Here’s my probing question to you for start-up 2008:

When you are teaching the techniques for Blue Belt and Red Belt ranks in
To-Shin Do, commonly referred to as water strategy and fire interception,
what sort of class arrangement seems to provide the over-all best results
for most students?

Some teachers like to isolate the water “repositioning for tactical
advantage” concepts and footwork and thoroughly teach and explore that
before going on and adding fire “firing line interception” concepts and
dynamics and techniques. Other teachers blend them into one big broad set of
lessons that incorporate earth “ground-holding”, water “strategic
positioning”, and fire “pre-emptive intervention”, moving through all 3
modes in one big set of lessons.

The above are the two extremes. Some teachers alternate from month to month,
switching between water and fire lessons in technique and situational
application. Some spend 3 months on one element before rotating on/back to
the other.

From another angle, as a student, what do you feel is a more effective
educational plan for getting the best results?

Again, the question I would like to use to generate your answers here is
“What sort of class arrangement seems to provide the over-all best results
for most students when it comes to learning water and fire elements, and
moving through the 6 belts in the To-Shin blue and red belt series?”

And with that, my best wishes for a wonderful holiday.

Stephen K. Hayes

SKH Quest

6236 Far Hills Avenue

Dayton, OH 45459

937 436-9990

HYPERLINK "http://www.StephenKHayes.com"www.StephenKHayes.com

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HYPERLINK "http://www.MVMeditation.org"www.MVMeditation.org

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Join the dialog! Subscribe to the SKH Quest HYPERLINK
"http://www.skhquest.com/forum"On-Line Forum!

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I think a lot, as with anything, depends on the student.

If you were dealing with a student or maybe a young adult that has had no or
little previous martial experience, then i would go for the approach of
Earth then Water then Fire. I wouldn't necessarily expect perfection,
because it takes years to get the techniques right, but I think its
important to get teh basic fundamentals in place first and then build on
them.

With a student like myself, who has previous experience in the martial arts,
I would probably blend lessons to incorporate all approaches. Maybe the
theme of the class changes to dealing with a specific scenario - maybe a
wrist grab - and the aim of the class is to build an "earth", "water" and
"fire" approach to that situation.

Summary
Newer students - focus on each individual element and the development of
expandable skills (footwork, balance, centering)
Students with prior experiences - focus on the techniques that can be used
in changing situations and scenarios.

My $0.02. Hope it helps.

Michael Bruce
Distance Learning Student
Mountain View, CA

On Dec 21, 2007 1:28 PM, Stephen K. Hayes <s...@skhquest.com> wrote:

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If the class size is small say 5 to 7 students, I will isolate one idea and just work on that
because I find the student will get better looking at one strategic idea. Now if the class
is large, I have to combined the ideas. The benefit of doing it this way, is the students
will work with each other and sometimes they will put pressure on each other to get
better.

    Mark Davis
Boston Martial Arts Center
www.boston-ninpo.com

www.boston-ninpo.com
"On ko chi shin"  (To study something old and discover something new)

 I am unaware of how our curriculum is set up at Ann Arbor Quest but I
believe we spend a month or two in each element, maybe more. As a student
It doesn't matter to me if its a month or two or three. I am sure that
Keith and Ryan have set up a well thought out plan for us. I have the
utmost faith in my teachers that they have worked out a program that will
benefit all students.
 As for a best way I don't believe there really is one. Each person learns
in different ways and our instructors have a great knack for finding what
works for each individual. I don't think it is how many months but WHO is
teaching you and HOW. A good program helps but without good teachers its
meaningless.

Daniel Spaulding
Adrian, MI
Ann Arbor Quest

In our current 8th/7th kyu class at the Boston Martial Arts Center,
the theme for that class is water and fire idea/energy techniques,
based in part on the older Marishi-Kai curriculum. Just to establish
context, I've been teaching this class on Tuesday nights since October
2001.

What I've learned is that a concentrated focus on three areas gives me
the best results, which I judge as students having learned the
mechanics, gotten a general feeling for the energy, and can make
decisions under a little pressure.

Mechanics are easy and generally come in tandem with energy/feeling
work. I've found that explaining water technique footwork using
explanations such as "45 degree angles" is not helpful to the majority
of students, but telling them to step towards the corners of the room
does help quite a bit, since that's a concrete location for them to
work with.

For fire energy technique, one of the mental tricks I use is to ask
them when stepping forward to try to put their knee underneath their
training partner's belt knot when advancing. Obviously, their arms or
other weapons reach their partner first, but encouraging that movement
from the feet up delivers better results.

The basics can't be emphasized enough - bend your knees, keep your
back straight, move your feet to make things happen. At the 8th and
7th kyu stage, we also focus on developing good striking power, since
a well-timed, strong punch, kick, or strike can end a confrontation
quickly, allowing for escape.

In terms of energy and feeling, I find that having some clear
emotional examples of both water and fire energy really delivers. For
the first few years, I'd explained water energy as retreating to gain
distance and time, but emotionally, that didn't resonate with most of
the males in the class, for whom disengaging conflicted with their
perception of how a fight should happen. Changing it to repositioning
and strategy - i.e. moving the ground troops back long enough to call
in an airstrike - made more sense and lets them get back in the game.

Fire energy is even trickier, as I'd been taught fire energy implied a
level of aggressiveness. For some students, they have to resort to a
state of anger to get to that point, while others simply avoid it at
all costs. Providing an emotional and mental example for fire energy
that had a more positive association (imagine two lovers greeting each
other at the airport after a prolonged absence) in addition to other
contexts helps to get more people engaged with the energy I'm looking
to elicit without creating distress.

I can't speak to the curriculum as a whole, but these are a few things
I've picked up in the last 6 years teaching this material.

Christopher Penn
Quest List Admin
Boston Martial Arts Center
Boston, MA

Part of the difficulty here is that students learn in different ways.  I
tend to mix it up, not only during the week of curriculum, but also from
month to month.  Sometimes, this is illuminating for students and sometimes
it is confusing, so I find myself adapting my teaching style based on the
students in each class.

For good or for bad, I tend to think in terms of variety.  Rather than
presenting something the same way every time (which may lead the student to
a greater skill in that one thing), I typically show a variety of
interpretations.  I do this in hopes of providing greater depth of
experience for the student and also in recognition of the fact that
different approaches may work better for different students.  This is true
in all the classes that we provide.  Even in black belt classes, I find some
students responding to a certain approach and other students being
successful when I provide a different approach or insight into the same
technique.

Varying the approach may mean that we are comparing it to examples from
other elements.  But, it may also mean that we are demonstrating different
methods of experiencing the same concept.  We may look at a "bo staff
technique" and then apply that concept to groundfighting.  Of course,
experiencing a kata may occur in many different forms.  We may approach a
kata from a timing perspective.  We may break it down to discover what
happens when we alter the distancing, etc.  

I think it is useful to remember that a kata is a beginning, not an ending.

John "Gentoshi" Poliquin

Portland Quest Center

Portland, Maine

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In Chapel Hill, Mr. Broom and Mr. Merritt changed the organization of
the water and fire kyu-level material when I was about mid-way through
my blue belt, not quite two years ago.  We had been alternating fire
and water month-by-month for the blue and red belts.  Now we have blue
belts practice just the water techniques and red belts practice fire
(with review weeks each month for everyone).   I found the change very
welcome, and my perception is that many other students did as well.
Water was (is) a challenge for me, and before the change it seemed as
if I would ALMOST get something...and then it would be a fire month.
Being able to focus on the feeling and movement of water for several
months, and then do the same for fire worked well for me.  (Maybe
being "immersed" in water makes sense ;-)).

One advantage of the previous month-to-month approach was having a
wider mix of experience in each group and more different training
partners, though we usually have enough coaches and other advanced
students in the blue-red classes that it wasn't much of a difference.

Another change I noticed was that by the end of the blue-black belt,
and then again at red-black, I was eager to take on something new and
challenging with the new belt color and new element.  My peers and
later students have mentioned the same thing.  We weren't tired of
what we were doing, but rather were feeling confident enough about it
to want another challenge.  A couple of the students who had finished
their blue and red belts with the previous month-to-month method have
commented that they would have liked to have gone through those belts
with longer stretches of time on each element.

In my opinion the blue-belt/water then red-belt/fire process has a lot
of advantages, and I think it's effective. It also has a nice
symmetry.  Within the context of each element, Mr. Merritt and Mr.
Broom find ways to address the needs of the particular students in
each class so classes vary a lot and don't feel too repetitive, but we
still have time to learn the basic techniques well enough to feel
confident about them.

Each of the approaches people have described sounds interesting, it
would be nice to be able to learn each way "for the first time" to
really compare :-)

-Kim Stahl
Chapel Hill Quest Center
Chapel Hill, NC

P.S. I know everyone here is very excited about seeing so many of you
in Chapel Hill for the "Winter Quest" event at the end of January.
North Carolina is a nice place to be around that time, and the seminar
(and other parts of the weekend) will be *outstanding.*  Come visit
us!

An-Shu Hayes,

Interesting variety of responses!  More variety than I expected within our
network.

When Mary and I started training at the (then-named) North Carolina Quest
Center, the curriculum was 9 months of water, then 9 months of fire.  When
we were at solid red belt, it changed to an alternating-month format.  I
found it very confusing - and a bit panic inducing, because Fire didn't feel
natural to me anyway, and because I got caught in the changeover, I had less
months in Fire.

Now, as a san-dan today, I have a much more fluid view of the elements, but
my mentality at the time was very focused on learning each element as a
separate and unique thing.  Hence, I worried that I wouldn't get Fire
properly.

Nevertheless, I felt like that was the "official SKH way" so I got on
board.  When we started the Boulder Quest Center, that was the last thing I
remembered from Level 2 training, so our first students experienced Level 2
as alternating months of Water and Fire.  (We've never mixed lessons in a
single class, except perhaps as a five-minute drill to create contrast).
Our first students complained that just as they were getting the hang of one
elemental mindset, it was time to switch.  They found it disorienting.  They
did eventually build quite a lot of skill, but it took longer for them to
get to a place where they felt talented and confident.  The first 6 months
of Level 2 were motivationally difficult, and they often felt like they just
weren't very talented martial artists because they couldn't get the hang of
it.  That was not the case - they were quite talented and had the benefit of
near-private-lessons from us, but the material was vast compared to Level 1.

So, we re-thought it and considered a daring idea - doing our own thing.
I'm saying that tongue-in-cheek, because I've since come to realize that all
good teachers do that, but it was a radical and scary idea for me as a young
ni-dan school owner.  We checked in with other schools, including our alma
mater in Chapel Hill, and realized there was variation out there.  We went
back to the 9 month Water, 9 month Fire version, and our students have
thanked us.

The driving force in our case was for students to build a sense of mastery
sooner.  It seems very important to our students to feel that they are
learning and becoming talented - more so than that they feel a sense of
vastness and inspiration.  I do know of a few of our students that would
enjoy the opposite - especially folks with lots of previous martial arts
experience, or tons of raw athletic talent.  For those folks, I encourage
seminars and/or private lessons.  We sometimes also invite those folks to
uke for higher level classes.  For the majority of our students, however, it
is a substantial and sufficient challenge for them to develop one element at
a time, and they like feeling like they know what they are supposed to learn
next, and they can focus on developing the technique and mindset.

Another factor at play... the Fire interception techniques seem to have a
greater risk of injury if the students are unskilled.  When we did alternate
months, 80% of the injuries happened in the Fire months.  I'm noticing that
when our students see Fire for the first time at Red-White instead of at
Blue-White or Blue, they have that much more experience as a martial artist
in how to control their own body and timing so as not to slam unduly into
their training partner.  That has kept the training much more enjoyable.

Lastly, I teach Fire (and everything after) with a lot of references to
energy and instinct.  Fire timing largely leverages the experienced eye -
"I've been in fights before, I know what the lead-up looks like, and I can
recognize the cues."  That seems to be a bit tenuous after just Level 1 if
the person has not previously fought in career, hobby, or environment.  Most
people in Boulder didn't grow up scrapping - if anything, they have
consciously avoided anything remotely resembling violence - so their
instincts are surprisingly absent.  A little more time to adjust to the cues
and sequencing that accompanies a fight is useful.

Kevin Keitoshi Casey
Boulder Quest Center
Boulder, CO

On Dec 21, 2007 2:28 PM, Stephen K. Hayes <s...@skhquest.com> wrote:

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Dear All,
As another person who experienced the change at Chapel Hill halfway through
blue belt, I completely agree with Kim Stahl's comments.  I would add that I
have found great value in classes where multiple elements are covered,
though. At Chapel Hill, Week 3 is spent reviewing kata from your current
level and all belt levels below. This helps reinforce the different
elements. On occasion when there is a fifth week in the month, the
instructors often take requests. One of my favorite things we have done
during these fifth weeks is to take an attack and go through each element's
approach to the same attack. This is perhaps the most effective way for me
to really embody the different elements. In contrast to Week 3 review, where
we're mixing elements and attacks, in this approach the attack is held
constant so we we can really focus on the various elemental options
available. It was helpful to me as a white belt and it's still helpful to me
as a green-black. Perhaps we could try this on a more regular basis and
assess the effects?

I'd also like to highlight another pedagogical technique that we've done
infrequently, but that I've found very illuminating. Sometimes we have all
of the students (or at least those in the same belt level within the same
class) line up and attack one student, one at a time. This way, the student
being attacked does the same kata over and over again against several
different body types, speeds, etc.---all in a very short amount of time. I
still remember the "A-ha!" experience I had when I was doing this with
ganseki-nage. It was easier for me to extract the essential motions. It was
also much easier to see what parts of the kata need fine-tuning in response
to different body types.

It is a gift to be training in a martial art that is so dedicated to the
integrity of teaching and so willing to evaluate its strategies.  Thank you
all!

Kevin Weinfurt
Chapel Hill Quest Center
Chapel Hill, NC

On Dec 28, 2007 5:43 PM, araven <araven...@gmail.com> wrote:

Happy New Year to you all.

Wow this suggestion from An-Shu has provided so many interesting observations and suggestions.

At Quest Dojo we have normally stuck with the one month water, one month fire standard model as set down in the syllabus.

However over the last couple of months I felt that the students would benefit from focusing more on water footwork drills to improve distancing, angling and timing.  This in partnership with the training Journals we have produced for each element has greatly benefited the students development.

In December we held a one day Fire workshop to move students from the Water realm of training to Fire.  We threw a load of techniques out there knowing that the student would not be able to grasp them all but the idea was to get the student to start feeling this fire energy and connection, later over the coming weeks will be looking at the techniques in more detail and fine tune them.

Now as all my level 2 and 3 students attend all level 1 classes I am in the process of adjusting the Level 2 syllabus to include more defences against knife and hanbo striking for the water months and knife on knife and gun retention training for the fire months instead of the earth review week we have in the normal syllabus.

The way we are doing it across the pond :)

Take care

Dale Hesketh

To-Shin Do Northwest U.K.
www.questdojo.co.uk

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