Mirrors

[AngelaG]

Do you think mirrors are a good thing or a bad thing when you are training?

I think they are very good for adjusting stances and seeing what is going wrong, but we run the danger of them becoming "crutches". One can have too much of a good thing

Angela

[andym]

I've never trained in front of mirrors personally but I can see them helping, like you said, with stances etc. But....I also think it is better to be able to adjust said stance without the aid of them, especially as crutches don't reflect very well

[Aefibird]

I hate mirrors!

We have them at my dojo but we train 'sidewards on' to them usually, so that we're not looking at them all the time - only if Sensei gets us to specifically train facing them (so that we can all see how cruddy we look, lol).

The mirrors in my dojo are wierd, though. If you look at one of them in a particular way it makes you look like you've lost loads of weight suddenly. It makes you look really thin! It's not one of those 'fairground' mirrors that distort you but it does the same job. It's been up on the wall so long it's probably gotten a bit warped and out of shape. It probably doesn't help it to have sweaty karateka banging into it on a regular basis either...

I think that mirrors can be OK to use sometimes, but people shouldn't rely on them when training. IMO it's better to get a 'feel' for correct technique than have to look in a mirror to see correct technique.

[AngelaG]

Some of the mirrors in the dojo make me look fat, others make me look tall and thin. I make sure I stand in front of the latter one! ;D

I think mirrors are great for when you are learning something. You can correct the technique until it looks correct, and then stand there and get the "feel" of it. Hopefully one day you'll be able to do the technique from nothing but the feel. I'm not sure when all these transitions come about though.

They can distract though. Instead of focusing on what you are doing you can focus on the mirror. Either to see if what you are doing looks ok, or to check out what your hair is doing. haha

(I use the universal "you", not referring to somone "you)

[andym]

I'd definately be checking my hair!

[Aefibird]

lol, I think that's partly the reason why Sensei gets us to stand sideways on to the mirrors - HE would be the one always checking his hair if we faced them all the time.

Angela, I want one of those tall & thin mirrors!

[thingy]

Yeh I've on occasions trained in front of mirrors and I've found it very useful. I'm not sure I'd want to always be training with them there though, as has been said they can be a little distracting at times, not only in what you're doing but you sometimes become aware of some kid in the background picking his nose and that's that.

Seeing a video of yourself can be helpful too, though a tad distressing having to watch yourself. I remember once seeing a video of me doing a kata, and I ended up writing a page of A4 full of mistakes and imperfections, and feeling generally depressed about my inadequacies. Good times.

[Aefibird]

Yes, video's can be good, especially when you go back and watch old ones of yourself. I saw one of me that was shot about 2 1/2 years ago and I was "OMG-ing!" all the way through it. It really highlighted to me how much I've improved.