September 20th, 2011 
admin Martial Arts Drills Don’t Have To Be Boring.
Boring Martial Arts Drills
In fact martial arts drills should be dynamic and exciting because a drill needs to be performed hundreds, often thousands of times for the desired skill to be learnt. Only through repetitive practice will the martial arts drill become a reflex or habit.
Martial arts drills can be short and simple such as transitioning from a normal attention stance to a fighting stance. The act of repeatedly stepping back into the fighting stance with one foot back, weight evenly distributed on both legs, front knee slightly bent to help shield the groin from a possible front kick… all of this is comes together in a martial arts drill. Repeating this movement 1000 times will make it a natural movement. If someone pushes you then you will naturally fall back into this fighting stance and be ready for action.
More complex martial arts drills are commonly referred to as Katas. Katas vary across all the martial arts styles but their purpose is always the same. It is an organised way of training and drilling techniques, stances, blocks, strikes, etc so that they become a natural movement. Essentially a Kata is a complex martial arts drill. Katas can be broken down into smaller parts and practiced as mini martial arts drills to focus on areas that need improvement the most.
Many instructors will use short martial arts drills for kids to help them learn more complex movements step by step. By isolating elements of a Kata or technique it is easier to teach the junior students. Have them practice a right handed inside hammer fist block, and a right front bll kick as two separate martial arts drills. When they can perform both actions with good technique have them combine the martial arts drills to create a possible defence from an attacker grabbing their shirt.
Martial Arts Drills Are Repetitive!
Kids often find martial arts drills boring because they hate doing the same thing over and over. While martial arts drills are necessary locking in good techniques they can make training boring and uneventful. Turning martial arts drills into games is the best way to beat this problem. Using Martial Arts Games that are built around specific skills will get the kids to train harder and not lose interest.
While practicing martial arts drills is essential for all martial artist, both adults and kids, it is often ignored. Only the most serious and focussed students will take the time to perform martial arts drills in their own time. Instructors are always complaining that the kids forget everything from one lesson to the next because they don’t do their martial arts drills at home. Kids find it boring and without adult supervision most just won’t do any training until they are back in class and now You have to teach them the same martial arts drills again because they forgotten them.
The main reason for martial arts drills is to teach the body how to move and react quickly so that two great things happen when under pressure: 1. You don’t freeze while thinking about what you should do because your body acts on reflex, 2. You maintain great technique because you have trained to do it correctly so many times that it is hard for your body to do it any other way. Practicing martial arts drills consistently will add speed and power to all of your movements.
Don’t let the excuse of martial arts drills being boring hold you back. Martial arts drills are as exciting or as boring as you make them. Look for new ways to take some boring martial arts drills and spice them up into a challenge. Taking a simple martial arts drill for striking and adding some moving targets or a time limit challenge can breath new life into.
While it’s important to train martial arts drills often it is also really important to train them correctly. The only thing worse than not training is training your martial arts drills badly. If you are bored and unfocussed then you are wasting your time and installing bad form into your techniques. If you practice a martial arts drills 1000 times for blocking a straight punch to your head but don’t lift your hand high enough to block properly then chances are you will fail to block the same punch during a fight.
Fun Martial Arts Drills
Games using martial arts drills as the foundation work extremely well with kids. The kids love playing games so they will happily play the game without realising that that are actually performing their martial arts drills. This also means that they often play these games outside of normal training times so they are finally practicing their martial arts drills at home, either alone or with friends. They may even encourage friends to join them in their martial arts training because they have so much fun.
Short Martial Arts Drills Are Best
Martial arts drills are best kept short so that the focus is clearly on one aspect. Isolating movements out of Katas or breaking down techniques into short martial arts drills is a great way to perfect the main elements. While katas teach a flowing string of techniques and movement it is easy to do small sections porrly and get away with it because it is only a small part of the kata. If you separate out those weak spots and train them as martial arts drills until you have made them strong then your full kata will be significantly stronger the next time you perform it.
I know how hard it can be to try and get students to train at home, but if you really want to excite your young students and get them practicing at home then you need to this simple method to your lessons that works amazingly well.
This method is so simple to add to your lessons and you can get instant access to proven martial arts drills, games and challenges right now by clicking on the picture below…
