move is the frame," and then nodding knowingly as if this were obvious and self-explanatory. The frame is immobile. It is the engine, drivetrain, and wheels that make it move! Blindly stating the importance of the hips as self-explanatory is a bit like the Chinese martial artists who blindly accept that they are learning how to move their arms around by flexing their tendons, which are immobile connective pieces. It is either sufficiently profound as to require more explanation of what, exactly, is being pointed out in such a generally absurd statement, or it is wrong because the statement is, strictly speaking, absurd. All this topic was meant to be was for one to complete my sentence and then, with a small sentence of "your" own, make a supportive statement PER the style(s) that the person trains in. I didn't want this topic to be a big nomenclature about the "hips" and the like, that could be for another topic/thread. I assume all responsibilities for not making that more clearer...it's my fault...and one of my major downfalls. I'll start a topic called..."Are The Hips Immovable?" so that we can examine the "Hips" more closer.

Great post thus far...I thank you all...please keep them coming. Btw, I hadn't meant my little list in my OP to be meant as a Poll/List, but I do like the initiation by all that treated it as such...I LOVE IT!!

DoctorQui and madtanker... Way to go!! There's a difference from getting involved and helping out someone in dire need; I applaud you both!!

Solid post!!

Or maybe people are just scared off by the creepy typos on their website: Starting at age 3 children will be taught the precursers to killing in social settings? I know they probably meant "pre-skills," but really, if you have the time to use incorrect punctuation around a made up word, you'd think they'd have time to check that it was the right word. Solid post!!

Then what are you doing by "snapping and driving"? Hips are an immobile framework. If the hips are to do anything, it is because they are being acted on by the legs or torso. It's a bit like saying "The thing that makes this car move is the frame," and then nodding knowingly as if this were obvious and self-explanatory. The frame is immobile. It is the engine, drivetrain, and wheels that make it move! Blindly stating the importance of the hips as self-explanatory is a bit like the Chinese martial artists who blindly accept that they are learning how to move their arms around by flexing their tendons, which are immobile connective pieces. It is either sufficiently profound as to require more explanation of what, exactly, is being pointed out in such a generally absurd statement, or it is wrong because the statement is, strictly speaking, absurd. Hips are immovable? Blindly? Absurd? :::No emoticon for how I feel:::

Many people around the world can be quite closed minded about many, many things, and no matter how one might or might not define "alternate lifestyle", the close mindset still exists. No one has the right to say who can teach the MA and who can't in the regards of ones alternate lifestyle, nonetheless, it is done by indirect ways, such as, not allowing ones child/children to continue in the dojo/dojan/school. Bigotry or not, the deciding actions by a parent, student, and/or administrator is final no matter what others may or may not think. This or that can't/shouldn't be allowed/happen, but in this wide world we all live in...it certainly does each and everyday no matter how much we hate it. The Godan I speak about in my OP is a student of Dai-Soke Yoshinobu Takahasi of the Shindokan Hombu!!

What type of "Contests" would the contestants do? After all, being the Chief Instructor means more than knowing the three K's, if the Host even teaches the three K principles or in part. Would style of the winner have to match that of the Host to some degree?

I'll see this one for sure!!

How about the winner becomes the Chief Instructor for 1 year at the Hosts' MA school?

If I may ask...How did you break your toe?

I love it....nice look, nice fit...way to cool!!