Episode 935 - 2 Schools of Thought: Forms in a Set Order?
In this episode, Jeremy and Andrew do the next in their new series: 2 Schools of Thought. They take a topic and look at 2 different ways to do it, exploring pros and cons of both.
Forms in a Set Order?: 2 Schools of Thought - Episode 935
SUMARRY
In this conversation, Jeremy and Andrew discuss two schools of thought when it comes to teaching forms in martial arts. The first school of thought is teaching forms in a set order, where students learn one form after another in a predetermined sequence. The second school of thought is a rotating curriculum, where students focus on one form for a certain period of time before moving on to the next form. They explore the pros and cons of each approach and discuss the challenges of managing different levels of students in a class.
TAKEAWAYS
* There are two schools of thought when it comes to teaching forms in martial arts: a set order and a rotating curriculum.
* A set order approach involves teaching forms in a predetermined sequence, while a rotating curriculum focuses on one form for a certain period of time before moving on to the next.
* The set order approach ensures that students learn forms in a progressive manner, starting with easier forms and gradually progressing to more complex ones.
* The rotating curriculum approach allows students to develop a deeper understanding and proficiency in a specific form by focusing on it for an extended period of time.
* Managing different levels of students in a class can be challenging, especially when teaching forms. It requires finding a balance between meeting the needs of individual students and maintaining a cohesive class structure.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Two Schools of Thought: Teaching Forms in a Set Order vs. Rotating Curriculum
09:59 Exploring the Hypothetical: All Forms Being the Same Complexity
20:16 The Benefits of Yellow Belts Helping White Belts in Form Training
25:26 Chunking Down Forms and Exploring Different Approaches
26:26 Finding a Balance: Individual Needs vs. Class Structure in Form Training
29:53 The Importance of Taking Action and Involving Oneself
After listening to the episode, it would be exciting for us to know your thoughts about it.
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Show Transcript
Jeremy (00:00.164)
You should come this way a little bit. Okay.
Weather not weather, but we're two schools of thought on the weather. I'm I'm again it I'm again a letter We should get rid of schools teaching Forms in a set order you have to learn this one then this one then this one all right versus or For the month or for the semester or whatever everyone's learning this for rotating curricula. Yes. Yes, and so that's the two schools of thought Forms in a set order. It's probably how I'm gonna label it
Two schools of thought forms in a set order, question mark? I think this should be the intro. Okay. Welcome everybody. That's what we in the biz call a rolling intro. Yes. Because there was no hard line. I'll explain that more in a moment. Welcome to another episode of Martial Arts Radio with Andrew and Jeremy.
Join us this time as our heroes embark on a journey to figure out forms and different ways to teach them. How they should, yeah, this metaphor, this whole thing's falling apart. Falling apart fast.
If you're new, welcome. Thank you for joining us. If you're returning, also welcome and thank you for joining us. We appreciate you. We appreciate your continued support. If you are not part of the Patreon, strongly encourage you to join the Patreon because if you pay attention to this show, you probably find us both educational and insightful. I would say that... And funny. If you're... Well, I meant to say entertaining and I said educational. I really did mean to say entertaining. Yeah. We are entertaining. We are hilarious.
Jeremy (01:54.468)
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That's where you're gonna find those sometimes final products. We do all kinds of great stuff to those of you in there We're not gonna name you like some shows do but we really do appreciate your support goes a long way to help offset the expenses of this show how much bear with me how much is a cup of coffee these days a hundred and forty seven dollars no, I don't know I don't know coffee. This is what your question. How much this morning when I met a couple friends shout out to Joe Lenahan and Nish grout who both been on the show We had coffee this morning
We were at Dunkin' and I got a medium latte and it was just shy of five bucks. Okay, so for less than a cup of coffee, you can help support the show. Yeah, two dollars. And I think that's important to note. Or buy Jeremy and I a cup of coffee. Yeah. Once a month. Ten bucks. Ten bucks a month. We bring you eight episodes a month. Yep.
How much value do you find in those episodes? If you had to pay 25 cents a piece for those episodes, would you? Well, there's two bucks. Yeah. And it might sound trivial, like $2, whatever. I'm not going to bother. It makes a difference. This show costs money. If everybody who watched and listened to this show contributed $2, we would not have to worry about expenses for the show. Yep. Absolutely.
just flat out. The show doesn't cost a ton of money. It's not like we're mortgaging houses or begging on the street corner, but it does cost money. Yeah. So if you could spare 10 bucks a month, that would be great. But if it's only two dollars a month, that's fine too. Just get a guest deducted on a Mac that you don't have to think about it. And there are options that go up from there. The more you're willing to contribute, the more value we're going to return to you because that's what we do at Whistlekick. But moving on, sorry.
Jeremy (04:15.14)
No, don't apologize. I don't want us to apologize. Well, I only apologize because I didn't want it to sound like too much of a commercial. That's all. We don't do a lot of commercial stuff. No, you're right. We don't do a lot. And I think it's important that people understand the realities of what we do. I think...
People have become so, most of us, most of the people that listen to the show or watch the show, we grew up in the paradigm of broadcast TV where advertising was really expensive. So you could have really high production value in exchange for across an hour, 16 minutes, right? Easy. An hour long show is 44 minutes generally?
Right? That's a pretty good exchange. We don't have that. And ads don't make anywhere, they don't cost as much as they used to, meaning content producers don't make as much. And so we work really hard to be really efficient. And the expenses with this show are more than you would just think in terms of the editing and the video and the hosting and all that stuff. Today is Friday. I could be working today.
I could be doing things and teaching lessons and making money and I'm not, I'm choosing not to. And same for Jeremy. So like there's the dollars out and then there's the opportunity cost and we're not even asking you to offset the opportunity cost. We're...
I would love it if we just didn't put in and by we I mean, let's be honest whistle kick as the company which is my wallet The royal we the royal we I would just love that this show broke even I we make money on other things. I just I would love if this show So help us make you can make that happen patreon .com Alright two schools of thought
Jeremy (06:16.516)
Okay, so what we're really talking about here is the idea, and I think this is what most schools do, where at certain levels of progress, rank, you learn certain forms. Versus what I think some people would call rotating curriculum, where it's this month, this is the form we're focused on this month. Yeah, every school I have been in,
until recently, you learn this form first and it's usually the easiest. White belt's beginner students, like we're not going to give them a super hard form, so you learn this one first and then you learn this one and then you learn this one, you know, so for example in Shodokan you learn Heanshodan, then Heanidon, Heansanan, Heanyondon, Heankodon, like there's an order and you're not given the next one.
until you've learned the ones before. And I would say, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, because you have connections with more schools than I do, but I would say a vast majority of schools do it that way. I'm going to guess it's more than 90 % do it that way. Yeah. And what made me think of this episode of this topic of teaching it differently is just before COVID, the school that I was most recently training at,
Changed it it used to be that way it used to be this then this then this then this And yet once it got up there then it got a little fuzzy, but there were definitely advanced forms sure and Shortly before coveted the instructor said, you know what we're i'm done doing that and for the next three months Where only every single student in class is only going to work on this form?
And not just the form, we did all of the applications for it and other things, but we used that as a base. So you focused on it. Focused on that. So by the end of the semester, by the time the next testing cycle came around, you had worked, everyone had worked on it so much. So even if you were a beginner, you still knew so much about that form. And then testing happened and then the next semester started and now we're working this form instead.
Jeremy (08:38.884)
for the entire four months.
and
I think, here's what I'm wondering.
Because I think the initial reaction is the same reason that most schools do it the way they do it, which is, well, the first form is generally easier than the later forms. And I'm trying to imagine, I have a hard enough time teaching my white belt's pinyon -shodan, do I wanna give them pinyon -godam? Probably not. Or kusanku or kanku -dai, depending on your school. It's a really long form. That's kinda rough. Yeah.
For those of you who don't know, Godon would be the fifth. I have five forms.
Jeremy (09:29.316)
Let's let's take a moment. Mm -hmm. Let's let's pretend all the forms are the same complexity Okay, let's go there first because I think I think that's academically Clear on the philosophy. Mm -hmm. So if all the forms were the same Would there be a benefit to having certain having different people at different stages because
I'm sure you've taught classes where you're like, all right, I got 15 people in this class and we got 12 different forms that they're working on. Exactly. And what do a lot of schools do? We're going to start at the beginning and by the end of class, you get to the third form and the people in the higher ranks are going, I didn't get to work on the form that I'm really good at those first three now. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Or, all right, we're going to run through all 12 forms.
But if you don't know the form, then you just sit out. And so that person's missing time.
Jeremy (10:38.34)
Especially if it's a if it's a beginner they maybe do the first one and then they sit out and watch 11 forms But that's a it's one thing if you knew 11 and you sit out for one. Yeah, absolutely. It's a waste of time Yeah, I mean some people would make the argument and There's something to be said for this, but I think not enough That you know, yes, you can learn by watching
and they get to see the forms that they're gonna be doing eventually, there's something to be said for that. But. If you watch 11 forms in a row, you're not learning anything. No, no, exactly, exactly. You might be building some familiarity and go, I remember seeing this. Exactly, but I wanted to bring that up because I wanted to combat what's, I'm not even sure if I'm right now might be thinking, well yeah, but they're learning by watching. Eh, not enough, in my opinion. If you could learn effectively from watching, we as an industry would not have railed against.
video instruction for the last 50 years.
Jeremy (11:37.22)
Not that you can't, it's just not as effective as being in front and having an individualized instruction session, right? Okay.
I think if all the forms were the same complexity, it would create a shift in the way it's taught and it would be, this is form one month, this is form two month or quarter or year or whatever. And I think that would fairly quickly solve itself. I think perhaps if that was the case at rank testing, it might not be, you have to show us this form and this form. It would be, you have to show us the two forms you know best. Sure. Okay.
And I think that kind of works, right? Because there are plenty of things that are like that. Most schools that I'm aware of, including I think all the ones I've ever been part of, sparring is part of the testing. And we're not told, here's how you have to spar. You can use whatever techniques you want, and you're expected to use the techniques that you're able to apply best. So that could kind of work. I think that kind of makes sense. I see a pro and a con in that,
students would feel more connected because they're working on the same things but that could also be a detriment in that higher ranked students are they probably already know the form and
are they getting, I think it would probably be more effective for the newer students than the more advanced students. Yes, that is the experience I had. And it's not that, it's not that I as an advanced student couldn't use work, working on a form that I already knew. But, and we worked on more than just the form, like I said, we worked on all the applications to it as well. So there's definitely worse things there to learn for sure.
Jeremy (13:33.284)
But it definitely, I did not feel like I was progressing as quickly when I had a new thing to be working on. Again, we're still at the stage where all the forms are the same complexity. But what I'm thinking is, if I have a new student learning this form and an advanced student learning the same form or working on the same form, I'm holding the advanced student to a higher standard, which takes more time. And so in this case,
As you said, either the advanced student doesn't get the detail or the basic student is sitting there. Maybe they're not.
off on the side observing, but we're talking about subject matter that is premature for them. They're not gonna get it yet, because we haven't done the prerequisites. So, okay, so that's the hypothetical of all the forms being the same. Let's put that aside. I think we beat that up enough. The reality is, they're not. I've never been part of a school where all the forms are the same complexity. They...
with some exceptions at various points in the rank progression and the forms progression, they have all gotten harder as time has gone on. Whether it's harder because the moves are arranged more complexly or the moves themselves are more complex or there's more of them. Doesn't really matter. There's just, there's more and it's more complex. Now you could potentially hybrid this, you know, so let's say,
Let's take the example you mentioned, Shotokan. So you mentioned Heian Shodan. The Shotokan schools I've trained in had Takeyoko Shodan before that. Which for those of you out there, you probably have this. It's a bunch of low blocks and punches. If you don't have it, you've probably done it or it's probably close to your Shodan or something. So block, punch, block, punch, block, punch. If you did that one month and then the next month you're doing Pinyon Shodan, it's close enough that you know you could see.
Jeremy (15:38.884)
You could kind of hybrid that.
Jeremy (15:45.028)
But at the end of the day...
I think the goal of, and I've actually gotten some pushback on this, I believe the goal of a martial arts school should be to help students progress.
through their curriculum in a way that supports their individual reasons for training as efficiently as possible. Yeah, I can get on board with that. Now the efficiency part means we have to science experiment, right? We're trying things, we're changing things, we're seeing what works. And I know a lot of schools out there have a lot of success with rotating curriculum. And if we look at the basic side of things, I am on board.
In fact, I have a rotating curriculum for my basics and it's worked really, really well.
Jeremy (16:41.796)
I know how much challenge there is. And this is the heart of it, right? It's the challenge of balancing everyone's needs.
I've only got 20 something students in my school. We've only got five forms. And I just promoted some folks to Bluebell. So there are only three of the five out in the wild right now. And I know how difficult it is to manage that in a relatively small group with a relatively small number of forms. And I think it's important to understand why you would go from one to the other. Like, okay.
The school that I was training at had, I'm not gonna go through everyone right now, roughly nine forms, nine or 10 forms total. And we would have seven students in class and every single one of them was at a different place on that list. And as a instructor, that for sure made things difficult. And so switching to a rotating,
of the month or semester or whatever definitely makes it easier for the instructor for sure but I think the question that needs to be asked is is that what's best for the students and I'm not saying it is or isn't every school will be different because you may have a good way of managing those seven students at different levels and better than someone else and switching won't wouldn't make sense.
I think it's fair to say that the reason most schools don't do this is because it would not be best for most schools. Here's where it could though. Here's where it could be better. And it requires a school to break what is often an unspoken, sometimes a spoken rule. And it has to do with at what rank and competency level are you allowed to help someone else on their journey. So here's what happened organically in my school.
Jeremy (18:49.444)
We had a few people that earned their yellow belt together. And then one of those people spent a lot of time practicing and really showed some competency for forms. And so guess what? I had yellow belts working with white belts. Now, some of you out there are freaking out. But here's what I do that's a little different than some schools.
in the way I teach forums and you've seen this and if you've been to MADC level one teacher training or you've been to all in weekend, I mean, this is how we teach forums. I don't care about the detail until you've reached the point that you can do the whole forum by yourself without help. Because guess what? Correcting someone on the exact position of their downward block when they can't even do the whole thing on their own to practice at home.
is silly. I can teach almost anyone any form in an hour and they remember it for maybe not forever but long enough that they can practice it and retain it and then we can start refining them. So the job of the yellow belt helping the white belt wasn't to make sure that low block was in the perfect position it was to help them stumble through the pattern itself and get them closer to the goal of being able to practice on their own.
And now, I've got a couple blue belts in the class. We've got blue belts, we've got yellow belts, we've got white belts. And the last time we had a forms day, I think we had four different groups of people. And I wasn't leading any of them. I was circulating. And I'm going, okay, I'm watching. All right, so now I not only get to help instruct the student learning the form, I get to help instruct the student instructing the form.
So there is even more education happening going on and I love it. So if we took this idea, so let's say there were nine forms and let's say you had a bunch of people in the school and all nine forms were represented in there. Maybe you have them in groups of three. Maybe that for this month, if you only know the first three forms, you're working on the first form. If you only know...
Jeremy (21:13.508)
four, five, and six, you're working on five, four, seven, eight, nine, you're working on seven. And then maybe the next month it goes to two and five and eight. And maybe you have to carve out a fourth group for somebody who just started, now they're learning the first form. Or maybe the second form is close enough in complexity that you can learn that first. Or maybe everyone gets two forms, the one you're working on and the one you're helping instruct.
I think there's a lot of ways of looking at this, for sure. Here's another thought. I will use Shodokan as an example. Konkudai in Shodokan is a very long form. Some schools will know it as Kusanku or Kushanku. It's a very long form and it's typically in Shodokan schools taught just before black belt.
Jeremy (22:11.076)
If you are using this rotating curriculum and white belts are now learning kusanku or konkudai, right? Really difficult form, but if your rotating curriculum is in like in a three or four month series, your white belt after four months of doing konkudai, are they going to do it as good as a black belt? No, but they're going to have a pretty good grasp of some advanced things.
Can that help them in the future? Absolutely. It creates a question and I think if you're willing to wrap your head around this is possible. What does it look like for a white belt to do Konkudai? What does it look like for a new student to do a complex form? Which most of us have no experience with. But if you're willing to say, you know what? It's okay that they do that because how does a brand new student learn any form?
rote memorization. They really don't know what they're doing. Even if it's low block, punch, and this thing and that thing, they don't know what they're doing. They're punching up here and they're kicking over there. They don't know what they're doing anyway. They're memorizing the pattern. I think it can work. I think another thing that could be done to make it work, and I know some folks who have rotating curriculum do this, they split the form in half.
So it might be, you know, maybe if you're a white belt, you're learning the first, let's say it's 10 moves of Konkukai. And if you're a blue belt, you have to know the first 15 moves. In my Shotokan school, actually, after you learn the first five heons, the next form was Konkukai. And for your next test, you only had to learn the first half. And for the next test, then you learned the second half.
So you didn't even have a full form to memorize in that testing cycle. You only had that the first half, because it's such a long form. We actually kind of stumbled on doing that accidentally as I was teaching my Blue Belts Pinyon Sanda. Because the way we do it, you know, and there's a very logical endpoint where you turn 180 and it ends with that, there's a punch and...
Jeremy (24:36.196)
I taught them the first half and I said go work on that because it's just what we had time for that day and they came in and one of them had nailed it, the other one didn't have as much time and he needed a little bit of a refresher and we got through the refresher and then I taught them the back half and we just went through the back half as if it was its own sequence for about 15 -20 minutes and then we connected them. And it worked because the starting point was pretty clean, hands crossed and then you do your thing.
And so there's something, and I hadn't even thought of this until about five minutes ago. This is why I love that we do these episodes, because it gets my wheels spinning. If we think about chunking down a form, what's a white belt chunk of Konkukudai?
There's the first chunk, the second chunk. Maybe it's three to five movements. And so if it's a month long and it's class two, can you get them the second five? If it's a blue belt, maybe it's eight moves, 10 moves. There's something in there that's kind of interesting. Now I don't think I need this in my school, but I kind of wish I did because I'd love to work through that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's cool.
So two schools of thought. Teaching. I think that's about 17 schools of thought. Teaching forms in a set order or having a for the month or for the semester or whatever. Having a focus. Yeah. Neither way is right. There are pros and cons to both. So what I hope is that you listened or watched this episode and it made you think like, hmm, maybe I've tried that or maybe not. Maybe you decide it doesn't work for you the way you do it now.
is perfect. If that's the case, awesome. If it's perfect, I want to be your student. I want to learn from perfection. That'd be great. And I think without the satire, we want to hear from you because I know a bunch of you out there have rotating curriculum. I want to hear how you're handling this. And you know, the other thing that we didn't throw in there is a lot of schools have beginner classes, intermediate classes, advanced classes, and that changes things as well. Yep, it does. So what we're more used to is...
Jeremy (26:54.98)
ranks in one class so that that's another thing and I didn't want us to end without acknowledging that but I Want to hear we want to hear how do you do this? How do you approach this subject and? Especially did you used to do it a different way? Yeah, have you changed the way you did it? Why what's been the upside is there any downside to it? Let us all learn from each other best place to post this in the Facebook page martial arts radio and
you know when when sometimes and often sometimes you all send such amazing feedback we do it follow -up last week's episode was that exact thing so help us continue to serve all of you know you're two weeks ago I did it wrong two weeks ago with was that how dare you
Jeremy (27:46.852)
Andrew got plant slapped. That was harder to say than I expected. This is the fourth episode we're recording today. It is the last one if you couldn't tell. If you want to reach out to us directly, Andrew at Jeremy at Whistlekick .com or social media is at Whistlekick. Patreon .com slash Whistlekick is the place to go to support us most easily. But if you want to pick something up at Whistlekick .com use the code podcast one five to grab yourself a t -shirt.
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