Learning Karate is Like Playing With LEGOs

Analogies are one of the best teaching tools we have. If you can connect something you’re teaching to something students already know, they will learn faster. If you can connect it with something they already know and love, so much the better. And who doesn’t love LEGOs?

My students have probably heard this analogy dozens of times, but if it helps anyone else out there, here it is: Learning karate is like playing with LEGOs.

How?

Kihon

Kihon is often translated as “basics”, but I prefer to call them “fundamentals”, because there’s often nothing basic about them. Kihon is the part of training where we learn individual techniques and combinations in the absence of a partner or multidirectional patterns of footwork. When you see karate students marching up and down the floor repeating a technique or combination for the sake of improving only that technique or combination, that’s kihon.

But it’s not enough just to “collect” techniques. You have to drill them until you can apply each one well. You have to know when to apply them, and know how to combine them with other techniques. Only then can you really claim to have mastered them. Put simply kihon are the “building blocks” of karate.

Likewise, while individual LEGO pieces are (obviously) the building blocks of LEGO, adding them to your “collection” is useless if you don’t know how to use them. Most LEGOs are intuitively obvious but, like karate, LEGO includes a lot of obscure pieces as well, like these …

And that’s without even venturing in the world of LEGO Mindstorms, their (discontinued) line of programmable robotics toys.

Sure, anyone can stick a couple of basic, rectangular, 4x2 LEGO bricks together, but do you know how the Mindstorms ultrasonic sensor works?

Thus, just like the techniques of karate kihon, LEGOs can seem simple up front, but learning the best way to use each one, and then put them together with others, can turn into a deep, deep rabbit hole.

Kata

Speaking of rabbit holes, we could probably argue for hours about the definition of “kata”, but most of us can probably agree that kata is a pre-arranged series of individual karate techniques, strung together in a pattern, whose timing and overall aesthetic are also important.

If you have all the right techniques in your “collection”, and you string them together the right way, you’re going to end up with Heian Nidan. If you string those same techniques together the same way tomorrow, you’re going to get Heian Nidan again, etc.

LEGOs are the same way. If you go out and buy LEGO kit 75300, tear open the little baggies of individual parts, and put them together according to the instructions, you’re going to end up with a TIE fighter.

If you tear all the pieces apart and follow the instructions again, you’ll get that same TIE fighter again - just like kata.

Of course, someone out there is thinking that Heian Nidan is often not the same from organization to organization, dojo to dojo, or even among practitioners in the same dojo, and you’d be right. Buut of course, not all TIE fighters are the same either. Would it surprise you to learn that LEGO has sold 62 different TIE fighter kits over the years. Sixty two!!!

Kumite

Once you’ve learned how to perform individual karate techniques with kihon training, and can string them together into repeatable complex patterns with kata training, the next step is kumite … also known as “free sparring.” There you have to take what you know about how “solo” karate works and adapt it to deal with someone else who’s doing it at the same time.

Now imagine getting together with a friend, dumping all your LEGOs out on the floor in a massive pile, and “free” building. No kit - just building whatever comes to mind. You know what you want to build but … oh no … your friend just grabbed that piece you needed, so now you have to change your plan on the fly in order to reach your goal, or maybe even change your goal.

“Free” playing with LEGOs is very similar to kumite and, the more often your buddy takes the piece you need, the more likely it is that your karate training will come in handy. 😉

TL;DR

Learning karate is a lot like learning to play with LEGOs.

• First you learn how to use the individual building blocks, whether those are techniques or bricks.
• Next you learn to string those pieces together in pre-arranged complex patterns, whether those are kata or LEGO kits.
• Finally you learn to adapt when “playing” with someone else, whether that’s kumite or just playing with a pile of LEGOs.

Okay great, but how does this help you learn (or teach) karate? Easy …

When a white belt is impatient to start sparring right away, you can use this analogy to explain why it’s important to learn things in stages. The better your kihon the better your kata will be, and the better your kata the better your kumite will be. All three are important, but the’re not independent activities - they build on each other.