Phases of learning and "what if's"

(posted on Facebook by Mr. Ron Chapel, January 2021) 

Mr. Parker’s quotes on the Three Phases Concept of Learning and the ever-present overworked and misunderstood “what if."

As you analyze a specific technique, the study is best begun by dividing your efforts into phases.

Phase one of the analytical process mandates you commence with an “ideal” or fixed situation. This means that you are to select a combat situation that has been structured with a prescribed sequence of movements and use this ideal technique as a base.

In this phase, the term ideal implies that the situation is fixed and that the "what if" questions required in other phases are not to be included.

Using the ideal technique or model situation as a reference point not only refers to the defensive moves you employ but the anticipated reactions of your attacker as well. Technically, then, it is the prescribed reactions of your attacker that completes the ideal technique, not what he might do, but what you force him to do.

Therefore, the ideal techniques are built around inflexible and one-dimensional assumptions for a good purpose. They provide us with a basis from which we may begin the analytical process, like any control model in any reliable scientific experiment. Prescribed techniques applied to prescribed reactions are the keys that make a basic technique ideal and fixed.

In Phase I, structuring an ideal technique requires selecting a combat situation that you wish to analyze. Contained within the technique should be fixed moves of defense, offense, and the anticipated reactions that can stem from them.

"This so-called ideal or fixed situation when analyzed and formulated properly should effectively take into consideration minor alterations of combat to make Phase One significantly able to stand alone."

The above Ed Parker quotations are taken from an I.K.K.A. Green Belt Manual and are an area of massive confusion. Mr. Parker was not speaking from the position of the student or even most teachers. He is speaking to those who desire to create their own techniques and style, and the process they should employ while utilizing his conceptual system as a base starting point. Ed Parker Kenpo is supposed to teach you how to create your own style. When you create techniques, “what ifs” take on significant importance. In the learning process, however, students do not, and should not have the luxury of entertaining such infinite possibilities.

Therefore, “what ifs” should not be introduced into the process until you have mastered all of the first phase of learning. To do so would be like trying to spell a word that requires a letter in a part of the alphabet, you haven’t learned yet.

So-called “what ifs” are not actually “what ifs.” They are supposed to be different techniques with a similar offensive theme. These questions are covered as you move upward in the levels of training. i.e. “Broken Ram” answers questions similar to “Charging Ram.” In other words, the true “what if“ is not what he might do but understanding “what he will do when I interact with him.” Or simply, “what if” is not an action, but a re-action.

It is important, however, to recognize Mr. Parker wrote this before he decided that the Ed Parker Kenpo Karate System would have to be the first level of instruction for the masses, due to his inability to be in one place, drill basics, and teach a defined and rigid structured first level personally.