Hours per week?

[OverDose]

howdy,

how many hours a week do you find effictive to accelrate skill?

i was thinking about 8hours, + 4hours of weights

any advice?

cheers,

[ladyhawk]

Hello Overdose,
You're going to have to be a little more specific here.
What type of skill? In general I believe serious martial arts training is a life style so we are always training thru out our everyday lives.

[OverDose]

form, reflexes and speed

[ladyhawk]

I think it depends upon the individual. Everyone has their own pace. Some catch on to things quickly while others struggle. A person's mindset and physical makeup have to be taken into consideration. Each person knows their limitations and the areas
that require more attention. I have good upper body strength but do to injuries I have to work harder to maintain leg stregth. On average I train about 12 hours a week. This doesn't count the strectching that I do in the mornings and before bed. I often get together with a friend outside the dojo for sparring. This is usually spur of the moment so I don't count that in my hours either.

[Artful Dodger]

That's a tricky one. It depends on your lifestyle and how much time you have to train. I do 3 hours in the dojang, because thats all they offer. It's not enough to develop much skill. I train at home on patterns every morning for an hour, and do technique training and kicks about 6 hours a week. So thats 10 extra hours on martial arts, plus I do about 4 hours weights in a week and 6 hours worth of running. (this is the plan anyway, sometimes it doesn't work). The point is you need to have a plan that will work, otherwise its easy to just flag it. So make it realistic. But every week I notice an improvement in my skill level. You can spot the people who only do the twice a week training a the club. They hardly progress at all, and any progress they do make hasn't got any substance to it. Basically the more you do the better you're going to be.

[stump]

It depends on your level. Some people recommend that beginners and lower grades train twice a week for fear of over-enthusiasm and burnout if they train more than that. I've seen it happen quite a few times when people dive in to training and give up fairly quickly, because they can't keep up that intensity both physically and mentally.

The longer you train the more you're able to train for longer in the week without this being a problem - Andy made the point earlier - when motivation for training becomes largely intrinsic and not so much external

[Freeform]

I aim to do between 3-5hrs a day but that normaly includes conditioning work like cv and weights. For beginers I'd say half an hour each day outside of class time would be pretty good, oh and you can have the weekends off, ;)

Thanx

[LilBunnyRabbit]

I usually just fit training in whenever I've got spare time, at work for example I usually get a good three or four hours of training while there are no customers in the shop, and another hour during lunch.

[Silver_no2]

It depends if you are talking about purely MA training or all training. I play basketball once a week and am just getting back into playing water polo. While neither of these activities are specifically to do with my MA training, they do help to improve my cv ability (which is exceptionally poor at the moment :( ).

[Freeform]

I personally believe that weight and CV training should be part of your MA training. We have much better ways of developing strength and stamina than practicing kata all day.

So Silver I would say your basketball is part of your training. Just don't get confused ;)