Been doing techniques the wrong way for 6 years!

[Fish_headz]

I have recently started shotokan karate during study abroad in Japan. Coming from a taekwondo background I have accelerated at pretty much everthing they have thrown at me. Just a few switches in techniques here and there to account the slight variational differences in technique. My hand techniques aren't godly but they are clean and fairly. I usually have no problems breaking and when I hit the pads, I hit them pretty hard for my size only weighing 150ish pounds but my karate teachers have been telling me I putting power in my techniques too early which reduces the smoothness of it. This is something i have been trying to work on for years and only have been getting mediocre results until yesterday when I was messing with a different way to punch, i realize i have been torquing my hips the wrong way. Now there is a quite noticable difference in power and speed. Have any of you had anything like that in which you thought you were doing the technique or techniques correctly for a long period of time and you find it is a wrong way of doing it?

[MasterPain]

Ah, the AHA! moment. With individuals and humanity these are huge. Fire, the wheel, stone age, bronze age, iron age, steel, electricity. Long periods would go by with minor advancements, but once in a while, something revolutionary happens that changes the world. It's the same for individuals.

A few major things for me:

Realized my sparring stance was too defensive because of fear of being hit. Adopted a more aggressive mentality.

Stop hits.

Realized I needed to train more technique on my left side as well as right.

Adopted the idea of principles of combat as opposed to individual techniques.

Developed strategies based on body type of opponent.

Defanging the snake.

Prison shanking.

A stab from every angle of slash.

Peekaboo style boxing.

[Rateh]

When I changed to my current style I kept hearing "Stop jack-knifing!". I had no idea what that meant and it took a few explanations before I realized that they were trying to tell me that I was leaning into my roundhouse kicks. TEN years of training at FOUR different locations and finally someone tells me that! Truly like a light-bulb.

[Kuma]

I changed organizations about two months ago, so I'm actually re-learning some of my kihon right now. Fortunately it's to my benefit, as before I was learning under a 2nd dan and now I have access to an 8th dan and a 5th dan. So far I've made positive changes to several techniques (some being my chudan uchi uke, yoko geri kekomi, and morote chudan uchi uke) and it definitely is that light bulb moment.

Rateh - To me that's strange about not leaning into the kick, as it's the opposite in Kyokushin. We get yelled at if we lean back, and are encouraged to lean forward to get more body weight into the strikes. It's always interesting to see how two arts can have different approaches to the same thing.

[Wolfman08]

To me that's strange about not leaning into the kick, as it's the opposite in Kyokushin. We get yelled at if we lean back, and are encouraged to lean forward to get more body weight into the strikes.

Seriously? I just tried that and almost fell over. How does one pull that off?

[Kuma]

Gedan mawashi geri is the best example for what I mean. When you're executing the kick in a downward chopping motion, you want to move your weight forward and down into it. By leaning back you sacrifice some of that power by taking your body weight out of the kick. It's not really a lean per say, but more like a subtle shift forward. Though some leaning back occurs for high kicks, we try to minimize it. The philosophy is to keep all your body weight going forward rather than sacrificing some doing a backward motion while executing a forward one.

[Kuma]

This video of Ryu Narushima might give you an idea:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipq64oY7iKQ

[Fish_headz]

Man that guy speaks fast Japanese but at least he pronounce words somewhat normally so i can at least understand a good chunk of that through bits and pieces and context.

[Adamo]

Wonderful thread!

This is something just about everybody has at some point. It's not exactly a good thing or bad thing. Sometimes it's stuff that most people wont pick up on unless they have a very critical eye and have see you for a while. Other stuff should have been stopped but a decent instructor and know better.

I realized that my side kicks were terrible because my instructor was telling me to use the entire side of the foot. I believe it was in one of Bruce Lee's books that I discovered the heel was better. That was a major AHA! moment.

Then I realized my instructor was telling me to use the bottom of the foot for the hook kick. Found out that you are suppose to use the heel. Viola! My kicks were harder and easier to do. I had no choice but to use it when the instructor was around otherwise he'd complain. Another reason why I wasn't around much longer.

[ninjanurse]

Sometimes you can be told the same thing over and over and you don't hear it until you are ready.