Coffee, really.
Last weekend taught a full two-day seminar dissecting principles and application at Randy King's KPC Self Defense in Edmonton. Taking each of my eleven principles*, digging into it as much as time would allow, then playing and experimenting. It does no good to have something you intend to use in chaos just as a mental picture. You have to play with anything to understand it. You have to play with it to make it a part of you.
It was the first time organizing the information this way and teaching it all at once. It was some pretty deep water. The feedback was solid. Randy said it best, albeit in nerd speech: "I think I just leveled up as an instructor. This will help me steal the magic better."
Aside-- Stealing the magic. Ever run into an instructor who could do things you simply couldn't? Not talking the bullshit magic stuff like chi balls. Setting so he couldn't be lifted (structure) or push you across the room with almost imperceptible movement (structure + line and circle + balance). It's just good physics, but often the really good instructors can't explain what they are doing so they have real trouble teaching it. Understand the principles and you know what to look for. You can learn the good stuff they can't articulate well enough to teach. The stuff that looks like magic.
One of the attendees was Rick Wilson. Rick is the 60+ year old guy that the jocks are a little worried about playing sumo with. The guy who has studied traditional stuff and rejected traditional stuff and come full circle to find the body mechanics behind the traditional stuff. Smart. Really deep base of knowledge.
At some point, I think it was after InFighting last year, Dillon started calling Rick the Dark Wizard. His body mechanics are that good. And this is coming from Dillon...
Anyway, Randy and I had coffee and burgers with Rick. Good talks. About teaching, communication and writing. Trying to find decent answers to shitty and deadly situations. And in the details got yet another system of power generation to work on. Multi-directional joint expansion. I just started playing with joint expansion at all but here's yet another can of worms. Also Rick's "clamp" which is definitely going to improve my explanation of bone slaving (which is one piece of structure.)
Good times.
*Everyone should have their own list. Mine happens to have eleven. There are many good ways to organize information
Silhouettes
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(.22 LR handgun, above, airgun targets, below.)
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2 comments:
It's just good physics, but often the really good instructors can't explain what they are doing so they have real trouble teaching it. Understand the principles and you know what to look for. You can learn the good stuff they can't articulate well enough to teach.
I think, often, the problem is a couple parts. First, to reach that point, they really gotten almost beyond unconscious competence, to the point where they all but literally cannot do it wrong -- and they've done things that are so fundamental that they've virtually disappeared. Then, one of your talents or gifts is a twist of mind to look for the underlying principles on things. There just aren't a lot of people who can or will do that. Maybe they're intellectually lazy, maybe they just can't make that turn of mind to look into it. And, in a lot of cases, they just plain aren't good teachers. Not everyone is a good teacher -- even if they're a very good student or practitioner. At best, they might replicate what they went through and eventually get similar results in their students. And there are probably a couple of other things that I haven't thought of, too...
Rory, I learn a great deal from your blog, and I appreciate that you take the time to write in it. Have you ever thought of making a podcast? I would love to listen to your spoken-word reflections.
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