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Old 09-04-2013, 10:28 AM   #19
Janet Rosen
 
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Location: Left Coast
Join Date: May 2002
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Re: Techniques are dead: Living movement vs dead technique

Quote:
Mary Malmros wrote: View Post
Very gentle indeed. We're good friends and I definitely want to avoid any suggestion of "You SHOULD stop talking because it annoys ME". The talking, though, isn't just (or even mostly) a recitation of the steps, it's more an analysis of what just happened (usually with accompanying berating of self). For me, as a partner, it feels like an interruption: he's interrupting the doing of the kata to talk (to himself) about what he just did. As a result, his partner practice is jerky and full of "zigged when he should have zagged" moments -- sometimes dangerously so, for him or for his partner. He knows that he needs to have a better focus when doing weapons, but as you say, the talking seems to be his method for trying to "get it right" on what my sensei calls the "Arthur Murray School of Dance" level: I move this foot there and this hand there, etc. The problem is that when a partner is involved, walking through the correct steps isn't enough.
Oh yeah....the commentary and berating of self it TOTALLY getting in his way!!! I used to have an instructor who would coach us periodically during a class on throwing that critical voice out the window...

Janet Rosen
http://www.zanshinart.com
"peace will enter when hate is gone"--percy mayfield
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