Silly Way

Martial artists are crazy.

To explain we'll need an example. Let's design a Martial Arts training session. Let's have it be a physically vigorous class, with a generous amount of review along with a couple of complex new movements or concepts being introduced.

Let's assume that the students understand the review material, and will be applying it with full speed and power. They do not know the new movements at all, which will be explained, demonstrated, and then practised; slowly at first, then with increasing speed. As these are being learned the emphasis will be on correct movement rather than going full out.

What order shall these be done in for maximum effect?

Educators universally understand that learning occurs most efficiently with students who are not fatigued, either mentally or physically.

Logically, the new material should be presented first, before anybody gets tired out performing multiple full-speed-and-power repetitions of well known movements.

Using a Karate example let's have the new material to be introducing a class to the concept of tai sabaki, or subtle body shifting. The review material will be half an hour of performing all of the basic kicks, blocks, and strikes back and forth across the floor at full speed to the instructors count.

They will learn the subtle body shifting concept better if they do that first, followed by the review drills, rather than the other way around.

Unfortunately, in Martial Arts this is never how it goes. The full speed and power drills are always done first. Students are sweaty and puffing by the time the new stuff rolls around. Even the fit individuals will be trying to learning with brains full of the wrong chemicals. At best they will require more time to absorb the same amount of learning.

It is also the wrong order if the instructor's timing is a bit off. Let's say 20 minutes were going to be dedicated to the new material, but the review drills went a little long. Only 10 minutes are left to learn the new concepts. A bad idea. Or what if all 20 minutes are available, but the tired students just need a few more minutes to understand.

Put the new stuff first, and it can't be short changed. If extra time is needed on the new concepts, nothing is damaged by stealing a bit of time from the repetitions of old material.

This over simplifies things, of course. Part of class time needs to be used for some kind of warm up.

It is important before any strenuous activity to get the old body moving, to loosen up joins, and to stretch muscles a bit. This should be something like some light jogging, or lose non-focused kicks. Let's use an example. If you were about to run an 800 meter distance competitively, how would you warm up? It should be exactly like that; an injury preventer.

It would not be the time to try and stretch muscles to a new extremes, nor to engage in large numbers of sit ups or push ups. It should all be light and relaxed and last maybe five or ten minutes, tops.

So, of course, this is not what happens in Martial Arts. The so called warm up typically consist of up to half an hour of hard calisthenics and extreme stretching. Students are already fatigued before the actual class begins at all. Most instructors are proud of how gruelling their warm ups are.

This is counter-productive. Let's make another example; a traditional one-hour class is planned for 20 minutes of callisthenics, 20 minutes of maximum effort review movement, and 20 minutes of new material. The first section goes 2 minutes over, and everybody's fatigue level is already moderately high. The second section also goes 2 minutes over, and everybody is now bathed in sweat and very tired. Now they all try to learn the new stuff while physically and mentally fatigued, and with 4 minutes less than expected.

This example lesson could be done much better. A light warm up of 5 minutes is planned, followed by 20 minutes on the new material, and the rest of the class for vigorous review, and a/or a callisthenics component. The warm up ends, and goes over by 2 minutes. Everybody is ready to start. The new stuff is explained and practised while nobody is tired in any way. The groups seems to need a few extra minutes on the new material, and this segment goes 5 minutes over. 35 minutes are left for hard training of some kind. Part of this time could go towards push ups and uber stretching.

At our recent Martial Arts Expo, there were five classes. For the first, my own instructor spent the first ten minutes in a group warm-up. It was the right kind of warm up movement, but the funny thing is, we don't do that in class at all normally. We have a technique review period of about ten minutes. Nobody is moving fast yet, so there is no risk of injury, and by reviewing recent material the muscles are all prepared to move fast during class.

Not a problem, as all the other Martial Artists present might have been shocked if there were no warmup at all.

So we finished that session, and went right into the second. The first ten minutes of that class were also warmup exercises. We were all fully warmed up after an hour of training, but the second instructor felt some kind of peer pressure to start his class with another one.

I didn't stay for any more classes, but wonder how many of the remaining three also had a warm up.