PROGRESS?

 By Phillip Starr

The instructor walked up to the student who had been struggling to make his way through a basic form. “You need to practice outside of class”, he remarked. “Otherwise, you're never going to get it.”

The student's eyes fell. “Well”, he began...”I've been...”

“No excuses”, the teacher said quietly. “Surely you have 30 minutes to spare sometime during your day? You're still making the same mistakes that I corrected a month ago. At this rate, you'll never get it.”

“I'm just stuck”...the student replied.

“No,” the teacher responded. “In martial arts, you're either moving slowly forward or sliding backwards. There is no 'stuck'. You have to decide what you want to do and then do it. Make up your mind.”

As the student, now red-faced, nodded his head to indicate that he understood, the teacher continued. “If you only practice here, in class, you are missing 90% of your training. It is not possible to make progress this way.” The body must be trained so that it remembers the technique, forms, and so on. Developing necessary things like speed and power is simply not possible without a lot of regular practice outside of class.

An experienced instructor can easily tell if a student has been training outside of class. One of my senior students once asked me, “How do you know?” I laughed and told him simply, “It's magic.” Now he's a teacher and he's quickly developing the very same ability.

Imagine a person who wants to become skilled at a particular sport, or playing a musical instrument, or pretty much anything else...never practicing outside of class? You'd tell me that they have virtually no chance of acquiring any real skill, right? That's equally true of any given martial art. How about a boxer who never practices on his own time? I'm sure you'd agree that his career would never get off the ground. In fact, if he ever tried to use his skills in a self-defense situation, he's come up on the short end right away!

I have a senior student who, like most people, puts in an 8 hour day at work. In addition, he has 3 teenage daughters. Spending quality time with his family is VERY important to him. And he puts in at least 90 minutes of training at home every day. I told him an hour was good (I didn't want him to burn out or take too much time away from his family), but he puts in 90 minutes anyway. He's been doing it for many years...and it shows.