Help with Drills

[Lrtucker]

I was trained up in a combination of three styles. All three trained hand strikes in horse stance standing still, or varying other stances while moving across the floor.

Now I am an instructor and have some adult students who need a little more practice that what I consider traditional training.

Can anyone tell me some good hand striking drills or a page where I can find some?

I have been scouring the internet and can find plenty of kicking drills, but yet almost all striking drills realte to kickboxing and Muy Thai. These types of drill can not really be transferred to shaolin style strikes- or at least not for beginner students. Any help is appreciated.

[MasterPain]

What type of drills? Focus mitts? One step sparring? What style?

[Lrtucker]

The style in Shaolin Kempo. I am lookingg for drills/activities that will work on hand coordination.

At risk of sounding mean, I have four white belts and two yellow belts who are the leasrt coordinate student I have ever had. Before I can ever move to hand mitt, speed striking or other drills, I need a way to build the hand coordination and link it to memory.

[JusticeZero]

The style in Shaolin Kempo. I am lookingg for drills/activities that will work on hand coordination.

What kind of hand coordination? How would you operationalize it? (That is, what will they be able to do when they've got it that they can't now, that will tell you when you're seeing results?)

As far as building correct form, there's not much better than super slow speed mindful technique execution. Either in the air or into something similar to a makiwara. Speed covers many profound sins. When you do the technique very slow, you start thinking "Wait, where IS my elbow supposed to be here?"

[MasterPain]

As far as building correct form, there's not much better than super slow speed mindful technique execution.

Exactly. It's not just for beginners either. I go slow motion on occasion just to check my form.

[Lrtucker]

What kind of hand coordination? How would you operationalize it? (That is, what will they be able to do when they've got it that they can't now, that will tell you when you're seeing results?)

As far as building correct form, there's not much better than super slow speed mindful technique execution. Either in the air or into something similar to a makiwara. Speed covers many profound sins. When you do the technique very slow, you start thinking "Wait, where IS my elbow supposed to be here?"

Agree that being slow and mindful is very effective. I was taught a few drills as a white belt that I still do as part of my warm up before I teach class.

How to operationalize what I am looking for- Great question!

Pardon me as I use this thread as a springboard to realize exactly what it is I want out of them. This way I can use, my peers, to make sure I am pointed in the right direction.

What I mean by more coordinated is a few things rolled in one. First is less clumsy, and more efficent in the movement. For me this came from repetition. Next is mushin. Lastly, is more fluidity- which is really a combination of the two prior.

I have hit a mental roadblock for the solution. I have taught in several venues for 10 years and never had students that struggled this much. I am thinking about this as I type and think part of this is the fact that martial arts came easy to me so I am trying to fuse how to break it down even more for them. Repetition a few times in horse stance pretty much got me to where I needed to be and could move on to working them into more advanced concepts.

Again as I type I am getting a clearer picture in my mind of what the real purpose of my questions was. Here is a little background on these students to help clarify the problem: one is a young teen who has previous martial arts experience and a dad who holds three black belts and despite her working him she forgets blocks and strikes from one class to the next (but not kicks, she's great with those). Another is of similiar age and has grasped things very well, her parents have gotten private lessons for her, but she is also a very busy young person with tutoring, chorus, and other activities and although she will get concepts very quickly she will be absent and forget many of them by the time she is back in class. One is an adult who is uncoordinated and very self aware of it and therefore turns negative very quickly. One late teen who is academically and artisiticly gifted, but has a history of struggling at sports- his parents thought this would be better for him. Lastly, is a 24 year old who has a type of autism that is 1 in 100 million- somedays are great, while others he has the abilities of the average six year old.

I think more of the reason I posed the original question is because the amount of time it is taking this group of students to understand basic concepts. I have spent three weeks covering less material than I learned in my first lesson as a white belt. At every class I seemed to take two steps back. My typical class is structure is Warm up/workout, skill level appropriate basics, then self defense. This cohort is learning so slowly that I have to lower the warm up time and as of this week eliminated the self defense time to work on basics. In fact, today we did a 10 minute warm up and then worked on blocking for some time. We started and I quickly saw I needed to re-explain how to do each block. I then did a drill with a rebreakable board makng sure they are blocking with force. It was like working from scratch. Then we went to moving in front stance and blocking. For the last few minutes of class we reviewed high, low, and middle punch. For a typical class with me, we did not cover a lot.

So I think I have realized what I am meaning by drills is really some **activities** to camoflouge the repition. I know with this cohort that I need to keep it exciting or I will lose their interest. I will not be able to move on until they have the very basics, but I drill nothing but basics for two months I won't have this group anymore. That may not bother some, but I have some knowledge of current educational evidence based practices and try to make sure I keep things developmentally appropriate.

Thoughts?

[Evil Dave]

It looks like you are worried that other students are starting to lack attention due to these few students. I have had a few individuals that were slow grasping the physical demands of basic movement much less the demands of a MA.

~ repetition, we all know this works best. Try to not change your program too much, but add repetition. Focus the warm-up with what you will be working on during the main portion of the class, etc.

~ assistant instructors, do you have any other black belts or senior students that could take one or more of these individuals for a while? Remember to break up the rest of the class, as you do not want to alienate these individuals.

~ imagination, sorry you have to come up with the answer to this one... Every student has a different key to getting them through the ruff spots.

~ be patient, most things can be accomplished with time and persistence. You are doing a good job, first you care enough to ask for help. They think enough of you to keep coming back even though they see how slow and frustrating it is - for both parties.

Cheers

[Kevin Wilson]

When teaching I always slow it down before speeding up. I had a few students like that and I always get worried the other studentsare getting bored.

[shadowspawn]

When teaching I always slow it down before speeding up. I had a few students like that and I always get worried the other studentsare getting bored.

Don't worry about that. The rest of your students are getting a good exercise as you work with one particular student by holding their ground and building their focus. Just emphasize the "don't move" aspect and they'll be getting just as much a martial arts experience as the student you're focusing on.