What can I do to improve my martial arts when outside of the dojo, or in the gym? This is a question we've been asked here at MAP several times over the years and the answer is only limited by the amount of time you have and the amount of effort you want to put in. Here is a list of qualities and principles that we should all be covering in our training. Strength On a basic level strength is gained via the overload principle. That is to say you overload the muscles via resistance. The muscle is broken down during the exercise and repaired during rest periods. This continuous break down and repair leads to stronger muscles and greater strength. Weight lifting and access to machinery isn't required and outside of the gym there is much that you can do. A training bag filled with books can take the place of a sand bag for example. This can be placed on the shoulders for a squat workout, or swung around the body to replicate "around the worlds." [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWpq3lX8s5I"]Shoulder Workout - Sandbag Around-The-Worlds - YouTube[/ame] Simple press up variations, hanging leg raises, pull ups etc, can all be done in a local park on the climbing frames. Muscular Endurance Muscular endurance is the ability for a muscle, or group of muscles to continually perform contractions. Simple circuit training can be used to develop muscular endurance; so if are at the local park, press ups followed by crunches, then hanging leg raises into pull ups as a circuit repeated several times will develop muscular endurance. Cardiovascular Endurance As the heart is a muscle we can put endurance into the strength category. The heart responds to exercise in the same way as your other muscles and the lungs respond to training by taking on-board more oxygen. To exercise the heart and lungs to be able to perform over longer periods aerobic type activities are necessary. Running, swimming, cycling at a fairly high intensity will build aerobic endurance. Aerobic, anaerobic and high intensity interval training and easy to search for on You Tube, as well as MAP and require little to no equipment. Flexibility When I started training we believed that passive stretching was a good may to start a class and a way to improve our flexibility. We now know that is incorrect and that passive stretching can have a negative effect of our ability when done at the start of a session. Dynamic Stretching is now the way we all (should) be warming up and with movements that replicate those that we'll be performing during the workout. There are many different types of stretching, such as PNF, dynamic, ballistic and so on and the information in the link is the best resource on MAP. Speed There are different types of speed and Bruce Lees in the Tao of Jeet Kune Do lists them as follows: Perception Speed Mental Speed Initiation Speed Performance Speed Alteration Speed Perception speed This is basically how quick you can see opening, or attacks from your opponent. This is maybe a little harder to train outside of the dojo unless you have a training partner, but just having someone throw either a jab, a hook or a body shot and you choosing which defensive movement to do can greatly assist your perception speed. [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbNMcSxX7M4"]Sparring Drills - YouTube[/ame] Last week in class I had Student A (A) throwing a jab, cross, hook, while Student B (B) blocked these shots. B then threw a body show into A. The drill was repeated with B leading and a defending. One movement was added each round, so in the end although the punches were known to each student, it was up to them to make the drill dynamic and select the best defence for each attack. Mental Speed This is the ability to select the right move and counter the opponent. Initiation speed Being on balance and relaxed in order to deliver from an economical base (no get set movements.) Performance Speed Quickness or movement. Now while a punch or kick only travels a short distance there are different acceleration charts. You can be quick of the blocks, but lose power and strength toward the end of the movement. Slow to start but accelerate, or the preferred method- Quick out of the blocks and maintaining strength and speed throughout. This last movement is built through strength, flexibility, balance and cardiovascular and muscular endurance. Alteration Speed The ability to change mid-stream. This requires mastery of your balance (and you could argue your emotions too). For speed training I do a lot of plyometric and partner drills, but many of the factors can be drilled though good shadow boxing, or katas/forms. The book BTEC Sport Performance Exercise & Fitness describes the components of motor fitness under these headings. Reaction Time Training Agility Training Balance training Power Training Coordination Training And the training principles as follows: Specifity (sport specific) Overload Progression Variation Timing Timing and speed go hand in hand. I'm sure you've all heard Bruce Lee say, "it's a long way through the eyes, down the arm to the fist, how much time is lost?" He also said, "ah that one could at once hit with the eyes". I have spent a lot of time over the years doing work outside of class to improve my reaction time and I'm sure my students think I'm mad, but it is something you should add. Here are some examples: When at a red light I sit with the car in neutral and my hands on my lap. As soon as the light goes amber I shout go (made my kids laugh when they were younger), stick the car into first gear and go. That requires a simple trigger (the light), a signal for the muscles to engage and then the physical movements themselves. I also train at work. You walk into the gents toilet for example and someone is coming out. rather than stop and decide who lets who out I chose to use a sidestep, or triangular footwork. This is something you can do (and I do) in the street. The pause over the years gets eliminated, or greatly reduced and you're training the (get set and go) all day everyday, even without a training partner. Broken Rhythm This is perhaps easily explain using a simple jab, cross hook combination. The timing as you read jab, cross, hook is 1, 2, 3. Broken rhythm is on a basic level just going 1, 2.......3, or 1........2, 3. There is a half beat of time between the movements, so 1 and 2, so 2 takes place of the "and". The second strike comes between an opponents movement, so he goes 1 and 2, you hit on the "and". The "and" is the half beat of time. This broken rhythm continually disrupts the opponents timing and makes your own very hard to figure out. Balance Balance may be something as simple as the ability to stand on one leg, but a strong core (the entire trunk) will give you ability to transmit and movement to the extremities of your body (punches and kicks). We covered performance speed earlier, but you'll never be able to hit harder, faster and for longer without a strong core. Many years ago we warmed up with sit ups (I recall doing 600 non stop one session). We now know sit ups aren't a great core exercise and even crunches have gone out of fashion. The problem with crunches (among many problems) is the floor does the stabilising. With movements like the plank your stabilising muscles do the work, not the floor. Here is a very good set of plank drills that require no equipment. [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU0jqP4radE"]Faster Swimming Core Training #1 - YouTube[/ame] So there we have the basic fundamentals that we all should have in our toolkit. This list isn't exhaustive by any means, but hopefully will serve as a guideline to those just starting out, or looking for something fresh to add to their training.
Great thread, Simon. Thank you. Three points came to mind after reading it, which I hope will expand a little bit on the already excellent content you posted. The first point is I've noticed people are increasingly concerned with what they can do to catch up to their better-skilled peers (instructors, champions and so forth). This observation is especially true of adult new starters who have little to no prior martial arts or athletic experience. And it seems more apparent in the last five years than ever before, probably due to the exponential use of social media and other tools of convenience that may be contributing to a general decline in attention spans. Thus the question of "What can I do to improve outside the dojo/gym?" is often accompanied by a subtle tone of impatience. And we all know that attitude brings an increased risk of injury and quitting. So I think as instructors, trainers, coaches or whatever we choose to call ourselves, we have to really emphasise your message, that Progress = (Effory + Consistency) x Time. The second point is with regard to not doing static stretches at the start of a workout (before dynamic movements). Yes, I agree with you generally and it's the message I give to about 95% of people. But for those individuals with significant movement restrictions (usually diagnosed by a physical therapist or clinician of some sort), light static stretches before a workout can facilitate learning proper movements. Of course, "light" is the operative word here - stretching only to the point of initial tension and holding for around 8-10 seconds (instead of the standard 30 seconds). In a perfect world, instructors would have new starters work out kinks in their movement patterns first. Even the most basic martial arts techniques can compound existing musculoskeletal dysfunctions or create new ones as the body tries to compensate. So permitting such students to include light static stretches in their warm-up (and taking steps to make sure: a) it is a temporary aid and not a long-term crutch, and b) the training load, intensity and volume in the main part of the workout is lowered accordingly) can be beneficial. The third point is your use of the word "toolbox" made me want to ask if lists of fundamental techniques, and/or technique repetition (aka "drilling", and methods thereof) should be included also?
Definitely. There some important fundamentals that are individual to our arts, but beginners and intermediates alike would be surprised how many crossovers there are between arts. I think it's often the case, and we see it here on MAP, that even instructors are looking for something secret or mysterious to give them that edge. The chi and power delivery threads spring to mind. Now while I'm far from being an expert on many matters martial I do have a decent understanding of the fundamentals and I'm surprised when high grade students from other classes and styles come to class and have to have their stances corrected. Every golfer has a different swing, but the fundamentals are the same for all of them.
If you take out the FMA and trapping hands you'd recognise what I do as kickboxing with elbows and knees. I always start from a boxers stance, so if someone is from another art I shorten their stance slightly, hands high and elbows in. From their I'd work on soft knees, how to move forward, backwards, side to side and use of angles. From there I'd work on how to use distance and learn what I call their sparring circle (a distance just a few inches out of range). As for kicks I teach beginners how to kick off of the rear leg first. I do this because I find it easier to explain the mechanics. I go through bringing the leg through, pivoting, kicking, back to the chamber position and return to stance. I'm sure we all do something very similar and in the end the chamber position all but disappears, but I want the students to be able to explain the technique to others, rather than just being able to throw a kick. Is this the type of explanation you were after?
I think this is hugely important for student's own understanding, as well as the instructors. I strongly believe that this type of understanding can greatly benefit a person's progression, in that it allows for more specific goals to be set, rather than a vague "get better". Without being able to break-down technique, you can be stuck for ages, or even never improve, certain aspects without some personal "eureka!" moment that you then have to try and work what you did differently (nothing wrong with this per se, but the more an instructor can control that progression, the better IMO). If you um-and-ah and struggle to break down a technique, it shows you do not understand it.
I agree here as well. My trainers and teachers seem to like it as well, that I want to understand the mechanics behind the techniques and don't just copy what I see without asking questions. The Hapkido-trainer even mentioned it - different to apparently most of the others, I *understand* the techniques on a level, that is very good given that I'm not that experienced. I'm having the fear, that this is also the reason, why I often get the new students, to show them the first few techniques. But to be honest: I never thought that was unusual, because I always hated not to understand, why something like a joint-lock would or wouldn't work. I actually needed to get told, that not everybody is interested in the mechanics as well
Some people will not consciously take that kind of explanation in, but I still think it filters down and informs their practice to some degree. Another big element of explaining mechanics is gaining transferable skills. Once you start connecting the mechanics between disparate techniques, you then begin to build a system of principles, rather than a catalogue of techniques. This not only allows you to learn new techniques more efficiently, but also helps give that all-important ability of improvisation. "If x, do y" learning makes it very difficult to learn how to apply techniques in unfamiliar circumstances. Given the unpredictable and chaotic nature of fighting, this is a key skill, IMO.
As I've said before, its not easy to simultaneously condense and elucidate the seemingly incongruous yet correlated principles of MA, pulling together the branches, opening up the core while keeping it an enjoyable read but Simon manages it again.
