How many hours a week are you at your dojo?

[ShotokanKid]

How many hours a week are you in your dojo (during classes)

So far, I do 5 hours a week but starting next week, It will be 9 hours per week.

[Enviroman]

4-6 mostly...it's much harder to put in 7+ hours a week if you're married, work a full-time job, and/or have other commitments. I noticed once I hit college my extracurricular time went way down...due to a heavier work load, internships, relationships, etc.

[MasterH]

I'm working toward opening my own club so I'm trying to spend more time with my 4 y/o before it all happens.

[sdargie]

Roughly 12 hours a week including morning sessions, helping with the junior class at night, the senior normal and advanced classes and the weapons and sparring classes on the weekends.

[Manabimasho1]

How many hours a week are you in your dojo (during classes)

So far, I do 5 hours a week but starting next week, It will be 9 hours per week.

I am an Instructor for Grandmaster Casarez, the G.Master to my system of course and we work together often. One week he had to have leg surgery and left the Instructors and Assistant Instructors in charge for 2 weeks and I and another had keys to the Dojo.

The students wanted to practice 4 days out of a week or more and expressed how they would do everyday if they could. I agreed to open up every day for 5 hours a day and I brought in my Speedbag and some training stuff and promised if anyone showed up we would go over stuff.

At first everyone almost popped in for the next 3 days. After that it slowed down. In the last week almost noone came in so During our normal days I announced we were shutting that down and going back to the orginal days of opening.

I told the Grandmaster of this and he said it didn't suprise him. He told me he used to have other classes and people would start to miss 1 day out of a week, then 2, then they seemed to only go when they could. If you make it known that for only 2-3 days of the week that your Dojo is open people will come and train, But if its open all the time they don't for some reason.

So for this reason we only have 3 days of class 6-10 Tuesdays Thrusdays and Saturdays 6-9 I am at everyone but I could and would train every day if Grandmaster would allow us.

[Skeptic 2004]

I've been trying to resist answering questions like this since they get asked a lot, but I guess I'll answer anyway. I spend roughly 15 hours a week in class, and perhaps an additional 2-5 hours outside of class (depending on my level of preoccupation with something I'd just learned in class).

That aside, someone mentioned that they would train more often if their instructor allowed them. I would like to posit the proposition that if you desire to train so badly, that you should train outside of class as well. The hours your dojo is open should not limit the amount of time you choose to dedicate to your training.

My schedule earlier in the year precluded me from being at the dojo every day like I am now...but I still put in roughly the same amount of time that I do now...between 15-20 hours a week. You can learn just as much if you practice outside of the dojo as you do inside of the dojo, assuming you have good critical thinking skills and have developed a good "kimochi" or feeling for what it is you're supposed to be doing.

Okay...this was a little longer of an answer than necessary.

[Shorin Ryuu]

I've been trying to resist answering questions like this since they get asked a lot, but since Skeptic 2004 did it, I'll be a sheep and play along.

I train about 5 hours in the dojo a week. We have classes Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 5-7:30, but I am only able to make it twice a week due to my schedule (and the fact that it is 2 hours away from my house plays a minor role).

I spend about an hour in class at a place actually in my same town doing Stick and knife (various styles so I won't mention them all...) but I usually don't count that as it is more of a "supplemental" thing to my real focus of training.

On the other hand, I spend on average about 10-15 hours a week training specifically karate outside of the dojo on my own (not including hojo undo with traditional Okinawan training devices about 6 hours a week).

Unsurprisingly, I agree with Skeptic2004's thoughts on the benefit of practicing outside the dojo.

In fact, I wrote something regarding this same topic on page 2 of this thread here (How far would you travel for class): http://www.karateforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=19902&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=10

I will repost it here in case people are lazy...

One thing I've noticed about people is how much many of them brag about how they go to martial arts class X days a week. I think it is great to be able to attend class as much as possible. However, unless you have the time to practice by yourself, you're not really getting the necessary free space for your own development. Don't get me wrong. I love going to class and having the opportunity to discuss concepts and techniques as well as train with my instructor and other students.

I think there is a certain danger in that going to class as many times as some of these people because it makes it less likely that they will train on their own. Not training on your own is disadvantageous. For one, the "class" environment has a tendency to change the dynamics of your training. When there are other people doing kata with you, you have to change your pace to match a consensual tempo. The presence of other people when you are doing sparring or what have you adds that extra layer of analysis to all your sensory inputs. That isn't a bad thing, but sometimes you really need to focus on yourself, especially in regards to biomechanics. When an instructor is there pointing out your faults or explaining things to you, it relieves some of the burden of self-discovery. These are all good things in their context. However, I think it is much more difficult to grow as a martial artist if you are almost always only in the class setting.

I acknowledge the existence of those that train 4-5 days a week and workout much on their own. On the other hand, there are a lot of people that don't fit this model. Most people practice only when they go to "practice". My opinion is that class is only for the learning of new material, the correction of mistakes and the discussion of ideas and concepts. Many people short-change their learning by using class time to go through the necessary repetitions of kata, drills, or whatever they train in. Again, my gripe is with emphasis here. Repetitions and drills aren't a bad thing in class. It's for the sake of correction, discussion and letting the instructor know where you stand. But never, never should it be used primarily for the purpose of getting the material down-pat. That's just a bonus. The building up of repetitions for training in whatever you do should be done outside of class, in my opinion. You may do some things incorrectly, but that's what class is for: to correct those mistakes. Class time is often too short to go through every single thing with corrections as it is, let alone struggling to do something that could've saved precious time (yours, your instructor's, your fellow students').

Getting as much done outside of class ensures the most gets done during class. It's very simple and quite obvious, but many don't do this? Why not? The answer to that lies in busy schedules, conflicting obligations, etc. I understand that. But to those people that go to class 5-6 days a week, I dare suggest it would be better to skip class one night and work out on your own. An added benefit to this is that it really forces you to think about what you're doing. Well, ideally anyway. Once you do that, you'd be surprised what you can learn and come up with on your own. Having an instructor tell you everything and correct everything is nice. But it doesn't mean you're learning. It just means you're copying. At some point or another, you have to start taking those conceptual leaps on your own. It's something most people acknowledge and espouse, but actually don't do rather often. You probably won't discover anything that hasn't ever been discovered before. There's very little that's new under the sun when it comes to martial arts by now. However, most masters didn't become great by simply getting everything from an instructor. There really isn't that much time. They had to figure stuff out on their own. I was once told by Kyoshi Doug Perry, the head of my system for North America that out of all the martial arts knowledge he has, only 10 % of it was shown directly to him. The rest he had to figure out himself. Now math isn't necessarily my strongest suit, but I figure that's 90% he had to figure out on his own. That's quite a bit. I for one am very envious of just 10% of what he knows.

So what does this all mean? It means you got to start thinking for yourself. I don't care what rank you are, but if you're just a carbon-copy martial artist, you really have to turn yourself around. Sure, it's awfully hard to drive down a street without any lights to show the way. But if you're just in the passenger seat, you're not really driving, are you?

[sdargie]

That's a great point that my band director used to make in high school. Class time was not practice time. You were supposed to learn the music at home. Class time was rehearsal time where we were supposed to learn how to put the pieces together as an ensemble. Did this ever happen? Not really and for the same reasons; little time, little actual interest, etc.

I love how these concepts about training and dedication are the same in martial and cultural arts.

[Manabimasho1]

That aside, someone mentioned that they would train more often if their instructor allowed them. I would like to posit the proposition that if you desire to train so badly, that you should train outside of class as well. The hours your dojo is open should not limit the amount of time you choose to dedicate to your training.

Hi, yeah I said that I would train in my Grandmasters dojo everyday, if he would allow it. The thing is I meant what I said. I do train super heavy on off days and hours depending alot to do with how my week was. Normaly outside of class I am helping other classmates to learn how to do moves or something involving the Dojo. If I am not doing that I am exercisersing for my body which could be considered training for MA and I do Iron Body on the side of that.

The above question asked how many hours do you spend in your Dojo, so I answered just that. But Training solo and even with a friend or other student is no where near compared in my opinon to training in the Dojo with my Grandmaster. It would be like comparing training for a 10mile Bikerun to doing the Tour de France.

But I couldn't total the hours I workout considering Martial Arts....I have had alot of deaths in family and friends related issues, and I am a Landlord on the side. This week its been about 2 hours atleast a day offclass training but on weeks and months that i have time I would literaly be all night till 3am studying and working.

I once said in another post that I was far beyond Dedicated, I am literaly obsessed. And I was not kidding....if I were single and with no kids or real responsiablities I would probably work atleast 19 hours every day lol.

[Manabimasho1]

One thing I've noticed about people is how much many of them brag about how they go to martial arts class X days a week. I think it is great to be able to attend class as much as possible. However, unless you have the time to practice by yourself, you're not really getting the necessary free space for your own development. Don't get me wrong. I love going to class and having the opportunity to discuss concepts and techniques as well as train with my instructor and other students.

Wow....the only time I have heard that is from a student whos dojo didn't believe in having the Instructor interact with its students like in even the lightest forms of sparring or teaching. I later learned that student claimed to beat his Instructor 50% of the time when he sparred with him a few times.

I told the student if your master can not impress you at all, and if he can not 100% destory you in sparring or real life combat then what makes you believe he is worthy of teaching you.

I am not trying to be mean, just blunt....but are you having issues with how or what your Instructor is teaching you? Just wondering and do you think he/she could beat you in a sparring game...after all we are all here to learn how to defend ourself, and achieve peace. But I would like to see a Master who can teach both instead of one.