Learning to Unlearn

Every discipline requires a learning curve that is often regimented in its structure in the efforts to teach something that will be interpreted visually, acoustically and finally kinesthetically. The additions of taste and smell are a part of the entire package as well but less obviously influential - still there and usable all the same.

Kata, a tool of learning and of transferring knowledge down and through out the ages (melodramatic, a bit ;-). There are set down patterns, rhythms and symbolisms that govern, like blueprints for a home or building, how we set the foundation and implement the specifications or principles. They are found there but are not written is stone by meaning that once you set the foundation and gather in all the particulars then it is something to be adjusted according to the individual, their culture and beliefs, their perceptions and their innate physical and mental characteristics, etc.

What you're actually trying to accomplish is to learn to unlearn. In self-defense you may learn a particular waza to a particular attack techinque, scenario or whatever but once you learn it, achieve some proficiency with it and encode it then it is time to test it out in a reality model so you can learn to unlearn the strict patterns and rhythms so that they will adjust, if you will, to the present moment and situation. We know that in real life nothing is every what it would be presented as in a training or classroom setting.

Often in my career as a Marine I would attend formalized training only to find out that once in the field, out in the real world, that things changed or were different - different each time we entered into what was learned in the training. We learned to unlearn the regimentation of the knowledge to achieve a means to access and adjust it to fit any given situation or scenario.

You learn to unlearn as you advance in martial arts. This is not changing the core or the essence of the system but rather adjusting to what actually works "in the field."