the steep part of the learning curve is in the middle

[everything]

note: because the learning curve idea and steepness is ambiguous, I am using steep in the sense that it's difficult, not in the sense that there is a lot of learning in a short time. The curve is shaped like an S-curve with the steep part in the middle meaning difficulty to learn.

In the beginning you learn a lot easily because everything is new. White belt to yellow belt is easy.

When you're an expert, you learn fairly easily because your base is so good.

However, if you're an intermediate, you are stuck for a long time... so... not just talking about martial arts here: what do you think speeds that up?

[shawnsegler]

ability to focus

[qiphlow]

i think we make quicker progress at the beginning, but the gains are not as profound. the further you get, the longer the plateaus, but the gains are sort of "deeper" (if that makes any sense). what's hard for the intermediate, i think, is dealing with the frustration of seemingly not progressing by leaps and bounds like a beginner does.
i don't think anything speeds the process--people all learn at different rates and have varying levels of commitment to whatever thay are trying to learn.

[everything]

ok yeah makes sense.

to make it a little harder, if you are the teacher of a group, what do you do to help your group of intermediates make progress faster (individuals still vary but what about the overall intermediate group)? e.g. you teach a white belt class, a green belt (or whatever's in the middle), and a black belt class. what's best for the greens? e.g., make them teach whites? compete more frequently (if sport class)? or each individual focuses on individual strengths or weaknesses?

[Darth Rock&Roll]

instant blackbelt. just add $$!

[qiphlow]

ok yeah makes sense.

to make it a little harder, if you are the teacher of a group, what do you do to help your group of intermediates make progress faster (individuals still vary but what about the overall intermediate group)? e.g. you teach a white belt class, a green belt (or whatever's in the middle), and a black belt class. what's best for the greens? e.g., make them teach whites? compete more frequently (if sport class)? or each individual focuses on individual strengths or weaknesses?

during my brief sojurn at attempting to teach:
after warmups, etc., the whole group does stuff together. if i saw blatant mistakes that the majority were making, or if i had recently gotten corrections, then the whole group works on those corrections. after that, i would break them up into groups for individual correction. you can use the folks who are getting the material to help the folks who are having a harder time.

[everything]

instant blackbelt. just add $$!

lol, yes.

ok yeah makes sense.

to make it a little harder, if you are the teacher of a group, what do you do to help your group of intermediates make progress faster (individuals still vary but what about the overall intermediate group)? e.g. you teach a white belt class, a green belt (or whatever's in the middle), and a black belt class. what's best for the greens? e.g., make them teach whites? compete more frequently (if sport class)? or each individual focuses on individual strengths or weaknesses?

during my brief sojurn at attempting to teach:
after warmups, etc., the whole group does stuff together. if i saw blatant mistakes that the majority were making, or if i had recently gotten corrections, then the whole group works on those corrections. after that, i would break them up into groups for individual correction. you can use the folks who are getting the material to help the folks who are having a harder time.

makes sense, thanks.

[qiphlow]

perhaps mckinley could shed some light on this, too, what with his neuroscience background and all...

[bailewen]

When you're an expert, you learn fairly easily because your base is so good.

However, if you're an intermediate, you are stuck for a long time... so... not just talking about martial arts here: what do you think speeds that up?

I disagree completely.

As an intermediate, if you are stuck for a long time it's because either you have plateaued in the same way that will happen to advanced students. Nothing to do with learning progression. Sometimes you just get stuck for a bit. Or....because you really need a new teacher.

Expert students may pick up completely new material faster but the improvements they make on whatever they are already experts at comes in nearly microscopic increments. This is partly mitigated by the fact that, over time, people tend to practice more but still, look at any physical endeavour from weightlifting to music. I think the only reason it may seem like you are an intermediate for such a long time is that the better you get, the higher you raise the bar as to what defines "expert". What I thought was "intermediate" 10 years ago is now what I call "raw begginer". What I used to call "begginer" I now don't even qualify as really training, more like just goofing around or exploring the potential for a new hobby.

There's a very strong tendency in some peoples minds to always classify themselves as intermediates no matter how good they are. I think I'm in that category. I also know my own Shifu emphasises the absolute necessity of thinking of your own skill as really insufficient. He's been training for 60 years, much of that 4 or 5 hours a day but he says that he's really just an amateur, nothing like a real professional martial artist.

[klonk]

I think martial arts generally are too damned big. Too much to learn. How many skills do you need to be dangerous?

[qiphlow]

I think martial arts generally are too damned big. Too much to learn. How many skills do you need to be dangerous?

75,328,266. more if you want the "deadly" classification.

[klonk]

I think martial arts generally are too damned big. Too much to learn. How many skills do you need to be dangerous?

75,328,266. more if you want the "deadly" classification.

I keep thinking we could cut that number in half and not hurt anything. People of only average talent would be better served by smaller martial arts. Knowing a small skill set very well has a lot to be said for it.

At least some of my reading suggests that martial arts were smaller formerly, the idea of learning a vast number of karate kata, for example, being a comparatively recent idea. Funakoshi wrote that in earlier times, an expert knew only a few forms. Since then, I would say, we have seen progress in the wrong direction. You can find hints, at least, that similar forms inflation has occurred in some other arts, including TJQ.

I relate the problem here to the idea of decision trees. The more options, the more complexity. The learning curve could be flattened to some extent by deciding what is really essential and teaching only that, or at least teaching it first.

[Harvey]

I think on eof the things that does really get you off the plateau is when the bigger picture starts to become evident. I used to make an analogy with jigsaw puzzles that have no picture on the box when i taught music and i think it's the same with MA. At the beginning you draw out the edge of the jigsaw as it is easy to work out which pieces fit there as they all have a straight edge but as you work in it gets harder to keep track until the picture starts to form then it's easier to see where things fit.
At the beginning you can pick up lots of simple concepts quickly but then it slows down. As you start to progress it's no longer just adding pieces to your skill set but filling in the gaps of an ever developing one. Since you have an idea of what lies around it it's a lot less frustrating to work at and you have a bench mark of what to work up to from the skills that lie around it.