Shaping - Forward and Backward

WHAT IS SHAPING?

According to Rushall and Siedentop, shaping is a strategy for teaching new behaviors and modifying old behaviors (Rushall, 1972). They further discuss what is involved in developing a shaping strategy:

1. the definition of a terminal topography,

2. the sequencing of steps of closer approximation to the terminal behavior,

3. the use of primes and prompts to produce performance variations, and

4. the use of reinforcement.

WHY DO JUDO COACHES NEED TO KNOW THIS?

If you don’t have a strategy for where your players are going, are you actually coaching? I don’t think so. Some coaches have a curriculum map, I certainly do. But that map doesn’t do much for actually teaching the skills, and developing a repeatable methodology is my greatest concern. After all, my goal is to create better judo players and teachers.

FORWARD SHAPING AND BACKWARD SHAPING

Have you ever gone to a class, a clinic, or tried to learn how to do something and the person or group teaching started at the beginning and worked their way to end? If you have, and I’d say everyone has, then you’ve experienced forward shaping. It’s the normal way most people learn to teach something, start at the beginning and work all the way to the end. It’s simple, but it does have a few problems.

First of all, in judo we aren’t concerned so much with how to start, but getting the end, the Ippon, hold-down, strangle, or Kansetsu, right. In forward shaping, however, we concentrate extensively on how to start not how to end. We also introduce opportunities for students to get confused between the beginning and the terminal component. A confused student will make mistakes when it comes time to use the training they received whether it’s in a tournament, randori, or self-defense.

Backward shaping takes the whole process and reverses the teaching stages. Let’s use falling as our teaching subject. In order to make sure students start falling correctly and safely, we should start teaching students, using the backward shaping model, on the ground with their body properly positioned. Once they have the proper position have them relax then, on command, have them get right back to proper position. After they have completed a number of successful evolutions of proper placement the instructor could move to the next step and continue this pattern until the student is doing standing or leaping falls with no hesitation or incorrectness.

A sample backwards shaping list for a back could be as follows:

1. Student laying on their back in the proper position

2. Student raises their hands to an appropriate position then slaps

3. Student rises to a sitting position with their hands in the appropriate position then rolls back and slaps

4. Student rises to a squatting position with their hands in the appropriate position then rolls back and slaps

5. Student rises to a standing position with their hands in the appropriate position then squats and rolls back and slaps

6. Student stands with their hands in the appropriate position then performs a back fall skipping the squatting stage and slaps

7. Student stands with their hands in the appropriate position the jumps into the air performing a back fall and slaps

This may seem like an obvious progression for most instructors and I think it is. This step-by-step process is quite obviously backward shaping. But how can we use backward shaping for the various waza or kata? That’s where the coach or instructor’s creativity comes into play. For example, I teach Nage no Kata starting with the falls and work backwards to the full waza. This gets really interesting in the case of big throws like Kata guruma (I haven’t figured out a backward progression on that). But my list of how to teach Uki otoshi for Nage no Kata follows (Uke’s part):

1. Uke steps in the kata fashion then, on the third step Uke performs a shoulder roll fall

2. Uke and Tori face each other, without gripping or placing hands on each other, Uke and Tori begin the kata’s stepping motion, on the third step Uke does the shoulder roll fall while Tori plants his or her knee on the mat adjusting his or her body appropriately.

3. This step is similar to Step 2, however, Uke and Tori both place their hands appropriately without gripping each other.

4. Again, this step is similar to Step 2, this time Uke and Tori grip each other.

That is a quick example of how to teach Uki otoshi using a backward progression model. If we teach it from the beginning with Uke and Tori gripping the final result will include errors because they don’t understand all their parts well enough to compile them into one continuous and harmonious flow.

Try changing some of the ways you teach various waza to a backward progression and see if you get better results. I know that I did.

Many thanks for introducing me to the concepts of forward and backward shaping go out to Gerald Lafon.