"We do not rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training."
- Archilochus, Greek Soldier & Poet, ~650 BC
Sometimes, we can struggle to find the way forwards, unsure of what we need to do to take the next step in our martial arts journey. Here then are five areas to explore within your personal expression of the martial arts that will help you find your way off any plateaus that you encounter:
As functional martial artists, we're used to things happening fast. We focus on being in the moment and allowing ourselves to naturally respond to and dictate the situation based on our training and experience. Thus, it might sound a little funny to start talking about having patience in our games; however, paradoxically, it is this principle that will give us that greatest boosts in our performances in the moment...
There have been over fifty 5 Tips articles now and, looking back, it is interesting to see how many of themes recur as important factors for various areas of our games; one that really jumped out as being important to a whole range of areas was focus...
Kicks can be a major focus of your training or an area you only touch on once in a while. Regardless, it is an aspect of combat that deserves study even if you only wish to defend against them. A word of warning: kicks are time consuming. If you really want to be able to utilise them in sparring and self defense rather than just looking good on the pads, you need to be prepared to dedicate a lot of training time to them at the expense of other areas.
Here are 5 tips to developing great kicks that work:
Start low – kicking to the head looks impressive but for practical success, start by developing solid leg kicks.
Tactics – you need to know when to kick. Set up your kicks rather than just throwing them out there.
Range – develop a keen sense of the correct range for each kick & only use it when you can get or are given it.
Power – focus on developing your power ahead of your speed. A good kick will only need to be landed once or twice to have an effect.
Partnered Practise – prioritise training kicks with a partner and movement over a static bag or target to gain the ability to land kicks out of motion.
No matter how far along the road of your martial arts journey you are, there is always time to spend some time increasing both your sense of balance and your ability to maintain it throughout a variety of pressures and environments.
While we all know people who've made New Years Resolutions and not stuck to them for even a week (and we might even have done so ourselves), we can still take advantage of the calender change to make some great advances to the quality of our lives.
We often dream about the easy life. We see ourselves free of commitments and sitting around enjoying our leisure time...
There are always times when it's worth coming back to your foundation to see if anything needs tightening up. This is particularly true when you spar, as areas which may be super smooth in drills can easily loosen up in a sparring environment. Here then are the top five areas to look at when you're seeking to improve your defensive foundation....
Discover the Modules of Crazy Monkey Defense as taught at Crazy Monkey Martial Arts - Armidale.
Like any industry, martial arts training goes through different phases and fads. One of the more recent of these is the trend towards increased competition and emphasis upon winning within martial arts schools around the world...
Many people can develop the physical skills and techniques they need, but without an effective mental game they find it hard to execute them under pressure...