10,000 hours

[GJEC]

Some years ago Mas Oyama declared 'One becomes a beginner after one thousand days of training and an expert after ten thousand days of practice'. Some years later Malcolm Gladwell mentioned the 10,000 hours figure again, theorising that it took that amount of mindful practise to become world class. I, like a lot of people took that as read, but I've now begun to doubt it. Mas Oyama was (presumably) talking of karate as a whole, so in that context 'mastery' involves a lot of complex skills, kata, kumite etc. Gladwell talks of concert violinists, i.e. fine motor skills.

So here's my doubt. We know that fine and complex skills are more likely to fail under pressure. I don't mean the pressure of a show at the Royal Albert Hall. If you miss a note it's not fatal. I mean the pressure of a confrontation that will get painful if you balls it up.

So I've changed now to training gross motor skills. Simple, powerful and reliable when scared. Do these still need 10,000 hours? I think not. My mates lad (15) started at a local boxing club a few months ago and has learnt four punches and got very lean and wiry. I saw him earlier and he showed me his skills. He was awesome.

So I no longer believe 10,000 hours is a meaningful figure. If we keep it simple and work hard, I expect anyone who tries to get good impact much sooner. Next time someone tells me it takes ten years to become world class, I'll just wonder if they're doing the right stuff.



Gary

[alan]

I agree if you are talking about training to get out of a situation but tournament training perhaps takes a bit longer.

Take Bart for example, he has been training two years next month, the improvement in strength and fitness is amazing, his punching power pound for pound is amazing, he has a mean right footed mawashi but he still is unable to perform ushiro geri and suchlike.

He is being taught sound basics slowly with the hope of him being a well rounded karateka eventually...It is working out a kyu grade for every year and this is what is projected for the future, so at ten if he carrys on he should hit shodan when he is about eighteen, or perhaps earlier if he decides to go four times a week under his own steam when he`s old enough.

The guy that runs the place Al Cleary said he doesn`t believe in bringing kids on too quickly and prefers for them to have sound basics and be able to train anywhere at the grade he has given them.

He asked me what i thought, my reply was i have no interest in what colour belt Bart wears and the "parental thrill" of him getting new coloured belts, this is purely down to you, i trust you to train him, i trust you to grade him!

I took him to Senshido`s dojo earlier in the year and i think he coped within his grade.

So, i expect him to take many an hour to be a well rounded karateka but he is more than capable of dishing out a smack in the mouth to somebody his own size.

For explosive attacks and escapes i agree with your thinking but to get somebody to Darren Chans alround technical ability i think is going to take time.

The thing we have in our favour at the moment is that Bart see`s going to karate as a treat, not a chore.....but as Al Cleary said, when them hormones start to kick in and he has more interest in watching the girls in the line up than me, things might change but at the moment he is there for the long haul......I`m not sure about 10.000 hours though!

[GJEC]

It took me ten years to win at CP, but looking back I wonder how many of those hours were giving me the most.

I trained in the dojo 2 - 4 times a week depending on shifts, usually for 4 hours at a time. (Several classes + early work on my own) So over those 10 years maybe 6000 hours of karate and about half as much again doing weights and running. The job was hard as well, lots of chucking/dragging/hauling heavy kit.

So by the time I 'got there' I had done well over 10,000 hours of graft. BUT, if I'd ditched a lot of the peripheral stuff and worked more on the essentials I reckon I'd have been better, sooner. Sure, things like kihon combinations etc increase GPP and body awareness, but if we look at some combat sports they ruthlessly strip away anything that won't help them to win. UC even more so.

I'd have ditched training for 4 hours and done one class each time I got to the dojo, as hard as I could. I'd have ditched bodybuilding and focussed on explosive lifts (I couldn't win at 90kgs but won at 84kgs, so I have to wonder if all that grind just wore me out) Lastly, I'd have swapped long runs for sprint sessions.

So I wonder ...

No use looking back for too long though, except as a reminder not to waste time in the future.



Gary

[alan]

You aint done bad mate!!

[GJEC]

True

I'm happy with where I got. I suppose this thread is just to pass on some of the lessons learnt.

Gary

[alan]

Yes i agree, there is a lot of traditional nonsense that even instructors disagree over. Maybe like the twist at the end of the punch, Adrian and i were discussing just that on Saturday, as you know he was a good boxer as well a karate man, he rubbished this technique.

I have heard for speed you relax the punch and at the last milli-second tense and twist...speed, then power.

I have heard from another Shihan that the twist is so it "fit`s" in the eye socket........While deliberating over this, people would be better off bashing a bag. (imo)

I also discussed kata with Adrian and expressed the view it was a waste of time in "modern" karate.

He accepted the thinking but said that basic kata`s were good for teaching a novice balace and stance switching movements for somebody who is clueless about street fighting.

[GJEC]

Adrian could really bang. I know it's a tangent but I find it endlessly frustrating that he would have been stuck in a line doing drills he didn't believe in, when he should've been asked to come to the front and help everyone improve.

Gary

[alan]

That is the nail on the head.

Adrian used to teach every Wednesday with no interference, warm up, basic kihon and then it was pure fight training from his point of view. It was amazing the people that turned up for this that you would never see at a namby pamby technique disection class but when Adrians students sparred with other people on other nights you could just see the difference, he was basic punch and don`t bother wasting your energy on anything like fancy kicks, the nearest he taught to a fancy kick was the close up uchi mawashi which although not a take out technique could make a nice slap noise and get you noticed if you landed it.

This was a good old fashioned fight club, i would sooner have been able to have trained like this all the time.

I can be honest now, if i thought a session was going to be two hours of solid kata training, i just wouldn`t bother turning up!

I wonder how many years it`s going to take before the main groups follow your example?

The problem i see is loyalty, Adrian was still in awe of Hanshi Arneil even now, we discussed our groups split but i`ll talk to you about that in Scotland.

p.s they did make Adrian train a non-contact team and insisted all of the fighters came from the Wednesday dojo....Dickies humour perhaps?

[GJEC]

Oct 18, 2012 5:43:24 GMT -5 alan said:

p.s they did make Adrian train a non-contact team and insisted all of the fighters came from the Wednesday dojo....Dickies humour perhaps?

Ha Ha - Quite possibly.

But more likely the obsession with being an 'all-rounder'. I might be in a minority of one, but I never wanted to be an all-rounder, I wanted to be a champion.

Of course, some all-rounders (Like Jeff or David) win at everything and fair play to them, they're very special. Without putting myself down though, I didn't have that talent. I needed to focus on a specific goal and I suspect most karateka would benefit from that mindset.

Be a craftsman, not a 'jack-of-all-trades-and-master-of-none'.



Gary

[meguro]

I too think the 1,000 days or 10,000 hrs. figures are overused. For good or bad, airline pilots are licensed with well below 10,000 hours of flight time. If after 1,000 days of training one is still at the beginner phase, deficiencies in the training protocol should be suspected.

[wullie]

Oct 18, 2012 5:52:15 GMT -5 GJEC said:

.........But more likely the obsession with being an 'all-rounder'. I might be in a minority of one, but I never wanted to be an all-rounder, I wanted to be a champion.........

you're not on your own there Gary, i was never even bothered about being a champion, i just didn't want to be the one going to hospital

[alan]

You didn`t want to be the one going to hospital and you`ve stuck yourself in for another 100 man job with big brother downing copious tins of spinach, Gary getting regression therapy..ouch!!(watch for the kicks)

Would you like any tiger balm?

[GJEC]

Oct 19, 2012 6:50:37 GMT -5 wullie said:

I was never even bothered about being a champion, i just didn't want to be the one going to hospital

I can't think of a better reason for training Wullie. These days I'm more likely to be there through illness than from being beaten up in a Kebab shop, but good training and self-discipline could still be what makes all the difference.

Gary

[wullie]

Oct 19, 2012 7:01:44 GMT -5 alan said:

You didn`t want to be the one going to hospital and you`ve stuck yourself in for another 100 man job with big brother downing copious tins of spinach, Gary getting regression therapy..ouch!!(watch for the kicks)

Would you like any tiger balm?

tiger balm will be much appreciated Alan, along with help in to an ice bath after

Oct 19, 2012 7:20:01 GMT -5 GJEC said:

Oct 19, 2012 6:50:37 GMT -5 wullie said:

I was never even bothered about being a champion, i just didn't want to be the one going to hospital

I can't think of a better reason for training Wullie. These days I'm more likely to be there through illness than from being beaten up in a Kebab shop, but good training and self-discipline could still be what makes all the difference.

Gary

yup, agreed