MJS over at Martialtalk posed the question:
What are some things that you feel are important for improving your Kenpo? I’m not necessarily talking about taking up another art, but more along the lines of looking at the material you have, and finding ways to improve it for yourself. I’ll start. There are many things that we can do, but to throw a few out: Digging deeper into your techniques. Its one thing to be able to run thru a technique or kata, but its another thing to really have a solid understanding of what you’re doing. Understanding the basics. Footwork and stance work are a few things that come to mind here. Without those all of your material will crumble under you. Your stances are your foundation IMO, so without that, everything else, such as power, will most likely be lost. So..what does everyone else think makes their Kenpo better? Looking forward to a good discussion. 🙂
My answer was:
Great question – I think this is the kind of thing that forums (fora?) like this could be really good at facilitating due to the breadth and depth of experience here. I’ll break my list into things that I’ve done lately, and things I wish I did. Lately:
1. Go to graduate school to become certified as a Physical Education teacher. Biomechanics and A&P are your friend. This may not be convenient for most. It sure wasn’t for convenient for me.
2. Stop cluttering my brain with 1.7 gazillion responses to a right hand step through punch.
3. Break everything I have down with an eye for structure, body mechanics, and relative position to the opponent.
4. Research the root arts and compare and contrast the techniques with the movements of my forms to enhance the bunkai.
5. Apply everything. Develop a sequence that brings me (and my students) along a path that moves away from ‘punch and stand there’ to a wildly unruly style of attack that continues after you’ve started your technique. Resistance isn’t futile, it’s essential.
What I wish I did:
1. Start steps 1-5 above sooner.
2. Go back in time and never point spar. If I was a football coach and trained my team to get near the endzone, and to kick field goals just outside the uprights, and drilled it over and over again, punishing my team if they entered the endzone or kicked a field goal, my career would be largely unsuccessful against other teams that actually played football. If I was training a fighter and taught him/her to stop every time they got a good shot in I would…uh…never mind.
There’s lot’s more, but this is a start.
What’s yours? Comment here or answer over there.
Some things I think have improved my kempo training are
1. Cross trainging with martial artist of different disciplines.
2. A series fitness program consisting of calastetics, weight training and tons of bag work.
3. realistic sparring and reflex drills.
4. Breaking down techniques and forms and learning to adjust them when you miss or your opponent moves on you
Things I wish I hadn’t done
1. throwing a million kicks and punches in the air.
‘2. definetely point sparring (It teaches you how not to hit)
3. practicing techniques blindly with no thought of reality and without questioning their effectiveness.
There’s probably a million things I could do differently but thats the beauty of growing in the art. We learn from our mistakes.