TWEAKS

 by Phillip Starr

Once a student has learned the fundamentals of performing various techniques and his body has becomes acclimatized to doing it, it's necessary to “tweak” or polish it further by making slight adjustments. These seemingly small alterations may have to do with slightly revising the position or movement(s) of certain joints, body shifting and/or structure, breathing, and so on. And these (sometimes tiny) changes can and often do, dramatically change the nature of the technique by making it faster, more powerful, and so on. I frequently do this when I teach seminars, even making slight changes to the manner in which senior black belts execute basic techniques.

Many moons ago, my teacher did the same thing to me. Tiny adjustments here and there would make very large difference(s) in my technique and/or how effectively I could apply it. As the years passed, I was very fortunate in meeting and training with some of the finest instructors in the world; Hidetaka Nishiyama, Seiyu Oyata, Remy Presas, and Leo Gaje, to name just a few. Each of them would show me little tweaks, most of which I fully digested and integrated into the art I had originally learned.

No, many of my teachers did not practice a form of kung-fu but I firmly believed (and still do) that I could learn very valuable things from each of them. And I did. Had I refused to learn from them simply because they were not kung-fu adepts, my art would have suffered from enjoying a sumptuous meal (of new ideas and tweaks) that would help it grow that much stronger.

I reasoned that I'd originally involved myself in the martial arts to learn and if and when the day ever arrived that I felt I could learn no more, it would be time to hang up my uniform and take up knitting or whatever...