Post by fujicolt on Jul 28, 2012 21:59:13 GMT
UNDERSTANDING
AND THEN IMPROVING
YOUR KARATE:
PLAN 1 - REACTION TIME
AND THEN IMPROVING
YOUR KARATE:
PLAN 1 - REACTION TIME
Once one becomes truly involved in a study of Shotokan Karate it will soon become clear to you that the more you study this Martial Art a paradoxical situation arises and remains constant thereafter.
The peculiar situation that does arise is the fact that the more you learn, the more proficient you become, the more you realise that as each step along the way occurs the more complex and therefore difficult the journey becomes.
Unlike other activities that produce skill and understanding that are on a rising scale, with Karate (no matter how long you have been studying and training) you are continually faced with a sobering realisation of how much you do not (yet) know or (yet) understand and thus follows an understanding that your developed skills are in fact (as yet) far from at their optimum potential development and therefore a change in your approach to study and training are clearly required or you will, as many do, stagnate.
How often do we see Karateka of many years training who can be seen to be simply very good at doing Kyu Grade Karate (often exceptionally good!) but an ‘educated eye’ will see that in fact they haven’t technically progressed in a manner that matches their longevity of training.
For some this realisation can be quite a challenge to face as the Karateka struggles to find a way forward and thus keep the development of their knowledge, understanding and skills moving productively forward.
I have discussed elsewhere my disappointment and even disagreement with the often-heard solution to this dilemma being voiced as the grunted advice: ‘More Training!’.
I have also voiced elsewhere my opinion as to how this seemingly cryptic but actually woefully useless advice entered the Shotokan Karate Psyche of many Western Karate Communities.
When asked what I would advise when Karateka are faced with this dilemma I would personally suggest the following;
Firstly, it is important to understand that simply ‘doing’ Karate; the physical action of practicing the techniques (Training) will in itself not improve your overall Karate.
In fact I would suggest that it actually should be the last thing you do!
Now, before you blow a valve and start screaming ‘Rubbish’ please re-read the comments above.
I am of course in no way suggesting that Physically training the techniques is not important. In fact in many ways it ultimately becomes the most important aspect of your karate development.
However once you understand the concepts related to an ongoing and sustainable level of developmental progress you will come to understand that one needs to develop several different aspects of your overall study if you are to maximise your overall development.
In doing so you will also understand that research has now shown us all that over-training can be as detrimental to your development as under -training. This is especially so when training is undertaken without the required knowledge and understanding that is needed to develop the skills that the training is working upon and towards.
Therefore it is important that, when one analyses your study and training programme, you fully realise the true karate competence will not be developed if you only focus upon ‘ physical development’.
True advancement in your karate skills will only come about when one fully realises that real competency is the development of skills in areas such as mental attitude, emotional control and interactive factors such as distance evaluation, reaction speed and timing etc.
However, to develop such competency one needs to step back and learn what are the factors that will create it.
KNOWLEDGE:
I know that it will no doubt cause, as usual, a certain level of upset amongst some when I state that I am sometimes shocked and dismayed by the fundamental lack of relative Knowledge that I witness amongst even long served Karateka.
However, this is then often overshadowed by Karateka whom do have a fundamental level of knowledge but then fail to have the most vital ingredient: Understanding!
Knowledge alone is quite impotent if understanding of that knowledge does not back it up.
To be fair, we all do it to an extent and as a result can still achieve some quite difficult things. However, to truly make progress it is vital that we constantly widen our knowledge base and then, very importantly, deepen our understanding of said knowledge.
As a personal similar example, I was fortunate to pass my Aeroplane Pilots Licence. But, in a direct parallel to Karate I remember my Flying Instructor pulling me aside and saying ‘Ok, Know you ‘think’ you know the basics of how to fly so lets get you to really understand it and then you will fly!’
Thus started a program of Aerobatic training that ended up saving my life when I had engine failure whilst flying home one afternoon!
A not dissimilar situation to when I went ‘On the Doors’ as a young Shodan but still had to go and find info and good instructors to help me learn how to actually deal with real violence and if necessary: Fight!
The Key point here is the fact that Knowledge alone is mute if it isn’t partnered with understanding and therefore Skill will not arise until you complete this union.
Therefore, as an initial example lets examine an essential requirement for any and all Karateka: Reaction Speed.
Now, already I can imagine how some people are reacting to the term ‘reaction speed’ by assuming that I am referring to the ability to register that an attack is be launched towards you and thereafter respond to it. No, to fully understand reaction speed one has to be aware that it is an equally important factor in launching attacks by spotting or creating openings and understanding the distancing and timing of when and how to do so.
Therefore, when one comes to understand that reaction speed is an aspect of everything that we do in a combative situation it must surely follow that we therefore need to ‘understand’ everything about reaction speed in order to utilise it at maximum proficiency and further understand how it is vitally interconnected to several aspects of the combative interaction we will engage in.
In my honest opinion it is a failure to fully investigate such matters that causes many Karateka to, unintentionally I am sure, limit their potential progress and that of their students.
Therefore, let us take a moment to ponder what factors are involved in maximising reaction speed skills.
In no particular order:
§ What exactly is involved in reacting to an attack or launching a successful Attack (I shall return to this in more detail below.
§ Timing: a crucial aspect of this skill
§ Understanding Distancing: again a crucial aspect of this skill.
§ Understanding your own limb length and how this is crucially linked to your ability to deliver your arsenal of techniques
§ Footwork skills: again crucial in maximising correct distancing and timing skills
§ Accuracy: IMHO one of the most neglected skills as we so often see Karateka taking a ‘Shotgun’ approach rather than honing the accuracy skills of a pinpoint accurate ‘Rifle sniper’
§ Speed; again often not fully understood but vital in this context. Many do not understand that speed of technique – although vital in itself – is actually secondary to Timing, Distancing and Accuracy because no matter how fast you can perform a technique it is in fact highly likely to fail if it is ill Timed, at the wrong Distance or Off Target. All factors that are deeply reliant on good footwork that ensures you are in the right place at the right time to enable good reactive skills.
§ Further to this is the oft overlooked knowledge of and thereafter understanding of how our body actually moves and why the ability to control muscle tension is directly related to Reaction skills.
§ It is also vital for Karateka to be knowledgeable of and thereafter understand that all of the factors above will literally be driven by the combatants’ mental and emotional control whilst under the pressures of the fight. As we will see the development of these deeply individual skills are vital to allow the correct ‘response to stimuli (Cues)’ split second decisions to be made.
As we can already see Reaction Speed is far more than an isolated skill as it is reliant upon a broad spectrum of elements to be at optimum efficiency for success to be gained.
This surely indicates that a very thorough analysis of not only what we need to do in our training to maximise these skills but also how we need to structure our training plan and why?.
A matter of some concern to me is the often witnessed reluctance and thus failure, of many Karateka to search outside of our own art to find information gleaned from other activities to help us maximise our Karate Skills.
It is surely true that excellent reaction skills are a major factor in many sporting or other physical activities. Therefore, I believe it is a tragic failure on our part if we do not access any and every piece of information that have arisen from sports and other scientific research programs that will help us further develop our Knowledge base and understanding of progress and developments that have been made in other fields in relation to factors that are vitally important in ours: Karate.
Far too often you will see an attitude in Karate that engenders a reluctance to develop our training programs. Often we witness an unfounded adherence to certain practice methods because they were developed by ‘the Masters of the past’ to abandon or restructure them would be somehow a betrayal of our arts ‘Traditions’.
What a load of nonsense as even scant enquiry will show that our founding Father; Funakoshi Sensei was a diligent seeker of knowledge and information that would help him develop and define the Shotokan System.
I am confident that he would want this program of evolution to remain a constant aspect of our methodologies rather than having the style stagnate out of an unhealthy adherence to ‘tradition’. I feel he would want and would applaud an attitude of keep positive processes and improve those requiring it as new knowledge arises.
Returning now to our task: I hope we have established that Reaction speed is just as relevant to attacking techniques, as it is to defensive techniques. Both require an evaluation of a situation, an analysis of the information taken in, a decision in what to do in response and then the initiation of a range of abilities on your part to respond accordingly.
Therefore let us now begin our search for better knowledge and thus a better understanding of what is involved in developing Reaction Abilities.
At this stage I believe we must begin with a mindset that is knowledgeable about what good reaction speeds actually entails.
Firstly we must establish what it is exactly that we are hoping to improve. In this case our target is to enhance our Reaction Time. Therefore, it surely follows that we must become knowledgeable of what Reaction time actually is to then establish training programs that will enhance it.
If we break it all down it becomes clear that Reaction Time involves a factor that we shall term: ‘Interval Time’ and this is actually the element of this process that we wish to speed up.
Therefore we must establish in our mind what ‘Interval Time’ actually is? Then we can understand what to focus upon to improve this ‘Interval Time’.
Close scrutiny will inform us that ‘Interval Time’ is the time period between us having received –
1. A stimulus (the Cue)
2. Analysed it and then:
3. Chosen a response,
4. Put into action the required musculature to launch our chosen response (Stage one: Launch/Initiation)
5. Actioned the physical movements required to perform the chosen technique as fast as possible to send the technique towards our chosen target accurately (Stage two: outward flightpath) whilst simultaneously actioning any required footwork, Stance structuring, distance realignment and musculature focusing to enhance impact potential and accuracy and then;
6. After impact immediately commencing the withdrawal of the initial technique and either launching a second further attack or withdrawing to a safe distance to protect yourself or consider further action.
Once these elements of the process are understood it can be seen that the interval time between the Cue and the delivery of the technique can be further influenced by the complexity of the Cue.
That is to say if the Cue presents only one possible reaction the interval time is shorter. This is a process that is sometimes referred to as ‘Simple Reaction Time’ or ‘Simple Cue Reaction’.
However, as often happens in combat, if the Cue presents us with various possible responses the Reaction time becomes longer due to the need to further analyse our choice of response, make a decision and then launch our response. This is a process termed ‘Choice Reaction Time’.
Also, research has also established that if there are multiple Cues, each requiring their own response then consequentially the Choice Reaction Time is further extended as the Cues are evaluated.
Therefore, in its simplest form Reaction Time is the interval between the presentation of a Cue and the initiation of the muscular responses required to launch either a simple Response (no choice analysis required) or after a process of evaluation of appropriate responses (Choice Reaction Time) then initiating the required muscular activity that becomes our chosen technique.
This knowledge and understanding can then help us to consider training schedules that will enhance the reduction of the reaction time.
As can be seen it reveals that the ability to recognise Cues (the initial movements of our opponent that help us to identify or even anticipate what he/she is about to do) is a vital component in our ability to shorten our reaction time.
Therefore, we can recognise that enhancing the speed of our Reaction Time requires us to reduce the Choice Time element of the process and this requires us to familiarise ourselves with what the Cues, we must respond to, actually look like or feel like (remember not all Cues will be picked up visually and can be perceived kinaesthetically or even audibly – all are important).
This then leads us into a required exploration of what occurs during the Choice Time element of the Reaction Time process.
Let us consider the following in relation to visually perceived Cues (Similar analyses can be made for other stimuli such as Kinaesthetically perceived Cues Etc) :
§ Detecting and recognising the Cues –
Detecting and recognising Cues requires us to know and understand that all techniques, be they punches, Kicks, Strikes or blocks etc. have five stages:
1. Initiation,
2. Outward Flight Path,
3. Impact
4. Return Flight Path
5. Finish
Once this is understood we can consciously focus our attention on developing the skill to recognise what the physical movements, made by our opponent, indicate in relation to what technique or action they are making.
This skill can be enhanced by particularly developing the skill to recognise his Stage one and Stage two movements and as a result being able to recognise that such movements indicate he is, for example, launching a Right hand Gyaku Tsuki to your Jodan Area or a left leg Mae Geri to Chudan Level.
With practice (via pre-arranged, Semi Free and finally Free sparring drills) we can develop the required Cue recognition skills and eventually can even be able to fine tune this to the point that we recognise even the tiny Cues such as sudden muscle contractions (the neck area often being involved) being visible at the exact initiation point of an opponents attack.
A useful secondary gain from such detailed study is the fact that we can also learn how to minimise unnecessary movements in our own techniques that would give clear Cues to our opponents relating to our launch of attacks etc.
§ Decision Making –
Another gain to be made by knowing and understanding what the Cues presented are indicating also has the knock on effect of assisting us to minimise decision making time as the Cues become more and more familiar to us IF we know what to focus upon during our skill enhancing training drills.
This reduction in the Decision Making Time element is deeply important and may be considered as learning the visual language of Combat. Be prepared to at first have to consciously evaluate the Cues but I assure you that overtime as you learn to focus upon the cue and positively blank out other non informative movements etc you will become consistently more fluent in understanding the ‘language’ of the cues and therefore, just as when learning an initially ‘Foreign Language’ the more you are exposed to it the sooner it becomes fluid.
§ Filtering
One of the benefits of this specific study of Cues is the resulting ability to ‘Filter’ Cues to the point that by gaining an understanding of your opponents Stage one and Stage two movements you will learn to recognise techniques launched that due to poor distancing judgements on the part of your opponent will not actually hit you. You will learn to filter out techniques that will not actually hit you or will place your opponent in a tactically beneficial (to you) position.
Once this skill is developed you can thus become more instinctively able to ignore such techniques or alternately use your footwork to ‘slip’ inside or around such techniques to your advantage.
§ Anticipation
Once Cue recognition and Filtering skills are developed you will, as a consequence, begin to develop and hone an ability to anticipate your opponents intentions. This skill therefore allows you to even ‘get ahead’ of your opponent and take advantage of the situation to exercise timing decisions that allow you to maximise your ability to ‘Beat him to the punch’. This is indeed an advanced skill but it can be deliberately honed via the choice of productive free and semi free Kumite Drills,
§ Reducing anxiety
One of the side effects of purposely working on developing these skills is the fact that you actually shift your combative procedures from being haphazard and thus potentially dangerous for you, to a more controlled and calculated approach that is inherently safer and more under your control. This therefore helps to boost your confidence and thus reduce the secondary and confusing further stimuli (your own fears or anxieties) that will obviously add distractions into your Concentration and therefore lengthen your decision making time.
In addition you will learn to be more physically relaxed and this hugely increases your ability to move faster.
As can be seen Reaction Time Speeds are dependent on many factors and all of these are deeply dependent on your ability to reduce your processing of information speed.
It therefore becomes obvious that gaining fluency in recognising what the Cues are informing us of is a hugely important skill requirement.
For this reason it is vital that all Karateka, especially Instructors, structure Kumite Drills that are specifically designed to aid the development of Cue recognition and analysis.
Just ‘doing’ Kumite Drills (More Training!) will not expedite the acquisition of these skills. The drills should be designed to aid Karateka in developing Cue recognition skills and how to process the received information in a manner that assists good response choices.
This can then assist us in learning how to optimise factors such as timing, distancing, accuracy and related skills such as Footwork and Targeting.
However, just being aware that these factors are important (Knowledge) is not enough. They must be individually understood and this should then be developed into an understanding of exactly how they function and why they will maximise success when interconnected with other factors.
For example, the Karate Student must have a full understanding of how footwork will directly influence distancing which in turn will influence timing and accuracy etc. Everything should be fully explained so that the student understands the intent of the drills and what to individually and thereafter collectively focus upon. One must understand that ‘small things are important’ and through this important understanding come to understand that in terms of developing Reaction Time there are NO SMALL THINGS!
HAVE FUN!