Four Keys to Mastering Technique
Have you ever been working on a specific technique and you just stink at it?
If you’re like most people, once you start having a problem with it you start to do what most people do – try harder.
You start punching or kicking harder; you try to go faster. When in doubt – mash it.
Unfortunately, trying to practice and master anything that way only makes it worse. Pretty soon, you wind up lying face down on the floor, kicking and screaming like a two-year old that didn’t get his popsicle.
When you are practicing and working on mastering a technique, there are only four moving parts that can be the problem and by slowing down – you can identify which part you’re having problems with and move forward from there.
Last night I was working with two martial artists on a combination punching and kicking drill and at one point, they were making mistakes in all of these areas.
The first one – and most common – is distance. If you are too far away – or too close – it won’t matter how sharp your skills are. You won’t be able to launch your attacks, hit your targets or evade and counter with any effectiveness because your distance won’t allow you to use your strikes and footwork effectively.
One of the guys I was working with last night was doing a great job of closing the distance and striking, but he was getting too close to his opponent and couldn’t get his punches off with out getting trapped or clinched. Not good.
Second is your timing. Your distance can be spot on but if you are too slow to hit your target when the opening is there – or if you launch too early – you might wind up out of position yourself and get blasted.
Third is your footwork. Bruce Lee said in the Tao of Jeet Kun do that without proper footwork, no fighter could ever be effective.
Place your feet in the wrong spot, or use the wrong footwork in the wrong range, and you can find yourself in deep doo-doo.
Last is the one that fires me up as an Instructor most of all – body mechanics. That means being able to deliver all of your energy and weight in to all of your strikes kicks, traps, takedowns and submissions. All of them.
Every strike –every move you make – has to count. If you can reach out and touch your opponent, it should hurt him – every time. Why throw anything out there that if it lands, will only piss your opponent off?
If you weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet, then you simply must be able to deliver that palm strike to the bad guy’s nose with all one hundred pounds. You do that and he’s going down.
You hit him with anything less and he’s gonna get mad – and then get you.
After the two guys I mentioned struggled for about ten minutes, I stopped what they were doing and explained these four areas. Then, I told them I would leave them alone and be back in ten minutes to see if they had figured things out.
I’m happy to report that when I returned, they both had huge smiles on their sweaty faces because they had looked at those four areas and figured it out all on their own.
Concepts like these are all over the Shaolin Secrets Volumes I & II. To see for yourself, get over to http://www.shaolinsecrets.com.
Best,
William Huff