Karate in Twenty Hours

Blog Article/Post Caveat (Read First Please: Click the Link)

In a recent article on the Mokuren Dojo blog references were made to the following:

Malcolm Gladwell suggested in his Outliers book that it takes something like 10000 hours of deliberate practice to become an expert at any field.  But then along comes this guy - Josh Kaufman and says that's too long - WAY too long!  Kaufman is not so much interested in becoming an expert, rather, he wants to be able to learn things to a pretty good level of proficiency - and he found that you can pretty much learn any skill pretty good if you follow these four steps...

1 Deconstruct the skill - figure out what the central skill is that you want to be able to do and what are the sub-skills that make up that central skill - then practice the most important sub-skills first.

2 Learn enough to self-correct - you don't have to learn everything about your domain of practice - just learn enough to be able to tell if you are on the right track (leading toward the central skill) or the wrong track.

3 Remove practice barriers - like procrastination and scope growth and feeling like an idiot

4 Practice for at least 20 hours

Mokuren Dojo wanted to generate a discussion on “Learning Aikido.” This, as can be read in the next section, inspired me to write about karate in twenty hours, here is what I came up with for discussion:

Using the above can we rightly assume that karate could be learned to a decent level in only twenty hours of practice? Lets look at 20 hours, i.e., on average a person will train and practice a minimum of two hours a night for three nights a week meaning twenty hours would equate to them training and practicing ten days or three weeks and one day at the stated intervals. 

Deconstructing the skill to a central skill in karate would end up defining the most important sub-skill to be applying the fundamental principles of martial disciplines with physiokinetic principles being first and foremost since karate is seen as a physical skill. 

Then one would have to figure out how to self-correct but that would probably take additional hours of study, at least a more academic study, to learn and understand the principle of physiokinetics. 

The third can be the most difficult or the easiest since a person who would take up karate would mostly be one who does not procrastinate and would not succumb to feeling like an idiot. Yet, as can be perceived by many in the community the high turnover often tells us that most people do procrastinate with a solid dose of boredom and laziness that tends to drive them out the dojo door. 

Then one has to do all the above consistently over a twenty hour period. Does a person have to break it up into chunks to get it right and make it stick? Then does that person take into consideration the ultimate goal of learning and practicing karate? When and what would require addition of adrenal stress-conditioned reality based training because karate, in essence, is about fighting and defense where one will have to contend with this adrenal aspect, can that part alone be taught and encoded properly in twenty hours and will that result, if doable, work across the board to get-r-done? Am I adding complexities simply to meet a self-anointed agenda because I practice karate? 

If one takes structure, alignment and power generation along with a hand ful of basics in practice for twenty hours that person would become proficient in doing just those things. Where this theory falls off in the martial arts world is when one has to apply that proficiency in application such as a competitive sport contest or when attacked by a resource predatory attacker. 

If we assume the learning is bare bones simplistic as described in the last paragraph with no other goal other than the doing of the thing since it is a physical gaol we can assume it is possible, even true. What causes many to disregard such things is the addition of the more complex aspects humans tend to add to almost everything they do and all they experience. Then again, ain’t that life?

Caveat: remember, it says, “AT LEAST” 20 hours. 

Caveat: remember it does not say master.

Caveat: remember, it said, “Learn a new skill.” New skill does not mean all the complexities I refer to in my article. 

Caveat: remember it does say you don’t have to learn everything about the domain of practice. That is significant because anyone can learn a small portion of karate in even less than twenty hours. Use making a good fist as one example; doing a front kick as another; doing a simple restraint technique yet another…alone, done well enough makes a skill and that simple skill - pick one of these three examples - is karate. 

Caveat: remember the skill of making a fist, once you learn to make a good one you now have enough knowledge to self-correct.

Caveat: remember taking the over all skill of karate down to a fist, a front kick or a simple restraint is deconstructing the whole skill of karate into individual skills of fist, kick and restraint. 

Yes, to learn an entire discipline, not just a skill set within it, does take a bit more time than twenty hours but the theory will hold water if you make sure you find these types of distinctions, it is possible. Then take each skill set learned in twenty hours, thread them together and then practice them while self-correcting and you will learn that discipline - in time, time dependent on the individuals inherent traits toward learning, etc. Some learn faster, some slower and some will work forever never truly getting the skill or discipline (this is rare).

Mokuren Dojo Article: http://www.mokurendojo.com/2015/11/learn-aikido-in-20-hours.html

Bibliography (Click the link)