Practice can be frustrating for beginners
especially when it comes to fine details in internal martial arts. Even long time practitioners can become prone
to becoming unmotivated or feel stagnated by practicing the same things over
and over. Here are a few ideas that may
help both beginners and experienced martial artists alike when it comes to
practicing. These tips not only apply to
martial arts but I’ve found they can apply to any skill.
The most important tip I can give when it
comes to practicing martial arts is to just do it. Just practice as often and consistently as
possible. This is the simplest advice
but it tends to be the most difficult for people. Consistency is the most important aspect of
this. Developing a habit of practice is
crucial to making regular progress. Long
gaps will stall your progression and eventually discourage you. Finding time tends to be the biggest
obstacle, but I think even short practice sessions done everyday for as little
as 15 minutes can be more effective than a 2 hours once a week. If you’re on a tight schedule simply set a
timer and practice until it goes off. In
this way you can concentrate on what you’re doing and not be concerned with the
time. Practicing everyday helps to
reinforce the physical patterns by making them a regular part of your daily
life. You constantly “remind” your body
how to move until it becomes automatic.
So practice and practice often!
The next tip essentially is an aid for
achieving the first one. Conditions do
not need to be perfect to practice. You
don’t need a large space. You don’t need
lots of time. You don’t need
equipment. You don’t need special
clothes. You don’t need to feel
100%. There’s almost no requirements for
being able to practice. All you need is
yourself and the will to do it. Many
exercises and drills can be done in place requiring only an arm’s length or a
single step around. This would be things
like standing practice, five elements, push hands, etc. You can still practice stepping and footwork
in a small space just take one step forward then one step back. Bagua circle
walking is excellent for small spaces.
In addition, limited space is even better to practice in as you probably
won’t have much room in self defense situations. Practicing martial arts doesn’t require any
equipment. Though heavy bags, pads and
other tools are very useful you don’t need them all of the time there’s still
plenty you can work without them. I’ve
done light sparring many times without any equipment. Use it as an opportunity to work technique
instead of going hard. You don’t always
have to be 100%. If you’re a little sore
practice anyway go a bit lighter or simply just warm up more. If you’re tired just start practicing and see
how it goes. Many times once you get
going you’ll feel fine. It’ll help you
sleep afterwards, anyway. As you see
there is very little reason to not get that practice in.
This last tip is mostly for beginners although
experienced practitioners may find this helpful as well. Remember that skill is built over time and
you can’t get everything perfect right away.
This is especially true for internal martial arts. There are a lot of fine details to work and
at the beginning it’s too much to try and get everything. Being a martial artist involves being a
constant work in progress. Making
progress is about getting it right once out of a hundred and eventually
improving that to two, three, and so on until it’s right almost every
time. Keep in mind that perfection is an
ideal to be worked toward but cannot be truly achieved. Also remember that progress can be
non-linear, it doesn’t always follow a straight line. Sometimes you have a breakthrough and make a
lot of progress other times you’ll stagnate this is normal. The key is to always try and improve on
something. If you feel like you’re
stagnating with one aspect shift your focus to another and then come back to
what you felt you stalled on before. If
your push hands feels stalled work on footwork for a while and come back to
it. You may make progress simply by revisiting
it fresh again.
I think these are some important tips that
both beginners and experience martial artists tend to run into. Doing martial arts like all other skills just
requires the will to put in the work and little else. Most problems practitioners encounter can be
solved with simple solutions. I hope
that this can help people in their practice whatever the style or even in
developing non-martial arts skills.
