How to Find what is useful & what is Not in your Martial art training

     Dear All, Hope everything is fine under Lock down. Today we are gonna see what is useful and what is not in your Martial art training. As i Have been Trained with Several Martial art trainers in Several Martial art Styles for 22 yrs, Few Martial art teachers want to make you believe their particular practicing discipline is the best and other styles are doing useless stuff and not efficient.

In my experience i believe that there is nothing useless in any martial art training. But may be some martial arts(may be because of teachers) are not efficient in Self defense or in fitness.

A traditional martial art style training will include the following:

1. Dojo etiquette
2. Breathing practice 
3. Warm up & stretching 
4. Endurance ( power training & Stamina training)
5.  Basics (stance/Punches/kicks/Shadow drills,etc.)
6. Forms 
7. Sparring
8. Flow drills with practice partner
9. Weapons
10.Real Survival drills

Now we will see one by one to see why it is useful or not  in your training

1. Dojo Etiquette: This includes Coming to class on Time, cleaning the practicing place by self, Arranging mats by self, Training with uniform, not talking unnecessary while training, Respecting your seniors, Being focus on training, etc. These things we Don't even learn from the Schools & colleges. These are the things make martial arts as one of the must do in one's life time.

2. Breathing Practice: While breathing practice we sit in seiza position and Do Breathing practice to relax our Mind and body to prepare for the training. 

3. Warm up & Stretching :  Every day we wake up after sleep every muscles and joints become tight and it is very important to warm up and stretch the body to make our body ready to move. It is not good to start the Martial art training without preparing our body. Even when we start our car we let the engine to get warm up sometime then we start driving. Body and mind are not different than Machine & computer memory but more divine than them. 

4. Endurance ( power training & Stamina training): Endurance is the one which keeps us different than normal humans. That difference gives us the self-confidence and makes us feel strong in any situation. it also improves our immunity, stamina and strength .

5. Basics (Stance/Punches/Kicks/Shadow drills,etc.)
How many years you train in martial art doesn't matter, if you refuse to do Basics every time you train than you will go back to beginner level one day for sure.

6. Forms: Forms (KATA) are very important in any        Traditional martial arts. In few styles the Bunkai ( Explanation of the Moves) will be complicated to understand and seems unreal for the real situation. But still the forms are very useful to improve our Focus & concentration, Body & mind co-ordination, Perfecting the stance and movements, Changing the directions, Sharpness of eyes, Memory, etc. 

7. Sparring:  Sparring training is must to Reduce our fear in facing an opponent or a problem in life. It trains our adrenaline to act properly in a survival situation. And train us to hit proper target, Pain tolerance, Control the body & mind to not hurt your opponent very badly. Improves reflexes of our body, etc

8. Flow drills with practice partner: Flow drills are very important to train our body to fight before our mind. If we train the fighting drills every day, then our body will be ready at any time to protect itself. Before the mind thinks about consequence( which may hurt yourself) the body start fighting for survival. And Mind will not take more time to give you commands. The well trained mind will stop you when you have to stop.

9. Weapons:  Weapons are not something which is different than training our body. When we touch a weapon it should become our body, as just an extension of our body. The weapon should listen to you as your body does. When we train weapon for long, we will know how to convert anything as weapon in the survival situation. 

10.Real Survival drills : Real survival drills? is it different than sparring? 
Of course it is different than sparring. Most of the schools and practitioners believe that sparring training will save them in real fight situation. But it may not. When you face a skill full opponent in a real fight or multiple opponents , the sparring experience may not be enough. that is why we should practice real survival drills in martial art training. It is very primary in any martial arts, but unfortunately  it is not happening in most of the  Martial art schools. 

     Now it is time to Decide what is useful and what is not in your training. After all the explanations i don't want to give the answer. You could have found the answer yourself. 

All the best.
Guru Manikandan
Founder of Yutha sasthiram Martial arts