Okay, not the court, but the training hall, at least.
No, I’m not talking about discipline or ranks, but rather sequencing your training sessions.
You can walk into many, maybe even most, martial arts schools and witness them doing training sessions that are more likely to hurt the practitioner than help them.
Here’s how the typical class goes:
Stretch 5-15 min.
Line Drills/Bag and Pad Work 15-30 min.
Step Sparring/Self-defense/Kata, Patterns 15-30 min.
End of class.
This may not be exactly how sessions go, but you get the idea. What’s wrong with that, you may ask? Well, a few things could be modified to help it along:
- NEVER stretch at the beginning of a session. Your muscles don’t like to be stretched when they’re “cold”. Doing so can actually cause tears in the muscle fibers that need to heal before you can stretch again. Also, stretching puts you in a relaxed state – the last thing you want before a hard training session. A better way is to warm up before a session by starting with joint rotations and progressing to more sport-specific exercises (leg swings, etc.) as to go.
- After the warm-up, start with your most skill-sensitive movements first (new techniques, difficult techniques, self-defense, kata, etc.) If you practise these skills while fatigued, your body will remember that way and perform sloppily even while you are fresh.
- End with a cool-down and then a stretch. There are many types of stretching, but I recommend some yoga-like movements. This will help to release tension and relax you as well as speed recovery.
If your sessions resemble my original example, I’m not picking on you, just trying to help. Many martial artists are reluctant to make changes because of the respect for their instructors and how they were taught. I understand this, however, it is your responsibility to get the best training possible, and if you are an instructor, to give the best.
Train Smart. Train Hard.
-Chris
