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Talent, Technique and Skill
“An understanding of each of the above words is essential for anyone wishing for continuous improvement as a result of their training”.
Before we consider the accuracy of the statement it is necessary to understand the meaning of each word in relation to your training.
TALENT
Talent in the Oxford Dictionary is defined as “a special aptitude” in plain English this is an aptitude you are born with. Examples would be:
A large volume of fast twitch fibres in your muscles which makes you naturally quick.
Joint shape which could be such that it assists your flexibility to a large degree.
Body shape, size and construction.
Some people achieve a measure of success by natural talent alone. It is not uncommon to see this in Kumite when natural speed, timing and reach, often results in wins over less talented opponents.
Natural talent is certainly a very useful commodity in terms of both training and competition. It can however be a problem if naturally talented people rely upon this alone and do not work to improve both technique and skill to the same degree as their natural abilities. It can be quite difficult to educate these individuals into improving both technique and skill because they are already achieving some level of success without a great deal of effort. The attitude is often "if I am successful with my current methods why should I do anything else". Natural talent however will only take an individual so far. As soon as this individual meets someone who has similar talents but also has good technique and good skills he will almost certainly lose.
If you do not have a large volume of natural talent or have no natural talent at all it does not mean you cannot progress in the karate world. Good quality training will compensate for a lack of natural physical abilities including strength, speed, suppleness, stamina and mental training. As an instructor I would prefer to work with individuals who had the right determination and attitude and but have lesser natural skills, than those with the very high natural skills but very poor attitude and determination.
The longer I have trained in the karate world the more I am convinced that relying on talent is over rated. If you train correctly with a good instructor you can succeed at all aspects regardless of your body shape etc. and you can also increase speed, suppleness and other aspects with correct training.
TECHNIQUE
Technique is defined as “the mechanics of a movement”. This is simply the way that the movement is performed. Technique in my opinion is one of the most one underrated and under practiced areas of training.
I have studied videos of numerous individuals in both kata and kumite and have no doubt that poor technique causes many of their problems. By problems I mean telegraphing their attacks, failing to block correctly, missing the target, timing errors, distance errors, moving the arms in order to move the legs due to balance problems, poor control, poor kime, lack of power, slow movements due to stance errors, sloppy movements due to following an incorrect line for a technique, telegraphing attacks, etc.
If technique is poor then its quality should be improved if progress is to be made. It is quite common for individuals who have failed gradings to state I will practice harder for next time and will train more until I pass my grading. They then proceed to train harder at the same things that caused them to fail and simply become fitter, stronger, faster and more highly skilled with techniques that are not correct.
A better approach would be to examine the techniques to determine what is wrong and correct it before training harder and more often. There is simply no point in drilling up and down a dojo doing the same poor techniques as you will ingrain the habit of moving incorrectly even deeper and it will be much harder to change. “I will not quit and will try, try again until I pass” is the wrong approach if you have technique problems. What you should do is "CHANGE WHAT YOU ARE DOING BY CORRECTING IT" and then try, try again.
NOTE: IF YOU CONTINUE TO DO THE SAME THINGS THAT YOU HAVE ALWAYS DONE YOU WILL GET THE SAME RESULTS.
Techniques take some time to learn and often take a number of weeks whilst the muscles are built and the neuromuscular developments take place. Having knowledge of a problem does not mean that the problem is instantly cured. When you have learned an incorrect movement and practiced it that way for some time that technique will be performed incorrectly under pressure, simply because you have trained your body to do it that way. This will occur despite the fact that you may know the technique is incorrect. Knowledge of a problem on its own is insufficient and you must always train correctly and for a period of time if you wish to correct it.
If techniques are learned incorrectly they will take some time to correct whilst the movement is re-learned and the longer you have trained the longer it will take to correct. It can often take longer to correct an incorrect technique than it took to learn it in the first instance because you must break a bad habit and substitute it for a correct one. Any incorrect technique must be corrected before commencing skill work or under the pressure of the skill practice you will revert back to the incorrect movement. An instructor who defends a criticism of one of his students by stating I have told him a number of times is missing the point. Anyone will perform in the way that they have trained and the end result always reflects the training.
If the training is not geared to correcting faults then the faults will not go away. The training must be changed to ensure the fault is removed (or cannot occur) and that is totally in the hands of the instructor.
SKILL
Skill is defined as “Practiced ability” and refers to how well the techniques are applied in any given situation. “Highly skilled” refers to actions that have been practiced regularly to the point that they are performed unconsciously (i.e. an instinctive reaction to an attack or the instinctive application of a technique to suit a situation). Poor skills refers to the application of techniques that have not been practiced to the degree that they can be performed instinctively. Skill is the application of the techniques in any given situation and will apply to kihon, kata or kumite.
It should be noted that it is quite possible to be highly skilled at performing poor techniques.
Many fighters fall into this category as is evident by the number of tournaments they win and the number of gradings they fail. Very often these people make excuses for their lack of good technique by blaming the examiners, the judges, and anything that does not relate to them as individuals. They therefore do not apply themselves to improving their technique and simply continue to rehearse the skill element of their training.
Practice alone does not make perfect. The old saying that “Practice makes perfect” should be changed to “practice makes permanent”. Practice is the mother of skill and can only be obtained with continuous repetition of the same techniques including practicing different situations and circumstances. Continuous practice will make whatever you are practicing habitual and instinctive, which in effect means that you will do it automatically under pressure. It is therefore essential that BEFORE YOU PRACTICE THE SKILL ELEMENT YOU MUST HAVE CORRECT TECHNIQUE. If you do not, the continuous practice will create a habit out of poor techniques which will severely limit your progress as the poor techniques will become your normal movement even if they are incorrect.
CONCLUSION
My conclusion from the above is that Japanese style of training by repeating many techniques has limitations as it builds skill but does not improve technique. If you are training with poor technique all that repetitive training will do, is ingrain the habit which will become a skill but the poor techniques will not improve. There is therefore a sequence of establishing the correct movement for you as an individual first, and only then drill up and down to ensure the correct technique is turned into a skill and become habitual.
EXAMPLES OF COMMON PROBLEMS
A lack of understanding of the above principles is evident in the following examples:
The last week before a tournament or grading an instructor works on kata with one move to one count. This is completely wrong as only skill should be practiced at this stage (i.e. the moves should be continuous and at full speed to prepare the body exactly as it will need to perform at the tournament). One move to one count should only be used when learning the Kata to allow the techniques to be checked and corrected as it proceeds. This is disjointed and is not skill training and will therefore not prepare the competitor situation which will be experienced in the tournament.
Immediately before a tournament or grading an instructor informs his student of each individual fault and constantly reminds him or her of each error. This is not only stupid from a confidence point of view it will make the student think, which will severely limit performance. It is a physiological fact that is not possible to think and perform at your best at the same time. The competitor will suffer paralysis by analysis i.e. he or she will be thinking about the detail and the corrections made during the instruction and will not move naturally and quickly. It is possible to think and perform at the same time, but if you do you will not perform at your best. The best movement is instinctive and automatic and that can only be achieved with skill work which is performed without thought.
When learning a combination in the dojo in a Kumite situation the participants are put under pressure to perform at full speed and before they have fully learned the sequence. This is done in the mistaken belief that it will help the individuals to learn instinctive and automatic movement and reactions. This is nonsense and learning the sequence has made them think and removed the possibility of an automatic response (i.e. how can it be instinctive and automatic if you are performing to instructions). This sort of training has a skill element but will only work with highly skilled individuals used to this sort of training and resulting pressure. Even highly skilled people will struggle if they are still learning the movements and/or sequence. Situations like this are highly dangerous and often result in impact injuries which lower confidence especially with the lesser skilled individuals. When I have witnessed and taken part in these exercises most of the people simply cheat and do anything to survive. As a result they do not do the techniques correctly and as a consequence learn nothing at all! Anything which is new, whether it is a technique or a skill, should be thoroughly learned before it is done under pressure. If it is not, then self preservation will take over and basically anything goes in order to survive and/or not get injured.
The problem with this type of practice is that it can be good fun despite the risks and is often accepted without question. It also tends to suit the skilled rather than the unskilled and often destroys the confidence of the unskilled who cannot cope. This type of training is often used by highly skilled fighters when they are instructing and often do not understand the problems it creates for the average student who does not have their experience quality and skill in these situations.
A club has a bad grading due to poor technique. The following weeks the instructor drills the class up and down the dojo constantly pointing out the errors but pushing the class at full speed. This will simply ingrain the bad techniques further into habitual movements which will never be corrected until the techniques themselves are examined and corrected. To correct techniques it is necessary to re-learn the movement and avoid training under pressure and at full speed until the new technique has developed. It is also a fact that constant criticism does not correct faults, it merely destroys confidence. Knowledge of a problem is not sufficient to correct it. The training must change to enable the problem to be dealt with. As the instructor is totally in charge of the training it is his responsibility to make the necessary adjustments. (Fault correction will be the subject of a future article). Many instructors believe it is the students fault when things go wrong which ignores the fact that the students have no influence on the training methods which are totally dictated by their instructor. How can it be the students fault if they have no influence over how they train???
At a tournament an instructor advises his student to use a reverse punch by stepping into his next opponent. This is unwise in the extreme and usually reflects how the instructor would deal with the situation rather than his student, who will have completely different abilities. It will also make the student think and will remove any possibility of instinctive reaction during the contest. Finally it will limit the student to the reverse punch and may well prevent the student from using other techniques he feels more confident with. It would be better to say nothing other than comments designed to help relaxation and confidence.
GENERAL COMMENT
You may feel that this is all a bit obvious but in the authors experience the above comments are well known but rarely understood.
For continuous improvement it is important that the elements of technique and skill are both worked upon separately, and in addition worked in the correct order. It must always be technique first followed by skill. Initially working on technique must be done slowly and exactly to ensure the correct muscles are developed and the line of movement followed through correctly. When the technique can be performed correctly, the speed of application is increased whilst maintaining correct form. Finally when the technique is performed correctly at full speed it is introduced into the Kihon (possibly in a combination), Kata and Kumite and the skill element is practiced. The skill element should be practiced slowly at first to ensure the technique quality is maintained whilst the body and mind adjust and as progress is made speed and variety of training should be gradually increased. The end product should be good quality techniques that can be applied under pressure, instinctively and without thought. This is often referred to as the zone or flow and leads to maximum performance.
It is quite common to find instructors drilling their students up and down the Dojo every night doing the same things night after night totally oblivious to the fact that the class has fundamental flaws in the techniques being practiced. This simply leads to very fit students with very poor techniques who continuously struggle to improve the quality of their movements because their instructor does not understand the basic laws of learning technique and skill. These students often fail despite their efforts and hard work.
It is worth repeating that if you are working to a programme and have a goal of a grading or a tournament then you must work on the technique (and/or fault correction) first and later practice the skill element. Immediately before the grading or tournament you should only practice skill work to ensure the end result is instinctive and has an automatic action or reaction.