What does Kuk Sool and training mean to you?

Yes and i agree with this but then if you don't take the time out to take this newly learned knowledge back and apply it to ki bohn soo then what have you learned??, nothing! Everyone is so caught up in a time to achieve system that many don't even realise. As much as we try to be individuals within an art sometimes we are promoted just through fear. This could be fear that we are being left behind from us, or fear from our instructor that they will lose you or other people because it is not seen as an art you can progress in. This is my understanding of what choi was kind of saying in his post that although kuk sool is not the same as any other art, them all being unique. To the lay man who looks at it as "I want to learn martial arts" the system that offers a black belt within 3 years as opposed to one that would take 7 years to master will be chosen everytime. The person does not analyse the system they just see the end product and decide that a black belt is a black belt. Therefore in a consumer market there is always outside pressure to have a system that promotes people through its belts. Its the old problem of people having to pay their mortgage, and feed their kids i'm afraid. Also the point that the future techniques help you understand the previous techniques is true, but if you are learning more about a previous set from a future one than the primary set teaches you about movement for the "more advanced" set then surely the first set weren't known well enough in the first place. That is like being taught the basics of driving, going ok i can change gear, and work the pedals, lets go race at Daytona and learn how the basic mechanics of driving work.............. maybe???? I don't think that you are meant to get many things within kuk sool on the first look or even the 10th but there are certain basics that you should take from each look and each new perspective that you have learnt. Some people from what I've seen have never even bothered to take the time to look.

 

Agreed.

 

[/QUOTE]The learning process we go by is Memorization, Precision, Smoothness. When I was taught Ki Bohn Soo and Sohn Mok Soo, it was at the memorization level. I don't remember being taught the pressure points as a white belt or yellow belt, we got taught the pressure points in part through Mak Chi Gi / Mak Cha Gi. And so it goes...[/QUOTE]

Oh ok different way of being taught may lead to a different interpretation i can go with that. I was taught these sets as a whole to begin with so I was just coming from the stand point of being taught the whole as my misinterpretation of what was being said sorry. Can understand that logic totally

 

The public will compare from a perspective of ignorance ,,they just don't know any better... and nothing is going to change that until they have trained in ksw for many months, prehaps years. how would you compare even within ksw based on the things you listed......it can't and should not be done.

they are equating meaning with memorizing a volume of skills because the general culture of ksw encourages that. instead of quality over quantity. basically ...we (the members of WKSA) created, and propagated this problem because no one has the guts to question it.

in the 80's in the U.S. the trend in the ma business was "more= better" so schools that offered a variety of arts/skills did better as a business. So there were a lot of karate/kung fu/ judo/tkd/hkd/jjs combo schools popping up. ksw offered most of those types of skills in one art, without having to be affiliated with different orgs. and only one chief. hence the ksw monarchy. sharing the power meant sharing the spoils.

absolutely nothing!

if they could they would, but it can't be easily done so it will not happen, as it would require quality control. This can be done within the individulal dojang easily but WKSA is not either willing, or able to provide a template for implementation. If WKSA schools were franchises it would be different maybe. In business, license agreements do not provide the licensor much control in the way that a franchise might. It seems that WKSA wants the control of a franchise but only the responsibility of a licensor.

 

I spent three years as a Waiter Captain at one of the dorms when I was an undergrad. Part of the job was to train new employees. Even when it was things like dining room, or crew (dishwashing), you still couldn't teach a new person on the job the entire position at once. I had to get a feel for how much the trainee could handle, and meter it out.

For example, on the dining room, start with having the person keep the salad bar cleaned and stocked. As they get that down, and the necessity arises, then start teaching them how to restock the milk machine, or the sodas, or make more ice cream.

Depending on how many people I had for the meal, sometimes I could partner a newbie with an experienced person, and let them just do the salad bar for that meal, and add the next step next time. A lot depended on what resources were available and how quickly the trainee could learn.

I see a lot of similarities between the cafeteria training I was giving and the way Kuk Sool is taught at my school. I've been told that done correctly, in Ki Bohn Soo 1 the arm breaks halfway through. Most people I know would not teach a 5-year-old that level of detail. There's even adults that I wouldn't trust with that knowledge.

 

I don't think that anyone can or should standardize the amount of detail that is taught to all students.

One of the things I was taught by friends and mentors in another organization (not MA), is that the teacher bears a level of responsibility for the student, and for how that student uses (or misuses) their training.

Not all students are ready to handle detail. Sometimes the student's capacity for learning material in a given time is more limited. Other times, especially when teaching children, the student is not ready for the responsibility that knowledge brings.

 

Again Ember this isn't meant to be confrontational though i just reread it and it could come across as it. Please believe me its not meant to be

Ok i can see this argument but then what are you teaching people???

Some people are coming to learn self defence, now already in a thread that I started i asked how much time was being put forward in classes towards teaching the psycological and avoidance of situations and very few people came forward with answers,and very little time was cited as being put towards that at all in classes. Now i am getting told that the people that have come to you should be shown a technique that doesn't actually work???? That they should have to wait 9 months, a year maybe before the technique that they were taught as a basic understanding of joint manipulation will be in anyway effective if they are lucky enough to get it on in the first place. Because they are not allowed to train or learn to put it on in randori situations or under any pressure. Therefore i would say that the whole "self defence art" that kuk sool claims to be is rubbish and propoganda and is in fact no use at all. Are people taught to punch correctly in their drills???? afterall you hit someone right that person gets knocked out, falls hits their head on the kerbstone and lives the rest of their life in a vegetative state. Think I'd rather have a broken arm. Life is imperfect but I would always try to show someone the right angle that they are trying to achieve. Afterall, if you have been practicing something for 6 months incorrectly its harder to change than if you had the basic motion correct in the first place. How much of this detail people absorb is another matter and will absorb more the next time you go over it and more the next time. I just don't see the logic in promoting an art as self defence if you are teaching things that wouldn't work even on a good night. And most of the techniques require a very good night anyway until adapted. Discuss

 

i whole hartedly agree with you monk. and it pains me to say that

 

Thanks for the warning.

At the dojang? I am a DBN. I assist in teaching beginner and intermediate classes, and most often it's children. Ordinarily, I am just introducing a student to one brand new technique. Under the Memorization-Precision-Smoothness process that we use, normally what I am teaching is gross motor movements at that point. Is the motion recognizable?

Kicking and punching are a little easier, but again we use the same process.

If a yellow belt thinks they are prepared for self-defense...

Sometimes in the Intermediate classes we'll add detail (precision) to the basic techniques. We expect more of the blue belts and red belts than we do of white & yellow belts. I will provide more correction and detail to the higher ranks as the opportunity arises, especially when we have enough instructors to work with only one or two students each.

But working against resistance, learning specific pressure points, and follow-throughs, is largely done at the brown belt and DBN level. I, as a DBN, only teach brown belts and DBNs when explicitly given direction to do so. Again, that's primarily juniors, so they're several technique sets behind me. And usually I am directed to show a new technique, back to basic memorization.

I will talk with my friends about how "I learned it this way," and also learn from my peers, but peer learning is different from being an instructor.

 

Ember sorry, I wasn't meaning what are YOU specifically teaching. I understand that from other posts, and honestly think that you probably do a very good job at that as you seem to have a very nice philosophy behind you as to the teaching of martial arts.

I suppose what i was actually asking is if the technique as a whole is its most effective, yet we are only teaching it in part then what are "WE ALL" teaching, if we are meant to be teaching a system that promotes itself on every piece of literature that i've seen as self defence.

Is Kuk Sool that deadly that you need to have so many years experience. UM.......Personally,I don't think so. Sometimes I do think that its just a way of keeping people interested.

Discuss.

 

I have seen Kuk Sool self defense demonstrations recently. I thought they were done by South Austin / SBN Perry's school. Maybe COC knows more about this?

I've already posted that I think the best self defense is avoiding problems in the first place. I think once a person starts sparring, they get a better feel for how much they need to learn. The riskiest stage in any martial art seems to be overconfident yellow/orange belts who think throwing a kick across a desk is fun. I think that special classes in self defense may reinforce that sort of overconfident foolhardiness.

In my opinion. I'd say most of the red belts at our school could probably get out of a bad situation alive without a whole lot of extra training. It may not look fancy, it probably would involve more either running or punching & kicking than neat throwing techniques, and it may not leave the "bad guys" tied up in neat packages, but they'd probably be alive.

I base that on the mix of confidence, sparring experience, and the additional detail they've picked up on the techniques they know. For the highly motivated, that could be achieved in about a year of training.

But I am no kind of expert for judging these things.

 

To be honest no one is Ember. Anyone who stands there and tells you they are 100% foolprooth in self defence is only proof of a fool. No one can honestly say how they will react to the next confrontation or influx of adrenalin, therefore how can we as human beings judge them? All we can do is hope that our mind functions and we do something.

Believe me I'm not trying to labour a point here but my logic is if someone is being taught a technique as self defence which is what they are called (I checked the book ),be it from a traditional stance or any other then that technique better be able to work. I totally advocate avoidance and de escalation just sometime these won't work and the doo doo hits the fan. Red belt (9 months ????) seems a long way down a path to be able to defend yourself, when a combat soldier was taught trench warfare in a fraction of this time. And again before this seems like an attack on your school standards of teaching its far from it (I have found Master Barrys style of teaching second to none,) I have seen an increasing number of people with a lot higher belts than red over here that would find their techniques sadly lacking. I just think that if you aren't showing someone the whole picture from the beginning then they don't know what they are aiming for. Does that make sense???? if they then walk into me and say Monk i was attacked last night and got a perfect ki bohn soo number 4 on the guy but it didn't work,I am safe in the knowledge that I at least tried to show them the whole technique.Rather than standing there wondering "what if I'd shown them the right angle"

 

All of this is moot.....almost NONE of the ksw techniques are self-defense. It sounds like people actually believe that the techs are a "cookie cutter " and if the movement is duplicated it will work. once you let go of that idea you will enjoy training much more as you will not ask "how will this work on the street".... WKSA syllabus KSW is not SD training and it should not claim to be. It can, howeve, LEAD to sd training but the transfer to sd is not automatic and requires other things. try it , the next time you practice Son Mok soo don't "let" your partner do it, fight them, see what happens.........................it's not Self defense.

 

Uh.... what exactly do you want to know?

I do know my school demoed at the Texas Tournament a couple weeks ago, which is what I'm guessing you saw and are referring to.

 

Kinda what i was hoping to get too, with the "what are we actually teaching question", but i guess this will be ignored cos choi said it lol

 

The way I look at it all of the the techniques are taught it a way to give you an understanding of joint manipulation and throwing. That's about it. From there it's up to you to work out drills and what not to be able to apply them live. Expounding on what Choi said. If you know what Sohn Mohk Soo technique is coming and you resist. There's nothing they're going to be able to do if they're just trying to apply it. There has to be an element of surprise. This can be either thowing some sort of attack toward the eyes first (as this will always make a person forget everything else but their eyes for for a split second) or drill on reflex where they attack and you don't tell them what's coming.

 

It makes sense from your perspective. I've heard of schools around here that do teach the full technique including throw and nak bub from the beginning. I asked, once, why we don't do that. PSBN CJ said it's because the ~35-year-old prospective students are often intimidated of falling right away.

I've heard KJN say that what he wants for testing is something recognizable. If it's recognizable, he can work with it to refine it. We've already talked about how hyung can take a lifetime to really understand, what makes you think techniques are any different?

We've also talked about how in a self defense situation, you're not likely to get the opportunity to do one pure technique, it's likely to be a hybrid of two or more joint locks, pressure points, etc.

 

I agree here.

I'm not sure I agree here. Resistance is generally applied in a certain direction. In Sohn Mohk Soo #1, for example, if you start out by going with the resistance, then once you're moving you can redirect it and pull the technique off.

That's also one of the reasons we continue to train / practice Sohn Pae Gi. I've been shown how the different Sohn Pae Gis are appropriate depending on the situation.

 

What I meant was, if the person know you're going to do Sohn Mohk Soo #1, and they want to resist, unless you do something to change it up then you won't be able to make it work. Now doing what your saying (if I understand it) is introducing an element of surprise like I was saying. For example their force (if they're resisting a #1) would be to push inward on your wrist. If you go with that and pull in, that would off balance them a bit then you could quickly throw it around an apply the technique. The problem however with that approach is you're spending the whole time worrying about the lock, giving them plenty of time to beat on you. If the lock is not applied immediatly, another plan needs to be followed (perhaps throwing a strike and if they're still holding the reattempt the lock after they've been put on the defensive).

 

I practice my techniques in many different ways. Having the guy grab really hard and fight against is just one and maybe not all that realistic from a self defense perspective. I love practicing techniques with full resistence though because it tells you alot about the technique. One interesting excercise is to have the person grab (say to dominate the dominant hand of the victim) and then use the other hand to punch the victim in the face (contact left out in class). Now you have something that more closely resembles sd. In my experence if the person actually tries to punch then they generally have a hard time resisting the technique. This kind of stuff has always been part of my normal training in Kuk Sool. We've always just asked the question, what if, and then went and tried it.