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Hi everyone I thought I would start a though provoking topic.

As many of you know and some might not one steps were developed primarily by Itosu for the Okinawan school children to practice martial arts as to not hurt each other like in sparring. Funokoshi modeled much of his Japanese Shotokan on this and this style of one steps migrated to Korea in this way as well.

So my question is:

If one steps were designed as dumbed down sparring for children why are many practicing it as adults?

Think about this what real value does one and three steps have that sparring drills don't and why do you think they are better.

I mean no one actually attacks like that EVER so other than making it easy for school kids what's the practical benefit you feel these offer?

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Posted from the old forum by Tom Marker
I think one-steps are great for isolating a skill and breaking it down. It's a step in the process. You have line drill which is just the student learning to move their clumsy body up and down the floor. Next, they get a target and focus into that. One-steps introduces them to moving in relation to someone else.

Where I think one-steps start to go wrong is if you never leave the framework of that one-step, you don't really expand your understanding or your ability to use it. Or worse, looking at the one-steps like a set of cool techniques you collect rather than focusing on the conceptual level teachings. For example, I will require that my students learn their prescribed one-steps, and then they also need to demonstrate competency against the left-sided version. From there, they switch inside-line movement to outside line movement, modify techniques and targets, modify the intent (striking one-steps become locks and throws) or combine one-steps in a logical progression, as well as failure management (what to do when your counter is blocked or dodged) before you know it, the students are "sparring."




While they may have been designed for kids, I think a lot of my adults benefit from them as a baby step into sparring. Especially people who are new to this whole "punching people and having people punch you thing."  

I am in %100 agreement though that one-steps by themselves, unlinked to dae ryun or hyung run out of utility within the first few classes and essentially become "cool technique" collections.

I would guess also that the main reason people do them is because they are mandated to do so by their organization or that's just the way they learned it and it worked for them. (we can debate whether or not it worked for them till the cows come home, i'm not touching that one!  )

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Posted from the old board by Steven Mertens

We removed OneSteps from our program a few years ago, primarily for the point you mentioned, no one EVER attacks that way. However, I occasionally utilize some of them (They are not the MDK onesteps) with groups of students just as a drill to help with targeting and precision.

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Thanks guys for your replies, Tom there is a little trick to posting videos.
You have to shorten the link: Click on the youtube button and paste this in:
v9-OlSjoJ4M

That will put your video in (its the edited short code)

Actually Tom, in MSD that the way we drill. Very similar to Sensei McCarthy's drills. I actually corresponded with him a little. VERY nice and knowledgeable fellow.

The interesting thing is that's probably more similar to the way they originally did it than the one steps so popular today. McCarthy Sensei does those drills and NOT one steps. That's from one of the most scholarly warriors on the planet, McCarthy Sensei.

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Posted by Tom Marker
Ahhh! Thanks for the headsup on the youtube codes, I will remember that for next time.

I personally think one-steps aren't going anywhere in the near future because they are a perceived tradition. Yes, I think they are a holdover from the Japanese influence, and the flowing drills are much more like the "old ways." But 99% of students came through that way, and will subscribe to the old adage of "it worked for me, it will work for my students."

As they are part of my organization, I am committed to making them better. I think, like any drill, they have their limitations, and a lot of the limitations come from the inability of students to break the one-step mold as well as the poor performance that often comes with one-steps. Students get caught in the rut of going back and forth and start throwing some very lame attacks.

I often tell students that the attacker is training just as hard as the defender, that they must attack with every intent of delivering the hardest, fastest strike they can to the defender. Practice your attack, and give your partner the gift of training against a hard technique.

I think if you keep these things in mind, then one-steps do have quite a bit of merit to them, and that we don't need to throw them out completely.

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I agree that one steps are not going anywhere in the near future. But I thought it would be interesting to point out how and why they were actually developed for those whom did not know, this way they could evaluate their effectiveness in the context of their origins.

My reasons for dropping them simply came from teaching experience. As a student I did not mind them but as an instructor with only so much class time to manage and teach effectively I chose to place that time on drills and combinations that would be more fruitful for my students.

Maybe others have a different take on the one steps and can overcome that teaching obstacle I did not find it worth the battle when what I began teaching yielded better results.

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Posted by Hanshi Cunningham
Being a Shotokan stylist, we naturally still use one-step and three-step sparring drills as part of our regular training curriculum. I don't really consider these techniques to be "sparring drills" per se, since as previously mentioned in this article already, nobody ever spars like that. However, I do consider them useful as a means to initiate a new student into some type of physical contact engagement with an opponent, within a highly restricted structure, where they can begin to utilize their blocking and attacking skills, without too much trepidation over getting their clock cleaned by some over-zealous higher rank.

Boring as they may be, one-steps and three steps will eventually communicate to the student whether or not he is correctly applying the techniques (as judged by the size of the welts on his/her midsection) and for me at least, they serve as just another waypoint on the road of the students hopefully evolving understanding of the nuances of our martial arts. Plus, they (one and three step drills) are always a useful tool for that occasional advanced student whom is starting to think that they are somehow far more skilled than reality might lead the observer to believe.

Hanshi