From: ejh@khonshu.colorado.edu (Edward J. Hartnett)
Subject: Re: Bruce Lee on Classical Karate
Organization: Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 03:59:23 GMT

>| I (Ed Hartnett) wrote a couple days ago...
>|kata, sparring, etc. - I mean when you stood with another student and
>|practiced a defense against a lapel grab, for example), he would show
>|us a few ways to do it, and we would practice them, but mostly he
>|would try and get us to spontaniously invent (or piece together might
>|be a better way to put it) a response. For beginners, before you get
>+-------
>Suppose that is cool, but there is a science to joint locks and that is what
>you're hopefully attempting to learn.  There are no better ways, they have 
>all been thought of.   Learn Chin Na, or Jui Jitsu, Hapkido, or my style
>of Hwa Rang Do.  However if you just want a flavor of what to do in an instance
>I imagine with you're height you may be alright, but what if the dude is bigger
>or stronger or there are many?
>

I agree with you fully on these points. Yes, you must learn these
techniques (joint locks, nerve strikes, etc.), and I'm not saying that I 
should just be able to rely on my size. What I am saying is that there are
some responses that are inappropriate given the sizes of the two fighters.
I must learn to defend against someone larger, it's true, but I must also
learn (and IMHO this is more important) to appropriately respond to an attack.
The a lapel-grap and punch from a short attacker can be very different from
a lapel-grap and punch from a large attacker, for example. In the former case
I could go for the head as a target, but it would be harder to go for
the body or groin with a punch, (his/her arms are between my hands and those
targets), whereas the opposite is true for the latter case.

>+-------
>|	Contrasting this teaching method, in all of the TKD schools
>|I've trained at, there are preset defenses for a bunch of standard
>|attacks. Sometimes this is done via one-step sparring, sometimes more
>|informally (i.e. the teacher says: "Give me the first lapel grap
>|defense," then "Give me the second one," etc.) and everyone in the
>|school will do the exact same thing - it's formalized, like kata.
>+-------
>This depends on what you want to learn in martial art.  Basic defense is 
>quite effective, (i.e. just developing a reactionary attitude that will come 
>to you're aid immediately with a few minor tools)  All you really need is three
>tools to drop someone.  A punch, backfist, and frontkick are devastating as 
>in traditional Japanese Karate, but can be limiting against skilled opponents.

I certainly don't think it's pointless to learn new techniques and methods,
quite the opposite. I'm not saying I don't want to learn them, I'm saying
I don't want to learn them in an artificial, pre-set order. Not that it's
a major problem for me, it's just that I must admit to being slightly
annoyed that I must do first lapel-grab response 1, then L-G response 2.
If I do them the other way around it's wrong. (This is an extreme example,
I must admit, but it has happened to me in a former school - it was not
the head instructor, but an advanced student who isisted I do them in
the right order. I don't believe the head instructor would have made
a point of it).

>
>+--------
>|one-step sparring deals just to be able to do them on request, like a
>|trained monkey, is something that really depresses me.
>+--------				Ed Hartnett
>
>There are a couple different levels to a technique, and you're right, acting
>like a trained monkey won't cut it.  What you need is the repetition and 
>intricasies of the technique then the ability to apply it to your body and 
>mind.  (Do it fast, make it effective, put him down -of course be gentle to 
>you're practice buddy- and make it your technique)  The stories that I have 
>heard, and from my own experience, is that how you train is how you're 
>technique will come out.  Just so happens that many other masters way 
>greater than myself have said the same thing.   
>
>If you want high level training you must find a comprehensive system that 
>invloves all aspects of fighting from legs to gappling and pressure points to 
>the multitudes of strikes, and of course the applications of internal strength.
>It'll frustrate you, but then you specialize and you're knowledge is always 
>way ahead of you're skill, not to mention that you become good in many 
>techniques and awesome at a few.  Ya gotta pay you're dues to get excellent, 
>that is why it is called skill.
>
>Humblepracticioner

Yes, of course that's all true. I'm not saying that I can't or won't do this.
Nor do I do these like a trained monkey. In fact, I try and get as much out
of it as possible. However, I believe that there are many bad habits to be
gained in this type of thing.

How can I express this clearly... I am not some beginning student
complaining that my instructors insist that I do everything just so. 
I fully understand the need for that, particularly in kata. It just seems
that this one-step stuff entainls a lot of artificial stuff.

My instructor (current) recently said that sometimes you have to learn
something that is a little pointless, just as a form of dicsiplin over 
your body, to make it move the way you want it to. If this is the only reason
for these one-steps, (or I should say the artificial elements of these one-steps)
I can accept that. I already accept that I have to learn them just to get
by in the school. (I can hardly refuse to do them, and if I'm going to do
them I might as well do them as perfectly as possible). I'm just
hoping that there's a better reason out there somewhere. 

For example, when I first learned simple blocks, in my first school,
I thought to myself, these could never block anything, they're too
slow. But I learned them the way they were taught. Not long after
I started the instructor explained that the full form of the blocks
were not blocks, but grabs and strikes (to an attacker's arm, usually).
I'm sure we all experienced the same lightbulb going on over our 
heads when we first discoved this simple fact. It's probably not 
that simple with one-step, but is there something there, some 
secret reasons?


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