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That Elusive World Champion By Patrick M. Hickey, 8th Dan

What can we figure out as the reason why the USA Karate kumite team fails to win at the world championships? Is it the fault of the coaches, the federation, the athletes? Should we lay blame on anyone or just pass it on to the age old excuse - we don't have the money and the athletes do not have the time to train? Well I do not buy any of this.

The way I figure it, real athletes want to win and will do what is necessary to win - at all levels. They will find the money, make the time commitment, seek out the best coaches, the best sports information and put it all together. They will not just be satisfied with being on the USA Karate team. They will not be satisfied to attend a world championships returning without injury, and they will not accept that the money and time is not there. They will accept the problems and challenges, study them, and find a solution.

The sports world identifies three stages of skill learning - beginning, intermediary, and advanced. The USA Karate team member should be in the advanced stage of skill learning. The advanced stage is characterized by a thorough understanding of the karate skills, highly developed and established motor skills, and technical performance is consistently proficient and automatic requiring little conscious thought or attention to details. So if skills are approaching perfection (the assumption of being a black belt), why do we have a losing team at the world level? This is a real problem and will affect future funding of the karate athlete by the Olympic Committee. They do not fund losers and funding is increased for those sports who win.

How many times have you heard it said that our competitors do not understand how to perform Ippon correctly? If this is the case, we haven't finished the beginning stages of skill learning for karate competition. So where do we go for technical skill? We attend the referee course to learn how to judge an Ippon - to learn what an ippon is or rather what it looks like so that we can judge it. This is all well and good. The referee program is sold as the highest level of technical training and information in the federation. Yet I have seen nothing in a referee course on how to teach the execution of the skill, how to train the delivery system, and the referees never actually perform the technique. So how will a referee program develop international quality competitors who will win? This is not a referee function, it is a function of the coaches across the United States. The problem of winning must be solved by the coaches.

So, where can a coach receive a hands on program on how to train and motivate a competitor to achieve his highest peak? Obviously not with the referees. The referee evaluates performance, the coach creates that performance in response to the standards of the competition. Proper coaching information with a hands on approach is necessary to develop world championship competitors. Such a program must overcome two problems of the advanced competitor. One is loss of motivation to strive as competitors approach their perceived technical limit. Practice and learning comes more slowly and the athlete may not perceive the need for further learning - there is no further competitive drive. Since I am the best in the USA, a national champion and a member of the USA team - do I need to really kill myself to go any further or am I so good, am I so great I do not need to develop further? Have I have reached my highest standard of perfection that I do not need to push myself any further?

The other problem for the elite competitor is that skill refinements come more slowly and coaches may not understand how to refine skills at the advanced stage to succeed in competition. The coaches also may be satisfied with having national champions and competitors on the USA team and not be as concerned about having World Champions. They probably wouldn't admit this, however.Maybe the problem is that the competitor, seeing the coaches role as limited may not perceive the need for a true coach to help him. This was discussed in an earlier article.

You can be as technical as h--l, but that will not solve the problem of winning. This is the problem of the coach and coaching education will provide the correct methods for determining the best solutions and how to implement these solutions. Perhaps the only thing I learned when I went to college that I still use today is how to find the right answers and the first step is knowing where to go to find out.

The athlete must be taught how to reach his highest limits of competence. The coach must do this. Sine qua non. (Without which nothing!)