The forgotten 3 stages of training martial arts techniques .

Hello and welcome to Interception Martial arts Hull’s Blog. This week we will talk about the process of learning a new martial arts technique. Don’t forget to share or click here to follow us on Facebook or Instagram. 

Stages of Martial arts techniques. 

There are many philosophies on how to train Martial arts & Self Defence. Some people think training should be “alive” which means against a resisting opponent. Other people think you need to drill and perfect it before sparring…sadly some people don’t even spar.

While I am at it if you don’t spar, you won’t be ready for a fight. 

Not including sparing comes from two different ways of thinking. 1) It’s only a fitness class if that’s the case don’t market it as self-defence and stop ripping people off. 2) People don’t spar because the instructor doesn’t like it or has little experience. Either way again, stop ripping people off. For a small piece on bringing sparring into you training look at last weeks blog here 

My personal view on self-defence training

I fit in the second philosophy, train it, learn it and then spar it. However, this blog is not about martial arts training. It is about how to learn a martial arts technique. 

Any martial arts or self-defence technique can be broken into many steps, as many steps as you want. I will do more on this another time this week I, want to talk about the three forgotten steps of training Martial arts techniques.

The three stages of martial arts technique – in order.

Drilling self-defence or martial arts technique is like telling a good story it must have these steps:

1. Beginning
2. Middle
3. End

You would think each step was self-explanatory. However, you would be wrong. (For the rest of the article, we will use the example of jabbing a focus mitt.)

Most people involved in martial arts technique training would think the following:

1. Beginning – Being on guard, preparing to hit. 
2. Middle – Adding movement IE – extending your arm, dropping your chin and stepping forward. 
3. End – Striking the pad, as had as you can.

Training martial arts techniques, correctly. 

What we are going to do is take a more bird’s eye view of your self-defence training when practising. There is nothing wrong with these steps above, however, let’s believe we have all moved passed the actual “learning” of a martial arts technique, we’re going to be drilling & improving it.

This is what I think the three steps are at this point. 

1. Beginning – Stood on guard as before.
2. Middle – throwing the jab, using mechanics and focus and hitting the pad. 
3. End – Returning to being stood on guard. 

Step three is so important and the most neglected part of any skill training. Every person who has done any martial arts and self-defence training has at some point neglected it, some of you would not have done it ever!

Everyone one of us has thrown a Jab (or kick, headbutt etc, etc.) hit the pad and then relaxed and returned to our starting position like we are talking a country walk. If you say you have not, you’re lying. You may not now however you have done it in the past.

Returning to on guard when self-defence training. 

It is a must after throwing a punch, kicking or any other weapon you must have your body in the correct position to do it again. If you have to move to be in balance and be on guard, you are already too slow. 

You cannot practice hitting and dropping your guard. Then expect that you will never do that in a real fight. We are all creatures of habit, so make those are the correct habits.

Counting your technique reps.

All the people I train have heard me say this 1000’s of times. 

“Do 20 sets of 1, not 1 set of 20” 

What this means is each set of three steps should have a gap in between. You can then ensure you have returned to the correct position and can give each rep all your focus. 

When you do 1 set of 20 most people get on autopilot, lose focus and hit to a beat, and look like an impression of a metronome. 

Losing focus is where the bad habits form. That then costs us when we need these martial arts skills most. 

Drilling a martial arts technique should not look like this:

1. Beginning – Being on guard, preparing to hit. 
2. Middle – Adding movement IE – extending your arm, dropping your chin and stepping forward. 
3. End – Striking the pad, as had as you can.
4. Repeating as fast as possible to get the rep out. 

There is no practice of returning to position and ensuring your guard is up. 

Drilling martial arts technique should look like this:

1. Beginning – Stood on guard as before.
2. Middle – throwing the jab, using mechanics and focus and hitting the pad. 
3. End – Returning to being stood on guard. 
4. Leave a gap, refocus and repeat. 

This way you can give 100%, the person training you can feedback. You also train how you would fight. 

Once again if you have got this far, thank you for reading. 

Take some time and read my other blogs and keep training

Paul