How long did it take?

It depends on how long it may take you to develop your finish moves. When you have some good finish moves, you then develop your entering strategy (set up) around it. When you have developed both the

- "entering strategy", and
- "finish strategy",

you will start to have confidence in yourself.

 

Sounds like you are being overly critical. If you focus on negatives you are setting yourself up for failure.
Try and look for small gains and be more realistic about progress. It's a long haul and you will go backwards some of the time. This is normal.
You also might be comparing yourself to others. Try and think about what you personally want to get out of it. Some people work better with more focused goals or broad objectives.
For instance, I am stuck with patterns at the moment. I am getting a sort of stage fright when I perform them ever since my last grading. I am bad at the moment but I am slowly getting there. With practice its starting to come together.

 

Simon I am in the northwest, cheshire. Why so?

Fatcat, a lot of people are saying that I am really hard on myself, but it's the little things I notice. I don't expect me to be doing all the things the fighters are doing, but I am really not moving enough and I struggle to see the shapes of shots being thrown so I can avoid or counter. I also struggle with the thai response system, as In being quick enough to score straight back after being hit. Feels like at this point I should be able to do this.

 

That would of been a pleasure, still it's not like we live countries apart, so I don't see why it couldn't happen on my travels.

 

I'm pushing 10 years in Kajukenbo and I still mess up boxing combinations sometimes haha. Nobody is ever perfect. What I've learned from my experience is that when you have a "duh" or "derp" moment, just stick through it, maybe take a second to think about why you didn't get it, then keep pressing forward. When you let yourself give up because of a bad day, that's when you've lost. (Not saying you did, just a word of caution)

I also sometimes just spontaneously practice what I learned or redo it in my head when I'm alone, or at home. Think of application, think of that perfect punch that your instructor showed you, you throwing that combination in a sparring match. Visualizing yourself doing it regularly will help it click faster for you because your mind already knows what it will be doing, its just a matter of getting your body to do it. That's what worked for me, I was absolute trash with curriculum stuff when I was younger ... I'm still young -.- 17, but you catch my drift

Ask your instructor/trainer on ways for you to improve certain things too, it never hurt to ask, they're there for a reason and worst case scenario that they don't know, you've maybe wasted 5 minutes of your time asking, but on the same note, shown your instructor that you truly want to get better. I hear stories in college where smart students fail b/c they don't want to go visit their professor during his/her office hours. More often than not, your instructor has been in your position at some point in their martial arts journey and you may get a good story out of them.

 

Good, that means it's probably working. If you left every week feeling invincible or like a martial demigod, I'd be worried.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a massive right. There are so many ways to deliver one.

 

You will need to have a plan.

For example, you have to force yourself (this is very important, otherwise it won't work) that in the next 3 months, you want to use your jab to hit your opponent's face. You don't care about anything else. You just concentrate on one thing and one thing only, that's "jab meet face".

After 3 months, you have developed a strong foundation on your jab. you then try to use you jab to set up your cross, hook, or, ...

IMO, all MA skills should be developed this way.

 

It takes me on average about a year for training to click. Everyone is different, if you're enjoying what it is you're doing you will naturally improve over time. Try not to compare yourself to others (hard I know), instead try to work on comparing yourself from where you were when you started and where you are now. Practice, patience and perseverance are key.

 

Tom1UK

I am also in Cheshire, out of curiosity where are you training? You can PM me if you don't want to make it public, as I may be able to help you.

 

To me, that time period is 6 months. But I have seen people used 2 years or even 3 years as their time period. After you have developed a solid skill, you will find that you may spend the rest of your life to develop all your other skills around that single skill. One day, everybody know that you are good in that single skill and want to learn from you. You will then become a master of that "single skill". When people start to learn from you, they will find out that in order to be good in that single skill, they have to master 30 other skills to support it. That's how the MA skill development should be.

 

It started to click properly for me after I'd been training for about a dozen years, of which about a year was teaching. I suppose I'd been a brown belt for a couple of years about then.

G

 

So I'm further in to my training now, and I have to be honest I'm still not feeling like I'm picking it up properly. I am very hard on my self in general, and people are forever saying so. But people are never saying that I'm doing well etc either lol. I have yet to leave sparring like I did well, or like I responded well or landed a punch. It's frustrating as I thought over time with me loosing weight and I'm getting fitter I would start to find it easier and obviously push myself harder to ensure I'm still working to the max, but I feel I'm still at the same level as when I started.

 

Everyone is different. The main thing to keep in mind are the pro/positives

Be less concern on how far you come, how well you may or may not be doing'

Be more concern on just the training and follow the trainer

 

Hi Tom. If I'm reading this thread correctly you took up martial arts around March this year (2014). It's only July. You've been at it a total of 4 months give or take a few. That's not a long time in martial arts. Most people to my knowledge take a year to 3 years minimum to become genuinely proficient at a basic level. And even then they still go through rough patches. And it's not uncommon for folk to take a lot longer. Even well seasoned professionals have crap sessions.

Having read some of your other posts I think you perhaps need to accept you're not going to be as perfect as you want to be. It seems as though you already know you're asking too much of yourself too soon. But just aren't willing to admit it.

Being healthier and fitter will certainly make training more enjoyable. It won't however be transformational in respect of skill in any way. So I'd recommend you stop taking yourself so seriously. Leave your ego at home. It gets in the way of training.

Looking back it seems your primary objectives were to lose weight, get fitter and get out more. It seems to me, based on what you've posted, you're on track with what you set out to do. So perhaps it's time to reassess what it is your after.

It certainly seems as though you're more interested now in becoming good at your chosen art instead of just shedding a few pounds.

 

It won't click if you're constantly monitoring your progress - it's like watching the grass grow.
Focus on each single training session, trying every time to do a little better than the previous session.
You'll realize in the long run how far you've come.

 

"It is wike a fringer poiwting to da mune......down't contrate on da fringer oar you wood mriss awl dat heavnry grory"