Practice, Practice, Practice.

SWKA just had a great weekend seminar with Mr. Rich Hale! I hope everyone learned as much and I did and had as much fun!! As always Mr. H covered many things in his seminar but one that really seemed to stick out is the one I'm going to share with you guys today. :) We have all heard the phrase; "practice makes perfect." Well that's not exactly true. 

Mr. Hale used the analogy of someone learning how to play an instrument for the very first time; you can't expect to pick up a guitar and strum on the strings for hours and hours and music just begin to play. You have to learn chords, notes, how to tune it etc. Then when you practice you have to practice correctly. CORRECTLY is the key. 

Bringing it back to Kenpo; if you go to practice and you say "I'm going to practice by throwing 100 left snapping front ball kicks today," there is a chance that as you practice your kicks sloppy. You may start to pull your kicks, or your "snapping" becomes more like "flopping." So if you practiced a kick 100 times but became tired around the 40th kick them you most likely practices kicks 41-100 worse than kicks 1-41. 

Mr. Hale's suggestion is this, practice a kick correctly say 20 times, (or whatever is a comfortable number for you), then switch to something else. Kick with the rear foot or work your strikes in a horse stance, just change it up so whatever you are practicing you're doing it correctly and benefiting each time. 

Forms are a bit different when you're practicing to make them better. Mr. Hale's suggestion is when you practice your forms find individual pieces to place a focus on. Example: practice Short Form 1 five times in a row focusing only on your foot placement. Solid Neutral Bows, no fidgeting of your foot before transitioning into your next stance, etc. Then focus the next five practices on something different, such as keeping your eyes straight forward rather than glancing up and/or down, or focus on generating solid power in your blocks, or generating rotational force. The point is to keep your mind and body from becoming stagnant during your training. 

Mr. Duffy has a phrase that I am particularly fond of; "Practice makes permanent."

What I want you to take away from this post is that you will always get out of training what you put into it. Slow to learn, slow to forget.