Toward a Ecological understanding of “basics”

[Truthseeker]

Hi,

 

The following article is a critique about the notion of the "basics" within typically traditional japanese karate dojo's in the UK. Its not meant to apply to anywhere else.

 

Let me know what you think.

 

INTRO

 

The fundamental rationale of karate “basics” is that they are the building blocks upon which later techniques and skill are developed. It is conventionally thought that techniques and stances and built upon in a linear step-by-step manner in advanced accumulation. Single techniques are put into combination via pair work and kata until finally the student advances to free sparring.

 

This article will address three key assumptions that often underpin a students belief that this approach is one that will reap rewards for them in the long-term above that offered by a western fighting tradition. It will be shown that these assumptions need to be thought about very carefully, for if they fall, then the clear-cut logic of the above paragraph falls flat on its face and the notion of basics has to be completely re-evaluated.

 

Let me say at the outset, that this article is not about combat effectiveness or any type of fighting. Its much more fundamental. This article is going to consider issues about the basic ecological relationship between an individual (animal) and their environmental niche (how they live). I will also touch on how some historical issues have influenced the notion of basic training.

 

The assumptions are (1) that learning karate technique is somehow “special” and different from learning anything else (2) that the Japanese methodology is the best way to learn karate and that it is a very efficient means of learning and (3) that the learning methodology and techniques have been passed down from generation to generation via karate masters passing “knowledge” to one to another.

 

1. Is learning karate a special case?

 

Hundreds of thousand of years has taught the human nervous system to come equipped and be prepared to learn and develop to interact with the environment. Some animals come equipped with fixed behaviour patterns for a specific environment, others, like humans, come equipped with the potential to develop basic movement patterns such as walking, running, jumping and skipping. By the time anybody starts learning karate they have a variety of sporting skills learned in many different contexts.

 

The student arrives at the dojo door for the first time, willing to learn and are often told, “Forget what you know about other sports and empty your cup”.

 

Movements and stances are learned which normally the student would not have the tendency to do under conditions of trial and error. The application of these movements will be taught later, he is told. Minimum explanation is given at the beginning. Students are advised to just “do” and not question. Later on they are told they were learning to strengthen their legs, lower the hips or to project the centre of mass, or focus a punch or kick in a small target area, to block and punch etc. It goes on.

 

Pre-arranged sparring is learned and students are told they are putting into application some of these techniques. Students move up the hierarchy of pre-arranged techniques. They perform kata. Then, sometimes they spar and try and apply these techniques. Alas, they find few are useful and most cannot be applied at all. This especially applies to kata, where the situation to (environment) which some of the movements are to be applied is unknown therefore making the technique useless.

 

In summary the system is essentially – technique orientated – meaning techniques are learnt first, second and third and then “applications” (of sorts) later but the problem is – is it correct to equate the notion of “basics” with these exaggerated physical movements? How does one movement form the base for another movement ?

 

My point is that these so called “basics” (single physical movements whatever they may be) are not the building blocks for anything else other than themselves. The student is told to practise in a way in which he does not normally behave with respect to situations. Normally, in life, we perceive information about task related goals in the environment. These task may be simple (pick up a pen) or complicated (catch a cricket ball or hit a cricket ball). From the perceived information about the position of the object in relation to our position an estimation of the required forces and displacements necessary to achieve the goal, is made. If the goal is not achieved, then corrections are made for the next try and then the perception-action cycle repeats itself until the goal is achieved. The exact form of the trajectory will be slightly variable because it cannot be too fixed if it needs to adapt. The point is that the technique or movement is a consequence of a goal and not an end in itself. In other words, traditional karate is taught the wrong way round.

 

This perception-action cycle is all that sustains human and animal movement across species– it underlies an animals ability to learn everything it will ever learn – and it is its own building blocks and doesn’t need anymore. In other words it is a fallacy to equate “basics” with any invented physical movement. If there are any basics of human and animal movement they are intangible, dynamic processes in the animal-environment systems upon which all our movements depend.

 

What an animal has is a capable motor system that already understands about centre of mass displacement and how to modulate different forces and all the other so called principles that karate instructors say they teach. All it needs is to be given a goal and a technique will emerge as a consequence of it figuring it out for itself. Wisdom of the body should be allowed to emerge by itself not forced to respond in a pre-arranged ways because freedom and self-expression is limited as a result. That we have the ability to do this should be obvious.

 

However it seems clear that the students convictions about karate being separate from nature and the consequent intrusting of a instructor to impart this special knowledge means that he gradually, unwittingly, cuts himself from what he has developed over 600,000 years and replaces it with something far inferior. By equating stylised, physical movements with the building blocks of his art, they fail to recognise what the traditions of China knew all along – that the animal is informationally coupled and inseparable from its environment and that the aim of marital arts is to understand this relationship through the expression of combat movements.

 

 

 

2. Is the traditional karate Japanese methodology the best way to learn?

 

To establish new techniques in any sport requires that a certain amount of repetition be performed at the first stage of learning so to make the movement more reliable when it is needed. However, this process does not take long for discrete movements like striking and once a fair amount of consistency is established the routine should be discarded or changed slightly. The primary reason for this is that when teaching new techniques, thought should always be given as to their application so to make the transition as smooth as possible. In closed skill sports, where the environment is fixed (i.e javelin) changing routines is not so important. However in open-skill sports, where the environment is changing (and some decision-making is needed to apply techniques) doing the same technique the same way, all the time with no regard to application is not smart. This is the hallmark of a technique-orientated system not a combat sport or proper fighting system.

 

However, in karate, the beginners environment is dead and they are told to learn movements as ends in themselves, separate from the environment. We are told that “basics are always important” and that this justifies spending half our training time doing just them so that our karate will be better later on. Let it be said again – doing basics in the karate fashion is good for doing basics and that’s all. The reason for this should be clear. This type of training does not stimulate the perception-action system to do what it does best – problem solve in the environment to achieve a goal.

 

However later on, when free application has to be made its difficult for a number of reasons, but the main reason is simply that, students are not used to applying what they learn because they haven’t trained ecologically to start with. The pre-arranged sparring is useless as a transition into free-sparring. An animal in the wild does not spend 5 years learning movements and then another 5 years inventing environments to fit these movements into before going out to catch lunch. If it did it would be dead.

 

The counter-argument to this is that karate student’s spar and with some success, therefore their techniques work in an open-skill context so all is well isn’t it? No. It could be argued that karate students learn to spar and apply their techniques because they are parasitic on more fundamental processes. The fundamental informational linkages between an animal and its environment do give knowledge that are used In timing skills. People will attribute their learning to aspects of karate, when in fact skills like judging distance and the timing between our movement and someone (or something) else is something we do all the time (running towards a revolving door) . The difference in fighting is that it’s done at greater, speed with more force with varying postures and intentions depending on an opponent. However, the system can adapt to this by itself– if it is given a chance.

 

The point is that active training methods are required to allow a person who is reasonable competent, to explore the environment and allow freedom of decision-making. Adaptation to the environment is something all animals do. The reason traditional karate methods do not facilitate the above as much as they should is because it is not the function of the training to communicate this knowledge. Teaching in an ecological way is sub-ordinate to the function of karate to communicate values of Japanese culture via a stylised fighting art.

 

Karate students have been sold the lie that the Japanese methodology is efficient when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. You divorce yourself from nature at your peril. The only way to learn application is on the job.

 

3. Is karate evolving toward constant improvements?

 

It’s well known that karate has its roots somewhere in China and that the transmission of knowledge came to Japan via Okinawa. Modern Japanese karate has four major systems (Shotokan, Wado, Goju and Shito) with slight differences borne, partly out of a greater or lesser link with the Fujian boxing systems from which they came and also due to Japanese “modifications” and “improvements”.

 

There is rivalry between and within systems and most students believe the system they practice to be the best one. Small differences between systems are exaggerated and thought to be very important and similarities often ignored. Most will say their style is constantly improving and that their instructor is authentic and has learned “genuine” karate.

 

With regard to basics, it is agreed that in Okinawa, instructors (e.g Miyagi) taught students in small groups without any military drilling found later on in the Japanese systems.1 As it has been established in this article that the drilling training methods are, to a large degree, responsible for, over-constraining the perception-action system to respond in a certain way it is worth mentioning how students can think their system is evolving when this method is the predominant training method. It is stated here that the primary misunderstand is due to confusion about the function of the Japanese tradition and the nature of information transmission across generations.

 

It has been established that the modern traditional karate system has tenuous links, at best with the ancient martial art traditions of Japan.2 The ethos of modern karate comes more from the creation of a pseudo-budo culture than it owes to a genuine bushi code. Consequently, after the war, karate had the primary function of teaching school children the ethos and ideology of Japanese culture, and it is thus a main reason why the current training developed. The heads of the four man schools which were established were not fighting men because ideology, not fighting was the priority. With regard to basics, it was Nakayama who introduced the low stances (after taking over from Funakoshi) and for subsequently conveying the false notions of “form” and basics being a foundation for latter development. The idea of basics here is just to help convey an exaggerated sense of form as an expression of unique Japanese identity.

 

Other instructors who did interact with these instructors who had a more combative approach (e.g Motubu) or for other (ethical) reasons (e.g Funakoshi’s son – war crimes)3 are not mentioned too much so that we don’t get the wrong impression of the “master” we read in most of our books on karate history.

 

There is no such thing as knowledge being constantly applied and built on in traditional karate because that was never its function in the first place. For whatever reasons, from the time Fijian boxers started interacting with Miyagi, the orientation of the systems has changed to suit the social conditions. Its no longer a system for discovering general principles of animal-environment interactions for force development via combative movements as it is for the masters of China, but rather, has become a means to convey Japanese cultural ideas with superficial attempts at appearing like a fighting art. The practices to realise these processes has been left somewhere in China and Japanese karate was never party to this knowledge in the first place.

 

1 Mark Bishop, (1990) Okinawan Karate

 

2 Donn Drager (1974) Asian Fighting Systems

 

3 (1997) Personal communication

[LeaF]

Wow that was interesting...Sounds like it was written by a biologist rather than a martial artist...

Let it be said again – doing basics in the karate fashion is good for doing basics and that’s all. The reason for this should be clear. This type of training does not stimulate the perception-action system to do what it does best – problem solve in the environment to achieve a goal.

 

However later on, when free application has to be made its difficult for a number of reasons, but the main reason is simply that, students are not used to applying what they learn because they haven’t trained ecologically to start with. The pre-arranged sparring is useless as a transition into free-sparring. An animal in the wild does not spend 5 years learning movements and then another 5 years inventing environments to fit these movements into before going out to catch lunch. If it did it would be dead.

 

This I disagree with... I believe through repitition of the basics the mind will become acustumed to the movements and in time will automaticly react to any situation and apply that movement. I believe that they will apply the movement to adjust to their surrounding circumstances and environment. Oh well thats just my take....

[Truthseeker]

Hi,

 

I forgot the summary.

 

 

 

This article has had a look at three implicit assumptions that are often made by students of Japanese karate regarding the efficacy of the training methodology. It has argued (1) that there are no building blocks for movement other than a healthy, mature nervous system and that no other foundation is needed other than a hand-on approach to learning. (2) That the intense technique-focused training methodology, constrains the perception-action system to respond in overly-prescribed ways, both externally and internally and that whatever mechanical efficiency is gradually achieved by this method is still not allowing the system to explore its degrees of freedom5 in a changing environment. (3) That the false notion of basics and the training methodology as a whole cannot be separated from a era within Japan which was only interested in using a cultural form for its own ends and that there was no interest whatsoever with the ideas and concepts which were needed to interpret some of the forms.

 

1 Mark Bishop, (1990) Okinawan Karate

 

2 Donn Drager (1974) Asian Fighting Systems

 

3 (1997) Personal communication

 

4 The term “information” has a specific meaning in ecological psychology. It means that invariant relations exist between layout properties (surfaces, objects, substances) of general significance to controlling movement and non-inertial properties of the structured ambient (optical, mechanical, chemical) energy distributions. The importance of this idea is that the latter can specify the former meaning that the person can be “coupled” with the environment.

 

5 Degrees of freedom refers to how a system constrains many independent variables to work as one unit. It can occur within an organism and between and organism and its environment.

 

Leaf,

 

I'm not saying the prescribed movements can't be made automatic. Anything that's repeated enough times will get easier to perform. I said that they can and do free-spar with these movements. I know cos i used to do it. What i'm saying is that no matter how natural it gets to perform these pre-scribed movements it can never be equal to just training to let the system work out for itself what to do and let techniques emerge. What i'm saying is that the two methods are different - and they have implications for how the system works as a whole with reference to the envioronment.

[Taikudo-ka]

Very interesting article. Made me think about it... I can agree and disagree at the same time, if you like. I'd say there is a place for all forms of training - basics, sparring, kata, hojo undo, and whatever else helps you out.

 

"An animal in the wild does not spend 5 years learning movements and then another 5 years inventing environments to fit these movements into before going out to catch lunch. If it did it would be dead"

 

Well the great cats spend plenty of time as kittens practising all sorts of "hunting" moves and mock sparring each other. It takes a few seasons before they're out hunting successfully on their own. But without all that practise they'd never make a successful kill.

 

That said, the average karate school is probably not THE most efficient teaching environment ever. But that's largely a function of cheap group classes in a short space of time, with everyone at different ranks and people always coming and going. Also the military mindset can go a bit far sometimes.

[Truthseeker]

Hi Taikudo-ki,

 

I'll clarify the thing about animals, as i didn't make it clear enough.

 

Your reply sums up exactly my point in that, big cats "play" at learning to kill. This allows natural movement responses to come out. In other words they learn by their own trial and error. I have no problem with that, that's how i train.

 

What they don't do is learn specific movements forced on them by someone else and then invent pair techniques to put them in before going out for the hunt.

 

Cheers,

[Taikudo-ka]

"What they don't do is learn specific movements forced on them by someone else and then invent pair techniques to put them in before going out for the hunt."

 

Yeah, this is the bit I agreed with - but not 100%. There are plenty of things I would never discover myself just by "playing around" - i.e. sparring, makiwara/bag work. The reason I attend lessons is to learn stuff that I wouldn't think of myself. I mean, how many people discover the hip throw while sparring, vs having to be taught, and then practised? Also, there is the fact that moves can have multiple uses - something I consider more and more. Practising an "odd" move that doesn't initially make sense can stimulate the brain into thinking "hmmm, how can I use this?" and suddenly there is a revelation that would NEVER happen otherwise.

 

Also, remember that all these movements were once developed and used "for real" by someone. Having been proven effective, the move was retained and taught to future students. So, initially, moves were developed exactly the way you describe, it's only now, generations later, that they seem to be arbitrary and forced.

[armed_lunatic]

white belt, what aprticular form/school of fighting would you say has a high degree of "natural" , spontanuous movement?

 

Can karate be practised to be more like that?

 

I practise wado ryu and my sensei makes a point of saying in free sparring movements are never as rigid and confined as in other forms of kumite.

 

Regarding the chinese learning that natural movements of animals should be used in fighting style, wouldn't you agree that a human trying to fight like a monkey or a crane seems even more ridiculous than trying to master these rigid karate basics?

 

great article BTW

[armed_lunatic]

oops, my message wasmeant to adress truthseeker, not white belt, ofcourse. im new here

[armed_lunatic]

another thing, it would be ridiculous to associate any human learning of martial arts with the learning process of a predatory animal.

 

We are not like tigers. Our weapon is our incredibly flexible brain, not claws and teeth.

 

We have no fighting instinct, just intellect. Performing a roundhouse kick is no more natural for us than using a bow and arrow.

[hobbitbob]

I applaud the thought that has gone into this thread. however, let me advance one small critique. If one discounts basic technique because it must be performed diiferently whilst sparring, then does one imply that free sparring is the ultimate goal of technique? I hold with the theory which says that free-sparring is not equal to fighting. Does combat technique resemble basic techniqu? Yes, frequently. It does, however, rarely resemble the "step, block,punch" formula of "traditional (Showa era) Karate-do. Instead, the techniques found in Kata are likely to be utilized aginst grabs, strikes, etc...

 

Developing motor skills and muscle memory by practicing Kihon is valuable. Developing understanding of Kata Oyo is vital.