Kata Practise

[spinninggumby]

It has simply been my personal experience that it does little in terms of progress to train intensely in one form for over one hour at a time, or to train over 3-4 hours overall (including stretching, warmups, weight-training, drills, forms, any physical workout and/or martial arts) even at varying speeds or intensities. Sure I guess I could train for 8 hours a day, spend 3 hours reaching my physical 'peak' and then the last 5 training my 'mind' with a worn out body, but I guess that just doesn't sit well with me. I would much rather spend those 5 hours doing something else I enjoy like either play the piano or eat ice cream. Like I've said, martial arts isn't my whole life. Maybe it's yours. If that is the case then I understand why someone would do this.

 

The idea is to challenge and push your body and mind enough so that it goes just past its limits a bit each time so that eventually you will have built your tolerance and skill up to a higher set point. And of course the intent is to keep raising it since it is a never-ending journey. However, raising and surpassing your limit does not necessarily mean surpassing your previous amount of training time or going until you feel like dying, hence the cheesy term 'quality over quantity'. Contrary to what some people may think, it is not always (in fact it is often not good) beneficial to 'train until failure'. Bruce Lee believed in this and he even went to the extremes to say that a workout was useless unless you put your whole heart into it and exhausted yourself. Not entirely true IMHO He was a great, competent, and skilled man of his time, with an amount of drive, charisma, and committment that would be admired by anyone of any generation or any era. However, the accuracy and practicality of his training theories were still based upon when he was alive (i.e. 40 years ago or so?) and had nothing to do with the impressiveness and high quality of his spirit. Another 40 years from now we will find that we were totally wrong about a training theory which everyone today finds acceptable, helpful, or accurate. Such is the case of that damn modern science

 

 

[YODA]

In my practice of Doce Pares Eskrima I usually do at least one dedicated forms practice session per week - I do each form once - starting with the last & most complex and working my way back to the first form. This takes about 45 Minutes.

 

Other than that I practice with my students as I am teaching them. At the moment I am doinmg quite a lot of them as I have two students going for their 1st Degree Black Belts on March 20th - I think I'm more nervous than they are - LOL!

 

 

[spinninggumby]

Interesting thing about karate training. I was reading Gichin Funakoshi's master text KARATE-DO KYOHAN and found some of his insight on training very peculiar.

 

According to his text, extensive karate practice/training lasting beyond 2 hours at a time is often a byproduct or result of youthful vigor and headstrong enthusiasm and is not necessarily a good thing(even if the attitude is positive). If I remember correctly, he also says that exhaustive or extensive practice should be avoided or approached with caution. In fact, he further goes on to say that practicing kata or techniques for 15 minute intervals a few times a day is quite sufficient.

 

Many of us here on this forum would probably be quick to question this advice and doubt the effectiveness or benefits provided my such a meager training schedule. I am sure that many of us also will ignore this and continue our half-day long workout sessions. However, this is Funakoshi we are talking about, not some McDojo running karate shirt-wearing poser. Just goes to show that either 1) the masters are not always right or 2) the masters are right but often times their true advice and perspective on things go unnoticed due to everyone being caught up in their worship of him/her.

 

In order for exact quotes, the specific words in the text can be specified if needed.

 

 

[AnonymousOne]

I trained in Japan for a year and spoke many times to Sasaki who trained directly under Funakoshi. I have also done 3 seminars with Kanazawa who trained under Funakoshi. I have also read Egami's accounts of training under Funakoshi.

 

All reports show that Funakoshi trained his students incredibly hard. In Funakoshi's autobiography he stated "One must train until they drop from exhaustion and rise again soon with the same strict regimen"

 

All accounts show Funakoshi was a very hard teacher.

 

Egami addressed this issue very well in his book Beyond Karate.