Feedback

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

"Not a criticism of the way or technique, simply feedback so you can recalculate and keep going...change while moving forward down the chosen path. When conflict of thought and belief come into play, it is a chance to recalculate those beliefs and thoughts every time." - unknown

Recalculate to improve!

Feedback seems an appropriate way to analyze and synthesize our efforts in karate and other martial disciplines. In these disciplines it is two-fold, i.e., feedback, either positive or negative, provide improvements both mental and physical where the mental and physical feed off one another. 

Feedback is also intricate to the communications skills a martial practitioner must develop, enhance and apply for self-protection. This is all part of the communications skills necessary for deescalation. It is heavy on the active listening side but when one begins to articulate things it is best that feedback is sufficient to provide one enough data to make the correct choices. 

As to the negative-to-positive types of feedback in a recent discussion one participant spoke up that the negative is more impactful. I responded to say, "that depends." The negative feedback depends heavily on how it is experienced and/or presented, etc.

For instance, a negative comment to another person has the potential to illicit two types of reactions. One might be a snarky and snide disgust ridden counter attack that escalates to violence. The other would be a more neutral critical comment of an indirect nature allowing the other to recognize the negative and its need to change leaving that person unblamed and in a face-saving state where receipt of the critique is now a negative-positive rather than the first option. 

Here comes the art of communications and articulation processes where the words, phrases and most critically important the body language, emphasis on facial expressions, that will convey to either illicit a positive face-saving walk-away response or a negative-negative non-face-saving, egoistic anger triggering effect that leads to anger, frustration and the status-need to put your ass on the ground then pound you till you learn your lesson. 

In training and practice the relationship and intent must be such that it fosters a feedback loop. The role of tori-uke is to provide skills and training that mutually results in a "cause-n-effect" that applied provides a positive-negative feedback system allowing for learning, understanding, applicable proficiency and understanding that benefits all concerned toward growth and change, change as in evolutionary progress of skills and abilities. 

Quotes to consider in achieving a feedback system beneficial to the dojo and its members:

"Simple causal reasoning about a feedback system is difficult because the first system influences the second and second system influences the first, leading to a circular argument. This makes reasoning based upon cause and effect tricky, and it is necessary to analyze the system as a whole.”

“The terms positive and negative feedback are defined in different ways within different disciplines. Some use alternative terms, replacing positive/negative with self-reinforcing/self-correcting, reinforcing/balancing, discrepancy-enhancing/discrepancy-reducing or regenerative/degenerative respectively.”

The two sets of alternative terminology underlined actually improves the perception of the feedback loop as a negative-positive mutually effect system. Using a feedback system that will reinforce the skills and methods taught so one achieves a balance learning system whose objective is improvement and master. Seems fair to me!

Bibliography (Click the link)