Improving when you are the top dog...

[CESAREKIM]

I was getting ready to hit the road last night to go to practice at a friend's dojang. He's 7dan and he's got about 6 3dan+ in his advanced class including a couple of people who are up for 6 dan shimsa. I really didn't feel like driving a couple of hours to go but I felt I needed to go and practice with people who could pummel me into the ground. When I mentioned this to dad, he had a weary glint in his eyes as he torn me a new one...

"You know, I got my 8 dan 10 years ago and am up for beumsa. I moved here in Italy when I was 6dan in 1972. I haven't had the opportunity to practice with my peers or my seniors on a regular basis in 36 years. I still got my 8 dan. What makes you feel that you can't improve your kumdo practicing with people who aren't better than you?
Travelling 3 hours to get a 2 hour practice isn't practical on a continuous basis. You need to work on basics on your own. Once they are perfect, you need to work on your technique, polish, experiment and polish again. You don't need someone better to do this. You need a body with a jukdo in his or her hands who can keep you at a distance. Try the techniques that don't work for you with certain types of opponents. When you can do any technique with anyone, you can go out and look for someone better to try them out. Before then, don't whine and just keep working."

Put a whole new dimension on my problems preparing for my shimsa.

I'm told humiliation works best if done in public and shared... Now, I've shared.

YMMV

[gator9999]

Thanks Cesare,

I agree with the your dad, to reach the level of exellence we all strive for, the best tool is our own passion and dedication.

I recently had to start developing my own philosophy towards kumdo and what direction I want to go with it. Of course my aspirations are to get half as far as you have, and get to train with some of the greats in our martial art.

[Daniel Sullivan]

I'm going to say that your dad is right to a degree. Top fighters, regardless of the art, are top because the hammer on the basics day in, day out for hours at a time.

But having said that, it is also imperative to train with different people. Yes, you can improve at your own school, but to a great extent, you learn the attacks and styles of the people you train with and can read them. Yes, this enables you to try out new techniques with a degree of a safety net and to perfect said techniques.

But until you spar people that you cannot beat based on knowing their personal style, your training is, to an extent, limited.

I call this the inbreeding effect. Its the same reason that you cannot become a pro level football player playing football with the guys from high school for years in the park. These may be guys who were top dogs and who never stopped playing football together. But they've never branched out from their own little group. Go outside of that group setting and those same guys will encounter things that they've never encountered and will never expect.

On the other hand, a professional football player must test his skills against teams from all over, against players with different styles and different tactics. Nobody is going to do anything that they don't expect; its just a question of who does what they're going to do better.

Lastly, getting out to other places to train where you know the people are good is a good way to get inspired.

Daniel

[CESAREKIM]

Good points, Daniel. I like practicing with people I only meet at Nationals to see how they've progressed and how far I've gotten as compared to them. Can definitely be an eye opener.

Having said that, it may not be necessary for me to travel 100 miles every week to practice with my seniors. I just need to find a good enough compromise...

[b8amack]

I agree with your dad completely. But at the same time, sometimes it's nice to compete against people who are an actual challenge. Maybe you can improve without them, but that doesn't make it any less fun. Honestly (and I'm quite a bit lower than you in the scale, but it still applies) I find I learn the most practicing against people who I am better than. Mastering the timing on new techniques just doesn't work very often with people who are faster than you, and to whom such techniques are old hat. But I still enjoy the fights where I have to try my damnedest to get even a jagun mori more than those in which I find myself leaving openings for beginners.

A question, though. If your dad is 8th dan, why not just have him kick your ass a while, save yourself a 3hour round trip drive?

[CESAREKIM]

Sorry for the late response but I haven't set the email notifications and haven't been on the boards much...

To answer your question, my dad had coronary surgery in november and a bad allergic attack about 2months ago. I have been leading class on and off because of his health issues for about 2 years. He's been coming regularly to class for a while now but I am very leery to go full force against him. By full force, I mean that there is a whole gamut of techniques which I will not use with him including kodeungi ssaum (Tsubatseriai) and blasting into him after a sonmok (kote) or meuri (men). Last time I was at a shiai, I scored a kote and did my usual blast in. The other guy was caught sleeping and I bounced him about 6 feet. He was a big guy too. If my father were to allow me to get a kote for some strange reason and didn't set himself up for the blast, I might throw him into the ground... I've once hit him with a two handed thrust to the throat from long distance. This was about 20 years ago and he was at his prime and I was at my fastest. He moved back about 2 feet. He smiled and then creamed my ass. I'm afraid that if I were to try that now, I might actually hurt him. Not likely but I'll be damned if I hurt my dad...

What it comes down to is that I play a somewhat physical game. I don't hurt people but my dad always taught us to go into our opponent if you missed. On some techniques, such as debana men, I'm virtually guaranteed to slam into my opponent. Not risking that with someone who has metal pieces keeping his coronaries open...

Even if my dad were healthy and I could play to kill, I would still need someone closer to my level. A 7 dan is so much better than me that comparisons are futile. An 8 dan is so much better than a 7 dan that comparisons would also be futile. The higher levels are playing at something that I can't even see sometimes. Certain things that I am working on such as seme and tameru are viable if I have someone who is in the 4-6 dan range and will react in the way I expect from lower levels. Sort of pointless to try to seme an 8 dan into doing something. Normally, they'll just take a small step back as I launch my attack and swat me away. I've scored ippon off of 7 and 8 dan but the play is normally a lot more deliberate than what I will need for a 4 dan shimsa. I need people closer to my level so I can get the rhythm I want. I won't have the luxury to fight over the center line for 25 seconds prior to even launching an attack at my shimsa. That's something I may need to develop later on for 7 dan... in about 15 years if I pass all of the shimsa before then...

YMMV

[b8amack]

Sorry to hear about your dad. I hope he's feeling better soon.

I hear you about levels. I don't mind losing, but I like the idea that it's POSSIBLE to maybe win a point or two. If I'm on my game. Rather than just being shut down no matter what I do, and feeling totally graceless.

[CESAREKIM]

Just to clarify my post from last night when I talk about rhythm.

Did you ever notice how much easier it is to practice with really good people? They help to pull up your kumdo. When I practice with a 8 dan and older 7 dan, they tend to have a rather deliberate rhythm in their practice. They really work on seme and tameru. They know how to build the scenario to get that one great point. When I practice with good younger 7 dan (in their late 30's and 40's) or 6 dan and below, they are a lot more aggressive and will try to mess you up by really pressuring you into reacting before you are ready. THAT is what I'm looking for.

I don't want to be the berserker at the exam but neither do I want to be the one who stands in joongdan jasae for the whole exam and doesn't get more than one hit during the 2 minutes. On a good day, I can score off of 8 and 7 dan. On an average day, I will get at least a couple of good hits on 6 dan and below. I just need to ratchet up the intensity and find a way to build the tempo so I can get my two or three hits for the exam. The way to time myself and get the rhythm I need into my body is practicing with people who are either challenging the grade or are in the general vicinity.

Hope my rambling made sense...

YMMV

[admin]

Cesare, I've been teaching a lot and I've noticed that it could potentially be hurting my kumdo. It seems that you lose your attacking mindset and develop a defensive or purely counterattacking mindset. Any advice?

[CESAREKIM]

Hi Stephen,
Sorry it took me so long to get back to you but I was in Berlin at a summer training camp. We had current and past members from the Czech, German, Russian, Belgian and Italian National teams as well as the coaches of some of these teams. It was a pretty intense three day seminar where the main training exercises were kakarikeiko and kirikaeshi. An average of 2 hours plus of jigeiko as well... I was motodachi for most of the seminar and the kids are obscenely quick. Not quite Korean/Japanese quick but a player in his/her late teens or early 20's is at the peak of their speed...

Going back to when I was preparing my 4dan, I ended up practicing 6 or 7 times a week for the last 4 months before the exam. I would practice at my home dojang for all the classes that were available and then go to my friend's dojo where he had 4 people challenging 4 dan. Another friend of ours who was also challenging 4 dan would drive from Verona as well so we could have two 3 people pools challenging 4 dan. We would try at least two or three sequences of exams so we could try to show our best stuff while mixing the groups up.

@Stephen
The problem you are facing is two fold:
1. If you are teaching don't fall into the trap of JUST TEACHING. You need to practice as well. When you are teaching, you are under the spotlight all the time. You have to walk the walk. I loved being a middle of the road practitioner because I could try things. When you are teaching, you need to do things as well as you can and as hard as you can. If the class is small, you can do the exercises with the class and correct each person as you go. If the class is large, you will need to supervise and may not get as much floor time so you will need to work on your basics on your own time.
2. You need to sacrifice your special techniques and work on what is appropriate for your opponent. I used to be a sonmok specialist and could pick most people off as they tried to come in. That is absolutely the worst thing you can do to a beginner who is trying to do muhri. You will need to do muhri and score by getting the center or by going off the center line and hitting him as you go by them but it will have to be muhri or they will never learn to attack...

Having said that about teaching generally, there are two different schools of thought on the mindset of playing your students or your juniors. One way of working with them is you REALLY try to win the first point and then it's just cruise at a level that is appropriate for them. You can work on your badachigi as you can force them to do what you want by just twitching you left pinkie so you have all the time in the world to perfect all kinds of things. The down side is that you tend to start playing like a 60+ yo 7 or 8 dan and WILL fail your next exam unless you are challengin at least 5 dan.

The other school of thought is DESTROY and then rebuild. You REALLY try to get all the points that you can see maintaing your best form. You obviously do not do any full body checks or stuff like that unless the student belongs to the wrestling subhuman type class and needs to be put back in their place. If they are there, btw, it's your fault as a teacher so you better analyze where things went wrong. After about 3 minutes of ringing their bell, you have them do uchikomi and kakarigeiko with you so they get a chance to play more aggressively and you don't hit them except for ramming your jookdo in their ass if they're too slow coming off the hit...

I do a bit of both during different sessions where the first type of practice is something for me and the second is for them more than me. As counter-intuitive as it may sound, really ringing their bell for a while and then having them blow their load is really for them not for you. You can buy a hitting dummy for a couple of bucks but they need to see that someone can hit them properly and keep their correct stance while doing it. The uchikomi is for them to try to do the same thing you just did on them and kakarigeiko is for them to learn to select the most appropriate shot as quickly as they can. Form goes out the window but this is where spirit is developed. I will take a beginner with balls over a beginner with a crisp muhri cut and no spirit any day of the week...

I will email you the essays on the attitudes on jigeiko by Honda if you don't have it yet. It differentiates what you should be doing when practicing with your juniors, peers and seniors.

HTH