How to Shift Your Martial Art Skills Onto the Fast Track

A lot of training where you repeat mistakes andourselves and consciously work on the right
bad habits doesn't bring you very far. You maytechnique over and over again until we develop
have heard about the saying: the right practicethe right habit and then built on it. If you are
and training improves your technique and bringsserious about your martial art and want to
you forward. This is certainly what you need toachieve your goals and results faster, you can't
do. How about we build on this fact andget past a video log.
incorporate another step and take our skills to aStart to document certain techniques,
whole new level? We add a feedback system,combinations and Katas. Most cameras have a
where we actually see how we progress,date/time stamp as well as audio. My advice: use
evaluate and do the necessary correctionsit! Speak any comment onto the video. No pen
towards perfection of our technique. It is a tool,and paper required! How good and easy is that.
which allows us to compare objectively our skillsOnce you watch yourself in the video, you see
with others, in particular if you competing inhow others see you (Oh, I thought I am better
tournaments.than that). Now you have an excellent tool to
It is no magic pill or a substitute of what you areanalyse your technique and do the necessary
doing, read on to find out. In class you receivecorrection for improvement.
feedback and corrections from your sensei andDo this on a regular basis over a longer period to
higher grades which is an excellent start. But nowbreak bad habits or just for improvement and
it is up to you to take this advice and use it toprogression of your art. After all, we all have
advance your skills.cameras; this is an opportunity to put them to
Here is a little challenge; we are all human, whichgood use. Here is a video of myself in our
can mean, that we fall back (more or less) intobackyard practising one of my grade Katas.
our old habits. The truth is we have to condition