Make Your Choi Kwang-Do Practise More Mindful

Grandmaster Choi recently gave a simple piece of advice to School Owners and instructors:

"Remember, it is important to practise slowly, regularly in a relaxed manner and with mindfulness".

Becoming more aware of what you are doing and how you are doing it can assist in creating a more engaging and enriching training experience – even aside the physical benefits. The problem is, this can be challenging for instructors and black belts due to experience; having performed so many blocks, punches, strikes and kicks over the years you can now perform the techniques and sequences automatically, without conscious thought.

Ironically, it takes another conscious action to break that automatic process – to pause and take note of what you are doing and how you are doing it. In the context of a physical activity, we could stop and reflect. This is an important exercise in its own right, eg. asking yourself questions such as, "what do I enjoy most about training CKD?" or "what aspect of my training do I want to focus on improving?" However, in our recent monthly Black Belt Training session at Ealing Choi KwangDo we sought to raise awareness during the activity.


3 Simple Steps

Firstly, before doing anything we agreed to reduce the speed and intensity of all drills throughout the class. Not drastically - just enough to ensure students can work at a consistent and moderately comfortable pace, while enabling them to think about what they were doing, while they are doing it.

Then we enhanced focus on the movements using the Three Ts:

1. Tool – which part of the body should be used for the techniques. Have you prepared this? Eg. For a punch, have you formed the fist correctly? Is your fist and/or arm in the correct position? 

2. Type of movement – consider how the body should prepare for the movement and the trajectory of the arm or leg. Eg. For an Inward Punch, have you extended the arm with the fist and elbow level and the knuckles horizontal? 

3. Target – where is the technique aimed towards or designed to make contact with? Eg. For a punch aimed at the head/face, which surface are you aiming for? 

Exhaling with each technique can also assist with deliberate performance.

I made up the Three Ts in the hope that it would provide students with something concise and catchy while capturing the overall theme in a simple way: to make the experience of Choi Kwang-Do practise more purposeful and keep our minds in the present moment. If you try them, let us know how you get on!

__________
Jason Wright is a 6th Degree Black Belt and Master Instructor in the martial art Choi Kwang-Do. For further information on Choi Kwang-Do classes in Ealing, West London visit www.TheMartialArtForLife.com/free-trial

Acknowledge Your Experience

Can you ride a bicycle? Can you recall your first few times pedalling unassisted down the road?

Do you drive? If so, can you remember taking lessons? So many things to remember; steering, gears, mirrors, other road users, other learners driving like you - poorly...

Even if you haven't driven a car you will know that it has a steering wheel which is used to change or maintain the direction in which the car is travelling. If you can drive, during lessons you may have been instructed to hold the steering wheel with your hands at the 'quarter to three' or 'ten to two' positions. You may have also been instructed to turn the wheel using a 'push and pull' method.

(Disclaimer: if you are a non-driver or yet to take lessons, please note that I take no responsibility for any confusion arising from this explanation. Driving instruction should be taken from a qualified driving instructor!)

However, after some time, you became more confident with steering and driving a car in general. You may even have passed your test!

What happens next? You begin to hold the steering wheel and turn it using a slightly different, more fluid, more graceful manner.

The car hasn't changed.
The steering wheel hasn't changed?
So what's different?

You.

We know that the more we perform an action, the easier it can become and the better we can do it. Your position along the learning curve changes as each repetition of the action creates experience.

You no longer have to 'work out' how to perform the action each time you wish to perform it. At the same time, your experience helps you determine how well you can perform the action consistently with accuracy.

The same applies when learning and performing the Choi Kwang-Do techniques. In most cases the objective of the instructor when initially teaching techniques is provide an overview of the technique, then introduce the technique following a step-by-step breakdown.

In this way students can better understand the technique and the instructor can make corrections or adjustments can be made during the learning process.

Once a basic understanding of the fundamental movement has been grasped, the technique may then be repeated more fluidly.

Rather than allow students to work out how to do a technique – students are provided with the process of how to achieve the technique.

This is particularly important in Choi Kwang-Do due to sequential nature of the movements; a single punch requires involvement from a wide variety of parts around the entire body from the feet upwards.

Eventually, with time, patience and guidance you are able to perform the technique easily and effectively - almost without thinking, and this can often happen without us realising. Some people refer to this as unconscious competence, whereby you don’t even realise that your experience and abilities have evolved and you now possess a certain level of skill and proficiency.

It's great to be able to look back at where you once were, and then marvel at the range of skills and experience that you now have. As long as you bear in mind that irrespective of rank and years training, there is nearly always something new to learn, tweak or refine.

__________
Jason Wright is a 5th Degree Black Belt and Master Instructor in the martial art Choi Kwang-Do. For further information on Choi Kwang-Do classes in Ealing, West London visit www.TheMartialArtForLife.com