Moving from unconsciously incompetent to consciously competent—

I was thinking about an article that Mr. Shields posted awhile back concerning the difference between memorizing and understanding. As I was reflecting on his thoughts, I started thinking about what it means to “grow in taekwondo.”

There are three ways to grow in taekwondo. The first is to grow in your skill level—or growth in the body. This involves developing your strength, fitness, flexibility and speed. This is probably the easiest area of growth for many students. It’s easy to memorize moves and practice. You see your kicks get higher. You break boards easier. You become more confident in your sparring. And, you advance in rank. Those who really embrace “growing” in physical skill take on new training practices, new eating habits, and new fitness strategies. They realize that simply coming to class a couple of times a week isn’t enough to get fit, stay fit, and get stronger in their taekwondo. Fitness and taekwondo become a part of their daily lives.

The second way of growing in taekwondo is in the mind. This is increasing the mental aspects of your training—which really has two parts. First you become aware of your physical state and strive to improve it. You see your side kick isn’t chambered correctly. You see your forms lack power and depth. You see where your sparring needs to improve. Secondly, you start “understanding” your martial art. This is tougher to explain. People often say that they reach a point when they are learning a foreign language they start dreaming in that language—they’ve arrived. Mental growth in taekwondo is similar. All of the sudden you start thinking about your forms—not the moves, but the form. You start seeing subtleties that you never were even aware of. You realize why Eternal Grand Master used one stance over another. You arrive on another plane.

It is possible to grow in each of these areas independently. In the first, as you grow in you r physical skill, you are becoming more competent. Your awareness hasn’t changed much so you are in a state of unconscious competency. You have moved from the state of unconscious incompetency—not knowing what you know or can do. In the second, you grow in the mental aspects of the art, but you don’t grow physically—you are consciously incompetent. We all go through times when we fit into each of these categories. When we first move into a new belt—we are definitely unconsciously incompetent. Then we watch someone do our new form and we become aware that we can’t do that yet—consciously incompetent. Or, when we first memorize the moves of our form, we may lack total understanding of the form itself—we just go through the moves. Welcome to unconscious competence!

To truly grow in “The Way” of taekwondo, you need to grow in both the physical and mental aspects of Songahm. You need to move into conscious competence. You see, you do, you understand, you grow. Without a doubt, I am happiest in my progress when I find myself in this state. Outside of conscious competence, I am dissatisfied and feel like I am out of balance. When there is a physical aspect that I have not mastered—I am frustrated. When I can’t figure out “why,” I feel distracted. When I am in a place of understanding and ability to perform, I feel complete and balanced.

Unfortunately, I’m not in this state of conscious competence nearly enough—but that is always my goal. That’s where I want to live—in a place of balance and understanding. So, as a new student or a veteran who has developed the physical side but not the mental, how do you reach this place? In my opinion, it is easiest to grow the physical. Growing the understanding and mental aspects of taekwondo take much more time and patience. You really need to be willing to “navel gaze” and quite frankly, study. Reading the posts on this blog is a good start. Mr. Shields and others have put up some amazing thoughts! Reading your ATA magazine also provides some great insights and current thinking of the Masters. The Way books are probably the most valuable print resource you can get your hands on—and very easy to collect as you move through the ranks. Start with the volume on Philosophy! Finally, go to camps, go to tournaments, and take advantage of opportunities to learn from the Masters and Legends of taekwondo any chance you get! The talent and knowledge we have in our very own region is astounding—take advantage of it!

Good luck on your journey!

Mr. Bailey

Summer Time ... Dial In Time

Summers around here is an interesting time for martial arts. If you happen to be in the Littleton or Cherry Creek school districts you get the summer off. If you live in Douglas County, it could be traditional and you get the summer off or maybe it is a track system and you don't get as much time off. Either way the summer is a great time to truly dial in on your martial arts training. You don't have the pressures of the school year and all the other activities going on, so it is a great time to focus on your martial arts training.

What about vacations. Even if you are on vacation you still want to get some exercise. Get up in the morning and run through your forms, or shadow box/spar, etc. If you are at a beach, do this in the water for great resistance training. If you are in the mountains, do this on the rocks or what ever the landscape is for great balance and focus training.

Quite often people take time off in the summer and don't make it back because they feel like they are "behind". It is never a race and you are not behind. You move at your pace. It doesn't matter if the others you knew in class have advanced to the next rank. You just need to go at your speed.

So, use the summer to dial into your martial arts training without all the other pressures of school and life that you have at other times.

Stan Shields
4th Degree Black Belt
www.kicks4all.com

Share your thoughts

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Good luck in your journey!

Mr. Bailey

Always learning

This past weekend, Mr. Shields, Ms. Topping, Mr. Britain, Mrs. Bailey and I attended Senior Master Thor's Rocky Mountain Workout in Winter Park. The fun (and pain!) started Friday night with the new ATA fitness test and ended Sunday with some fun team competitions. (By the way, my team (Ms. Topping was a great team member by the way!) took second place in the over all competition!) In between was an amazing amount of things to learn!

The focus of this camp, and a focus shared by the ATA, was fitness. Mrs. Bailey played a huge role in developing the fitness physical challenges used during this camp. She did a GREAT job and definitely showed off our school and our region as a leader in achieving the ATA fitness goals. In addition to the daily physical workouts, I saw campers from six to sixty working on push ups, sit ups and jump ropes any time there was a free moment. And it wasn't just a few campers-- it was everyone! My team alone had over 2,000 sit ups, 2,000 push ups and 13,000 jump ropes! (And we came in second- imagine what the first place team did!)

Hopefully, the weekend started some new habits and thinking about physical fitness. You don't need hours to work out. A few minutes here and there can really add up. As I have talked about in my classes, "just doing taekwondo classes" won't be enough to keep you fit. It will take working out at home or in the gym as well. But again, even a few sessions of a few minutes scattered throughout the day is a great help!

Another great part of the camp was the professional development that took place. The other instructors and I learned a great deal about teaching more effectively. We also learned a great deal about our own techniques. In traveling around to different ATA schools (as well as other styles of martial arts), I know that our instructors are among the best. But, and this is what I really appreciate about our instructors, we know that we can always be learning more. Within the past month, we have had training from Chief Master M.K. Lee, Senior Master Dilegge, Senior Master Thor, Master Black, and 5th degree black belts Mr. Bass, Mr. Horn, Mr. Betts, Mr. Rogers and Mrs. Lorenz. Our instructors seek out these opportunities to better serve you-- and make us better martial artists! We are always learning! I also want to thank Mr. Shields for providing us with so many opportunities to learn from some of the best!

This should be a lesson for you as well. You should always realize that there is something more to learn about your art. Whether you are a white belt or a black belt, keep learning something new! Always set new goals for learning as you reach your previous ones!

In the meantime, make sure you ask us about our experiences at the camp. I'm sure you will see a lot of what we learned implemented into our classes.

Good luck in your journey!

Mr. Bailey