Been doing techniques the wrong way for 6 years!

[sensei8]

When the wheel was invented, it went through it's many changes UNTIL it reached it's current style, and in that, anything added to it will only improve it's tread footprints. So is the martial arts.

Each and everyone of us has had more AHA MOMENTS than Carter has Liver Pills. So true is what ninjanurse has said...

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

Have you finally realized that you've been doing said technique(s) wrong for an x-amount of years? Or...is it that you've, after all this time, only been refining/tuning said technique(s) into the shape of your desire? Not always is an instructor to be credited for this realization because the practitioner does the discovery while training away from the dojo/dojang. Sure, the instructor has jarred open the door to discovery by this suggestion or that suggestion, but it's left up to the student to finally open the door wide to its unlimited possibilities.

My Dai-Soke helped me to find the door ajar through his instructions as well as his guidance, but it was always left to me to force the door wide up through my own discoveries as I matured as a martial artist. But, then the door would be slammed shut again because I was not ready to learn/accept what my Dai-Soke was now teaching me. Not because the said technique(s) was wrong. No! It was right, but it was now being reshaped into something better across the board. Then again and again and again, until my Dai-Soke jarred open the door again for me to find the new discoveries awaiting me through my desire and through my endless training, but I've never been satisfied with my martial arts. Therefore, I endure, I survive, I seek, I fumble, I believe...I KEEP TRAINING...I KEEP TRAINING...I KEEP TRAINING!!

IF ONE EVER REACHES THE MOMENT IN THEIR TRAINING WHEN ONE IS SATISFIED WITH ANY SAID TECHNIQUE(S); THAT'S WHEN IT'S TIME TO QUIT TRAINING AND IT'S ALSO THE TIME TO QUIT THE MARTIAL ARTS!!

I re-ask this: Was the who, what, where, when, why, and how of any said technique(s) that you did WRONG?

OR...

Were you just starting to mature across the board as a martial artist?

EDITS: Spelling errors

Edited February 27, 2011 by sensei8

[Montana]

Along the same lines as this topic, I studied and got my shodan from my sensei in June of 1978 and about a year later my sensei moved to the other side of the country. Living in a small town in Montana (12,000 people) with no other sensei in my chosen system any closer than a 10 hour drive away (Seattle, but I didn't know it at the time), myself and the other students were left to our own devices pretty much. There were 3 shodan black belts altogether, myself being the most senior time-wise by over a year.

Long story short, we three and our students trained as well as we could, but eventually one of the other black belts started being a real pain and wanting to change everything to the way HE felt things should be done, which was contrary to the way we were taught by our sensei. So we split off and the other black belt and I went elsewhere and took about 75% of the class with us and started another dojo in my basement.

Life was good for a couple of years until the "renegade" blackbelt called me one day and said he was in contact with a 4th Dan BB in Minnesota that was going to come for a weeks visit soon, and if we agreed to pay half his expenses he would allow us to train with him.

We agreed, and that's when all heck broke loose!

This 4th Dan changed literally EVERYTHING from what we had learned. Blocks were higher and more extended, we started throwing hips into techniques (not something we were taught origionally by our other sensei), katas changed, etc.

So we changed to this new way of doing things, and continued that way for maybe 5 years or so, until I found an address from a 7th Dan in our system by the name of Ron Lindsey in Texas.

Sensei Lindsey is one of the top Shorin Ryu Matsumura Seito people in the country. Sensei Lindsey sent me a couple of excellent video tapes he had made and when my senior student and I sat down to eagerly watch them, we were just about floored! Sensei Lindsey did things the same way we USED to do them before meeting the 4th Dan from Minnesota!!!

Within a week we changed back to the way we had origionally learned. I offered to make copies of the tapes and give them to our renegade "partner", but he declined saying that the way the 4th Dan was doing things was correct.

So our split continued, which was fine with me.

My gut told me the way the 4th Dan was teaching us wasn't right because it contradicted what we were taught by our origional sensei. I should have gone with my gut, but all has been well since that time, and we continue to practivce true Shorin Ryu as it was intended to be leanred. What the "renegade" is doing, I haven't a clue, and really don't care.

[sensei8]

Along the same lines as this topic, I studied and got my shodan from my sensei in June of 1978 and about a year later my sensei moved to the other side of the country. Living in a small town in Montana (12,000 people) with no other sensei in my chosen system any closer than a 10 hour drive away (Seattle, but I didn't know it at the time), myself and the other students were left to our own devices pretty much. There were 3 shodan black belts altogether, myself being the most senior time-wise by over a year.

Long story short, we three and our students trained as well as we could, but eventually one of the other black belts started being a real pain and wanting to change everything to the way HE felt things should be done, which was contrary to the way we were taught by our sensei. So we split off and the other black belt and I went elsewhere and took about 75% of the class with us and started another dojo in my basement.

Life was good for a couple of years until the "renegade" blackbelt called me one day and said he was in contact with a 4th Dan BB in Minnesota that was going to come for a weeks visit soon, and if we agreed to pay half his expenses he would allow us to train with him.

We agreed, and that's when all heck broke loose!

This 4th Dan changed literally EVERYTHING from what we had learned. Blocks were higher and more extended, we started throwing hips into techniques (not something we were taught origionally by our other sensei), katas changed, etc.

So we changed to this new way of doing things, and continued that way for maybe 5 years or so, until I found an address from a 7th Dan in our system by the name of Ron Lindsey in Texas.

Sensei Lindsey is one of the top Shorin Ryu Matsumura Seito people in the country. Sensei Lindsey sent me a couple of excellent video tapes he had made and when my senior student and I sat down to eagerly watch them, we were just about floored! Sensei Lindsey did things the same way we USED to do them before meeting the 4th Dan from Minnesota!!!

Within a week we changed back to the way we had origionally learned. I offered to make copies of the tapes and give them to our renegade "partner", but he declined saying that the way the 4th Dan was doing things was correct.

So our split continued, which was fine with me.

My gut told me the way the 4th Dan was teaching us wasn't right because it contradicted what we were taught by our origional sensei. I should have gone with my gut, but all has been well since that time, and we continue to practivce true Shorin Ryu as it was intended to be leanred. What the "renegade" is doing, I haven't a clue, and really don't care.

SOLID POST!!

In your situation, it was the case that you were starting to do things [techniques, etc] wrong UNTIL Lindsey Sensei brought you back to the right path, and it's made all of the difference for you.

Again...SOLID POST!!

[Montana]

My origional sensei was a 3rd dan, and the guy from MN was a 4th, so we "assumed" (you know what that means of course) that he was correct.

Well, he wasn't, but at the time we were starved for ANYBODY that could teach us more.

I was without a sensei for 7 years when I travelled to Minnisota to meet a 6th Dan (not the same as the other guy) by the name of Sensei Greg Ohl and trained with him. He was doing things exactly the same as I had been doing (the correct way) and I was totally surprised that he made very few, and only minor changes to my techniques.

Legitimate (there are a lot of "wannabes) Matsumura Seito Sensei are few and far between in the states, but I absolutely, and unconditionally love this system.

[Jay]

Exactly the same for me.

I didn't 'GET IT' until I have left karate some 4 years later. A boxer showed me how to do some stuff and now I understand it. Its just the way it goes.

[tallgeese]

My version of this occured when I jumped from MMA based training to pure BJJ. I had been grappling for years as part of my training and even done a couple of NAGA's and such with no-gi.

I figured that, once I decided to start BJJ, how different could it be. Turns out, alot. I equate the difference in grappling for MMA, at least at the level I was at, and pure BJJ to gross motor function and finite skill.

I had been used to large scale motion, where a lack of tightness or finess could be made up for with striking or strength or speed. Once starting a pure BJJ program, I became aware of the whole foundation of the art, the angles, the little details that really make it a unique art.

It was a really revealing thing. Slowing down my training speeds, and increasing my IQ, (a direct theft of my coaches words) made a huge difference and really made my game explode.

So yes, I have had moments where I've felt like I've been doing things wrong for years.

[bushido_man96]

I've had several of these moments in Combat Hapkido and Aikido. There were quite a few movements I was struggling with in Hapkido, but lots of work really helped me get one of those "Aha" moments.

[joesteph]

Just this past Monday, I was taking a class with children to get in some more dojang time (I have to restructure my schedule). Certain things are the same for everyone, no matter what the age, and the back kick that's like a donkey kick was being emphasized.

As our teacher was explaining following a roundhouse with this back kick, she was explaining and demonstrating quite precisely how the roundhouse leg's foot will land, but how it's not flat when it does touch down; instead, you're on the ball of your foot for the back kick. She emphasized a "roll back" that would be best explained by seeing her demonstrate, and which I've never remembered being said. There was more power in my back kick against the WaveMaster in this kids' class than when I've done it in the adult class.

To be fair, it's possible that it was said in the past and I don't remember it, but I haven't done that roll back--ever. Now, after I've reached 3rd gup, I've just learned something new on a kick whose mechanics I should have understood ages ago. I've picked up these small but important points watching or participating in classes for the young every now and then.

[The BB of C]

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?

I've had a few of those moments myself.

Then one of my senseis (4th degree Shotokan) told me a story about one of his masters who had been practicing under Funikoshi for thirty years. Then one day while practicing reverse punch on the makiwara, he turned to Funikoshi and said, "I think I understand it now."

Or another story while that same man was helping my sensei with one of the katas. I can't remember the name but it's learned at first or second degree. One move in particular, the man said to my sensei, "I just started doing this move correctly about a month ago."

Martial artists have those moments for as long as they are martial artists. Even beyond that, most people have those moments their entire life.

[RW]

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.

I may come of as a bit disgruntled, but it's more like I'm waiting for someone to validate that I'm wrong here...

Why would the technique for say, the morote chudan uchi uke matter? (if by more uke you mean this:

)

I mean, I don't think people would ever block like that in a real fight... you're better off pulling a chudan soto uke and leaving the other hand to cover your face or ready for a counterpunch or some other attack...

I'm just doubting why some martial arts techniques exist, I guess. Like the morote uke, or the kokuto uko.