TKD lesson (1 hour)
I lost my cool a few times during this lesson, and I can't tell if I'm getting tired of my kid or if they're getting tired of me and it's coming through, haha. Biggest thing we're battling on right now is having a FRONT and a BACK hand when you are in a fighting stance. I'm all for a square stance ala Bas Rutten, but even then there's at least a SLIGHT twist of the shoulders so that you have a jab and a rear straight, and front and back hooks. My kid will have a front and back foot and then square their shoulders dead on straight, and it makes all the defensive stuff we're learning completely ineffective. Also had to deal with excessive bouts of giggles and the tongue being out of the mouth. I like to joke that my kid has "tongue to eye coordination", because whenever their focusing really hard the tongue comes out. I keep letting them know it's a good way to bite off their own tongue in a fight.
All that said, we drilled a lot on one steps using the blocks we've learned from the form. I actually turned the douhble knifehand block into a kick catch/shove, like this
Wasn't a bad drill.
Let the kid pick their own drill, and they went with roundhouses again. We got them looking REAL good today. Had my kid focus on turning their pivoted foot around so that the knee faced away from the bag at the end of the kick, and it totally transformed things. Really got their hips into it. I just need to get their punches good, because right now we're doing that whole "pick up fist and place at the end of arm" idea vs an actual punch with intent.
Heard back from the Tang So Do place and they offer classes for my kid's age. We may check in on them this weekend.
Okay, some big words in here but from my perspective as casually interested follower of this, maybe room for some insight/takeaways for you: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EZHbc8EUwAE8Il3?format=jpg&name=medium
ReplyDeleteBasically, how can you **** with the environment or tasks so that kiddo is effectively prevented from accessing the bad habits and implicitly encouraged to pursue the good habit, rather than just continuing to explain and rehearse? I remember from my childhood Kyokushin experience that our senseis would camp on our habits or tells in sparring and ruthlessly exploit them by way of instruction. But we'd also have constraints imposed upon us in sparring or drills like reduced space or expanded space, tying one sparrer to the other, one sparrer gets a staff and the other doesn't, "oops you lost a limb," etc., to force us to do different things and try different constructive solutions.
My first thought as a coach is always how can I design the drill or activity to inherently encourage the good habits and dis-incentivize the bad, rather than relying on explicit instruction and rote rehearsal.
WR
I feel like I somehow knew that you did Kyokushin and also completely forgot and was delighted to read about it all over again, haha. That's awesome dude: that's something I've always wanted to train. Absolutely appreciate the coaching insight. I may be able to make that work. If nothing else, my kid may appreciate the novelty. They DO have a tendency that, whenever something new is introduced into the equation, they completely abandon all the things that were successful leading up to that point and focus on the new thing. We're experiencing that on the gymnastics front, where we'll bring out a box to help post on for some bar work and they completely unlearn how to keep Ls and pike, haha. But as a bunch of amateurs, we're making our way through.
DeleteIf I keep playing Coach dad for the future, I may end up leaning heavily on you for it. Always appreciate the insights and knowledge on it. It's super outside my wheelhouse.
It was great, I didn't appreciate it enough at the time, but that's middle school for ya. In hindsight it definitely played a major role in my whole ethos early foundation. I think not getting promoted when I didn't deserve to be promoted was my first figurative gut-punch revelation in a privileged childhood, along with plenty of literal gut-punches from senseis who had the incredible ability to hit you exactly as hard as you were just barely ready for, no more and no less, and to give you enough openings to get your own on them when it was instructive to do so.
DeleteI guess that might be instructive too--remember that kiddo will remember this experience one way despite possibly experiencing it a different way.
I'm happy to kick around ideas any time. Unfortunately my knowledge of combat sports is very limited, but the principles of practice and motor learning are transferrable and it would just be a matter of asking questions and throwing up ideas until finding some potential solutions.
I think for now, my biggest unsolicited tip would be to think about ways to make small modifications to the practice environment so kiddo can do implicit learning, not "dad says do it this way." There are environmental modifications like increased/decreased space, task modifications like "oops you lost an arm" sort of rules, and technology modifications like using pool noodles or bands. This can be overwhelming for both athlete and coach if you throw too much out too quickly, so start small within the framework of what you're already doing. Just like lifting; one small change, give it some time, reassess.
Absolutely appreciate all that. I've been trying the implicit thing on my own by varying the focus of each day and introducing some new technology along the way, but it's good to know there's some value to it and I'm not just winging it. I feel like my kid is like me, in that they grasp concepts well but aren't great at replicating them. I'll yell at them to tuck their thumb properly into a punch for the billionth time and think that they're just not getting this, but then I'll talk about closing distance on an opponent and completely unprompted they'll go "Oh yeah: now I can hit you with both hands and feet but you can only hit me with 2", or I'll talk about pulling someone into a punch and they'll say "Right: because now they're off balanced!"
DeleteIt's the curse of every parent to have a child just like them, haha.
I definitely woulda preferred a Kyokushin background to TKD as a youth. Sounds like you had a solid school indeed. I'm doing my best to impart on my kid some actual fighting skills vs kata dancing from this all, so they'll at least be in a better spot than me.
And dude: check your facebook when you get a chance. I left you a message on there doing some ranting.