Filling in Details

We all tend to fill in details to any one thing from our own experiences and concepts. These are built from DNA and our Environments. The differences come from the totality of living environments as to the length of time in each and how long you live in them, etc. i.e. your overall age at the moment.

Instructing karate-do, or any martial system, has to deal with this in order to convey the core fundamentals of a system to any one individual. A corner stone of a good instructor is determining how a practitioner can and will fill in the details.

I mention this because I have witnessed such huge variations on any one concept of practice that it ain't funny, from my system where you would think that fundamentals and basics are identical.

Awareness of an instructor as well as any one who practices or applies the martial system to life will need to develop a sense and ability to see and/or hear how one fills in the details. Marc MacYoung gives some pretty good examples of this when he relates the various OS's of groups/tribes/groups, etc.

If you are facing a irate person if you do not know how that person fills in details you could escalate it to violence unintentionally. Just saying that sometimes filling in details is very complicated.

Oh, yea, if Sensei tells you something and you ask for details but are told it has to wait till you pass a stage don't try to fill in the details yourself. Let the gaps remain gaps as a good instructor will provide the details and the details of the details as you progress. This is why teaching a new kata starts with the gross movements, details come after you know them, etc.