[Sportsandrec] Kick boxing

Sun Apr 8 01:17:04 UTC 2012

Hi,

I do Shobudo Jujitsu (I believe the directly translated spelling is
actually Jujutsu) and Krav Maga mostly, with some elements of a few
others. The vast majority of my training has all been with private
instructors, so more than a decade later I've had quite a bit of time
to learn with manual appendage placement. I grew up sighted, but it
helps with fewer visual concepts than I would've imagined.

In Shobudo, my particular specialty, we usually only use three kicks.
Front snap, back snap, and edge kicks.

I'll give you four examples of four instructors and how they did
things. My first instructor worked with me while I was a small child,
so although I was sighted, he would still guide my limbs in the exact
way he wanted the technique done. Due to my very small body frame
there were always adaptations, but he would guide me from start to
finish at varying speeds until I got it.

My next and longest running instructor had me from about 10 through
17, and I still see him when I'm in town. This instructor is perfect
and couldn't have handled my blindness better. His exact words to me
during our first lesson after I went blind were, "You feel incapable.
Go stand on that fence." I went to the chain link fence, hit it with
my cane, and began to climb. Once at the top he held my hand to steady
me and said, "You lost your vision. Too bad, things happen. It's time
to learn to do the impossible." Six weeks later I could stand on that
fence for half an hour without falling, and the lessons became
progressively more conventional. He wanted me to do something that my
sighted counterparts hadn't learned, and he gave me a huge confidence
boost while dealing with the learning curve. After I restructured my
balance and spatial orientation he would have me always work with his
highest ranked black belts so that I would progress faster and learn
adaptation not taught to the younger kids. It got to the point where
he could just describe a movement and I knew what he was talking
about, so kicks were never an issue. Only having three also helps.

[My rant here doesn't answer the question, I just respect the man more
than I can say, and I don't want to inadvertently sell him short. My
next two paragraphs are perhaps more relevant.]

My newest two instructors, one a classical Shobudo Jujitsu instructor
and one a Krav Maga instructor both had a much harder time. The
Shobudo instructor tried to be patient, but I just wasn't about to use
my cane as a jo against the cherry ones, and I definitely wasn't going
to do a backward shoulder roll without using active echolocation.
Amazing way to lose spatial orientation, and I was having none of it.
He really didn't want me using any blindness skills, and although he
tried to be patient, he made it clear that he didn't want to describe
techniques. He was big on kicks and cane offenses-- neither worked
well for me. I stopped returning to his dojo when I acknowledged that
he genuinely didn't have the time for one on one descriptions or
guide-throughs. I'm not going to sacrifice my cane in an altercation
unless it's an absolute necessity, and I can honestly do more to
protect myself without it. I need a way to get to safety once I've
survived the physical ordeal, not a short term weapon which won't work
well in the first place.

My next instructor was a Krav Maga instructor. He blatantly refused to
describe things, and other students would refuse to work with me
because they didn't want to "hurt the blind guy." The instructor told
me I was an inconvenience to him and his class after my fourth
session. In those four he would instruct the class to pair up and do a
lot of line oriented, movement based techniques, like step punch step
punch drop to knees punch crawl punch stand punch step punch drop to
knees-- etc. It was hugely difficult, and no one would ever do that in
a real altercation. It would get you dead. I didn't voice that, but in
hindsight maybe should have. Anyway, the instructor saw that I was
losing my target and had to catch up to hit the punching mat in the
proper place so he benched me for the duration. Instead of working
with me on personal accommodations for things like running movements
and high kicks, he just said I was "too inconvenient and not worth the
money."

My point through all of this is to find a suitable instructor, and be
patient. It takes time to find the right combination of words and
guided movements to fit your needs. At least that was my experience.
My second instructor and my third instructor were both students of the
very first, but had totally different attitudes about the practice.
You never know what you're going to get. My second instructor should
seriously consider working more regularly with minority students,
while the third probably shouldn't.

This was a digressive diatribe. I apologize. If there are any specific
questions, I'll make a point to answer them with relevance. I just
wanted to cover everything I could about the precepts of the
instructor before getting into individual mechanics of guided and
non-guided movements. I think it really comes down to the exposure you
have to the instructor or to another student who knows what they're
doing as well as the ability to patiently explore what works best in
terms of physicality and verbal directions.

Warm regards,
Justin

On 4/7/12, Ashley Bramlett <bookwormahb at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Justin,
> that is cool. which ones do you do and I'm sure they involve kicks. How do
> you learn them? Kicking is a fast paced move that I think would be hard to
> be shown.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: JUSTIN LOUCHART
> Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2012 5:48 PM
> To: Sports and Recreation for the Blind Discussion List
> Subject: Re: [Sportsandrec] Kick boxing
>
> Hi, Lisa,
>
> I do several forms of martial arts, but not kickoxing specifically.
> Could my answers still be of assistance? No direct questions were put
> forth, but I'm certainly available to converse if you're wondering
> anything in particular.
>
> Regards,
> Justin
>
> On 4/7/12, Lisamaria Martinez, NOMC <lmartinez217 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Any kick boxers on this list?
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
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>
>
> --
> Justin Louchart
> JALOUCHART at GMAIL.COM
>
> Inveniam Viam Aut Faciam
>
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-- 
Justin Louchart
JALOUCHART at GMAIL.COM

Inveniam Viam Aut Faciam