Master Kaiser

                  Learning by Rote

 When I was younger, I always looked forward to Saturdays. Saturdays meant no school and the chance to watch cartoons in the morning. Saturday afternoons were different. Our tv only received two channels, and the only things on were Westerns. Many of these Westerns wound up with two men facing one another in the middle of a dusty street , at high noon, preparing to shoot it out. One was usually a professional gunslinger, and the other was a regular cowboy. The gunslinger would slide his hand down his side moving his jacket back slowly. When seeing the gunslinger reaching under his jacket, the cowboy’s forehead would break into a sweat.

I was blessed to have the same teacher for first, third, and fifth grades, a Sister of Providence whose name I will withhold. Back during this time, Sisters of Providence wore black habits (robes). Before starting school, we would say a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. Then Sister would turn around and stare at us. Her hand would slide down her side toward a fold in her robes. Just like the cowboy watching the gunslinger, sweat would bead up on our foreheads, and just like the cowboy, we knew what was coming next would bode nothing but ill for us. Bam! Out would come a deck of flash cards. “9 times 5, 3 times 4,” she would start drilling us. She sent us to the board to write our math facts. She sent us to our seats to write them on paper. “7 times 8, 6 times 4,” she would start to drill us again. “ 6 times 5,” the door was closed, “8 times 3,’ the windows were shut, “4 times 8” there was no escape. We drilled on math facts every day all through first, third, and fifth grades.

You are undoubtedly wondering what any of this has to do with martial arts. If you think about how you learned math, the facts are first taught in isolation over and over again. Then, when you become proficient, they are incorporated in ever increasingly complex problems. In martial arts you experience the same thing. You drill on the skills you need to perfect at the beginning of class. Then they are included in increasingly complex forms, so you are doing the same stances, blocks, kicks, strikes, …  over and over again. These drills, forms, and self-defense segments you do in class, by the way, also need to be done at home and as often as possible. Why? 

Every time I see or hear a math fact in isolation or in more complex problems, the answer to each individual fact appears in my mind. There is no thinking, no conscious thought process involved. The answer is just there, instantaneously. This comes from all of those years of drilling math facts in elementary school. Why is this important?

Master Stangle used to say that he drilled his martial arts skills so much that when he sparred, his body took over and his mind was just along for the ride. (I could have made some comments at that point, but I refrained from doing so.) If you are ever accosted outside of class, you’re not going to have time to think about what you are going to do to defend yourself, it just has to happen. Your training has to take over. The only way for that to occur is for you to drill, drill, and drill some more, so if the time ever comes for you to use your martial arts training, you can act and react. If you have to take time to think about how you are going to respond when an attack comes, your response will likely be too late.