Which Is More Important?

[Soheir]

That's obvious (for me). The experience.

[bushido_man96]

Experience is what helps you figure out when and how to apply the techniques that you know. Experience is key.

[Benoitt]

Why everything has to be white or black? Like belt . If you want to be the most skilled, you need to have the best balance between experience and technic. This is what's working for me at least.

[sensei8]

Great replies thus far...thank you all...keep them coming.

For me, experience is a matter of paramount importance to the martial artist!!

[Shotokan_Tigress]

Experience I would say. Others have said all the reasons

[sensei8]

Yeah, but the question did not specify that the tehniques will be weak.

I worded the question purposefully the way that I did. See, no one wants to have an arsenal of techniques that are ineffective. So, I just used the word "techniques" for no other reasons than that.

And if you dont even know how to jab properly, you wont get any experience coz you'll get knocked easily

And if one gets knocked out and one doesn't get any experience out of being knocked out, well, then one must've got knocked WAY WAY out.

[bushido_man96]

The thing about experience is that it takes time to build up. So, in a Martial Arts sense, we need to practice our techniques early and often (but not necessarily hundreds of them), so that when it comes time to build experience, we are properly prepared to engage in that experience.

[joesteph]

I voted for the experience. For me, it's sharing with my children (father-sons) and enjoying myself. There are actually relatively few techniques someone needs for self-defense.

When I felt the MA I've been concentrating on with my boys didn't give me the experiences I wanted, I worked another MA into my schedule, even if it cut into my first MA's time. I've returned to the original, to continue to share with my children and just study for enjoyment.

There's a topic I once posted called Knowledge-based Training. Maybe there should be a topic called Enjoyment-based Training.

Edited November 29, 2010 by joesteph

[DWx]

Yeah, but the question did not specify that the tehniques will be weak.

And if you dont even know how to jab properly, you wont get any experience coz you'll get knocked easily

In my post I didn't mean that your techniques would be weak; you could have a killer sidekick but not know how and when to use it, or have the experience to be able to set up for it. Even if you trained a whole range of techniques to be really powerful, you still need the experience using them because without being able to give yourself the opportunity to do the technique, its useless.

[joesteph]

It seems that I'm looking at:

- The experiences one attains while on their MA journey?

in a personal way, especially since I see the word "journey" in the question. When we say "experiences," are we speaking of what one encounters as one's life's experiences, particularly in the MA world, or honing martial arts skills?