Mastering a Martial Arts Technique | ART OF ONE DOJO

Raise your hand if you were one of those kids that grew up envisioning yourself as a martial arts master taking on a horde of bad guys in a one-man army of feat and fury. I think most of us were. But as we grew up and actually joined the martial arts, I think many of us began to realize that mastering martial arts techniques involves a little bit more than just painting the fence or standing the deck for a week. But what really goes into mastering the martial arts technique? What should you focus on? How long does it take? And how do you know it works? Let's talk about it. If you haven't grabbed your own Goju-Ryu t-shirt yet, then you can take advantage of the shameless plug. The holidays are coming up and what better way to celebrate than by wearing a Grandmaster's face? Pick one up as a gift in our store under this video or from the link in the description. Mastering a Martial Arts Technique. And notice I'm saying specifically technique and not style. Every martial art style out there has a different approach to teaching and application, but I think today's discussion can apply to most, if not all arts, because it involves focusing on a fundamental level. I'm going to risk starting this by saying when it comes to making the martial arts effective, simple techniques work. Complicated techniques usually don't. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. How ironic coming from a Kenpo guy, right? I know our techniques have 472 steps in each one, but the point still stands. Let's take boxing and Muay Thai for example. These arts are highly competitive and spend a significant amount of training devoted to sparring and high pressure application, so what works best is on full public display. And what works is usually the simple stuff. And even then, it's only going to work with enough practice and learning supplemental aspects such as timing and power regulation. But what about those martial arts that teach longer sequences? Are they useless? No, of course not. Put those pitchforks away. For most martial arts that teach them, that multi-step self-defense sequence is usually a series of basic combos stitched together. So speaking on Kenpo's behalf, you can treat our There are individual lessons taught and they are not meant to be memorized and copied and pasted out into a street fight. But within those techniques, there are individual short combos that can be extracted and applied in various scenarios. So if you train in an art that teaches longer sequences, then treat them like a kata. On your own time, break that sequence into smaller pieces. Practice one or two steps at a time and see if you can identify bite-sized nuggets. For example, the Kenpo technique five swords. This is a complicated long sequence based off round attack that is often subject of criticism because a person isn't going to stand there with their arm out letting you hit them all afternoon. Of course they're not, but you can break that technique down into individual two to three step simple combos that can be applied in a variety of situations. So that initial block, sword hand, chop, followed by a palm heel strike. If you just work on that section and practice it over and over, it doesn't take a wild imagination to see the similarities between that and a jab cross combination. It's a similar combo, but it's showing how the sequence can be executed from this blocking position. I actually did this in sparring. I was up against the taekwondo guy and I was beginning to advance at the same time he threw a high round kick to my head. My hands were up and just out of instinct and muscle memory, my arms reacted in that same block and without thinking about it, I launched immediately into that jab cross combination and it connected. I essentially did that first three steps of five swords just altering my weapon from an open hand to a closed one. And if the situation were my front hand returned to my lower position, I could have conceivably continued the sequence with an uppercut if he was still in range. So if you wanted to get more into this tempo debate, then we've already had several videos on the channel about that that you can watch, but the point I'm making here is simple works. And if you train in an art that has complicated sequences, you can still usually break down those sequences into simple components. And I'd like to use that example to segue into my next point. Muscle memory can be a very effective thing. I mean, if you're continuously practicing the same motions and same thoughts hundreds of times, then your brain begins to forge neural pathways that make it easier and automatic to recall. The more time you can remove from trying to process a situation and reacting to one, the better. Usually you just have a split second to respond to someone else's action. The effectiveness of a defensive action can be decided by a matter of milliseconds or millimeters. So the ability to respond without too much forethought is excellent as long as it's done correctly. Unfortunately, bad habits can be forged way too easily into muscle memory as well. And it's a lot harder to unlearn them. I picked up a couple of less effective habits from my first instructor back in the 90s that still tend to rear their ugly head every now and again. In Kenpo, when we want to advance a retreat, we have specific foot maneuvers to help us do that. Often we'll have a strike to the body that we'll want to drive forward so that we'll step through their stance and use our body weight to back up our weapon and deliver maximum power. But his background was more competitive originally, and his footwork often involved doing a quick little slip step action that allowed him to stay stationary while delivering a quick strike for a point. He wasn't thinking about driving through them for full contact, but unfortunately I picked that habit up. And I did that for about 10 years. When my second instructor took over, he had to work with me a very long time to correct this. And let me tell you, it was a lot harder to break that habit than it was to develop it. And even these days, once in the blue moon, that little son of a maneuver will still slip its way in there. So it's extremely important that when you're learning something for the first time, whether it be a single step, maneuver, or combo, that you go slow at first and make sure you are learning it correctly. Your instructor should make those adjustments for you, but do not try to rush to memorize something new just for the sake of getting through it. You'll only get into trouble that way. Slow becomes smooth. Smooth becomes fast. Practice both sides. If it's a punching combination, particular foot maneuver, or any basic really, try to give as much attention to both sides of your body as you can so that you can react accordingly just in case they throw a mirrored attack. Which brings us to adaptation. Now this is how you know you're beginning to truly understand a technique. When you can read a from a different attack than you're used to, or making alterations to your strikes or targets, or adding more moves or after. When you can react to an unexpected action and make changes on the fly, that's when you know that you are beginning to understand the technique in an effective way. And on that note, I just wanted to congratulate a very close friend and brother, Michael, who recently tested for and achieved his first-degree black belt recently after more than 20 years of working hard for it. He faced a lot of setbacks and obstacles over the years, but he stuck with it, worked hard, and he earned it. Congratulations, Mike, and if you're watching this, I am extremely proud of you, brother. And I bring this up because he demonstrated that adaptation on his test. His uke didn't attack on him, got confused, and grabbed him on the wrong arm, or the wrong side. Without stopping and asking for a reset or correcting his partner, he performed a mirror image version of the technique on the fly, making it work anyway. We've said this many, many times on the channel before, but take it from me. When we're testing you, we would much rather see you adapt and make it work even when things go wrong than to stop and reset the technique to do it the right way. Just saying. So there is a physiological reaction our bodies have when we're faced with danger. We recognize a threat, our brains kick into a fight-or-flight response. As a result, adrenaline surges through our body and blood supply is prioritized through fast-acting muscle groups and smaller motor functions. This explains how sometimes people are observed to have feats of strength in an emergency or able to dodge and flee so quickly. But as resources get allocated, there is a trade-off. As a result, our cognitive ability to take in, process, and decide how to respond diminishes. Peripheral vision, memory, and coordination may also be affected as well. And that's why simple works. In a true emergency, our brains are not going to be able to stop, scroll through our technique rolodex, decide on a sequence, and then apply a long, coordinated response. It's just not realistic. What is going to work are the simple moves and combos. Maybe you learned them as a two-step combination, or maybe you learned them as part of a 20-step sequence. I have personally used a couple techniques in sparring and in real life, but they were pieces I extracted and responded to on the fly. I recognized key positions and without much thought, muscle memory kicked in and I was able to adapt to those changes on the fly. So let's get back to the question. How do you master a martial arts technique? What should you focus on? The fundamental drills. Whether a single move or part of a large sequence, focus on the simple things. Identify what makes the move work and How long does it take? I know this sounds like a cop-out, but as long as it takes. Everyone learns and develops at a different pace. You may have to practice something hundreds of times or even thousands. How do you know you've put enough time into it? When it becomes muscle memory. When you can do it smoothly at full speed, effortlessly. How do you know it works? Well, you'll know it works when it does. Once you have it smooth, work with a partner. Have them push and test you. Try to pull off the technique under live attacks and when you can do that, have them resist and oppose you and see if you can do it again. When you can apply the technique on the fly with little or no forethought and adapt it to unexpected scenarios, then you know you're heading in the right direction. So if you are a beginner in the martial arts, I personally feel that today's topic is vital for your early start. If you are a veteran, then hopefully this helps spark some ideas and it's always worth going back to our basics and putting them to the test. It's surprising sometimes to see what we can still learn from our white belt material. Hopefully these tips help your endeavor in mastering a martial arts technique. It's about recognizing the solution, not memorizing the sequence. If you can do that, your body will remember for you. So let me know in the comments below what your favorite or most effective techniques are. Have any of you out there pulled off any long, complicated sequences? I did see a good friend once pull off a mostly complete Kempo sequence called Squeezing the Peach in sparring recently and if you're not familiar with it, YouTube it and you'll see just how surprising that really is. Thanks for watching.