Top tips

A place to share Any tips on anything related to the practice, study, and application of martial arts.

From my personal experience.

• If you have an injury don’t take pain killers before you train. It increases your chances of pushing to far and making things worse.

I heard this one last night – so have not tried it out.

• To remove smell of sweat from wraps. Steep overnight in a bowl of 1/3 vinegar to 2/3rds water. Rinse out in clean water. Then wash as normal.

 

Don't defecate where you occupy.

 

Sorry. Should have elaborated. "Don't date anyone you train with I'd you plan on being there a long time". More so if you're young.

 

From personal experience:
Make sure your trousers fit before competing in them.
Don't fight in an under 70kg light continuous fight if it's your first bout and you weigh 59kg on the day.

Generally:
Be chill with people, and willing to listen. Make friends

 

Do everything you can to minimise injuries.
Pre-hab exercises, warm up, work mobility, tap often, err on the side of caution, refuse to roll or spar with people with no control, stay on top of your conditioning, leave your ego at the door, etc.
Consistency is key to progress and injuries break up consistency.

Work your cardio. All the strength, technique and heart are no good if you're tired.

Take control of your own knowledge and progress. Own it and make it all make sense to you. If it doesn't make sense find someone fot who it does make sense and listen to them. If your instructor, club, association, style disappeared tomorrow you should still have something of value.

 

1. Be happy and grateful every time someone gets the better of you in sparring, especially if they are less experienced than you. Being shown gaps in your game is a gift to make you better.

2. Persistence beats talent.

 

If you do an art with belts....take half an hour and learn how to tie the damn thing. It takes minutes to learn and yet I still see people...some very high grades...with a badly tied belt.

 

I am that guy.

 

But only if talent is not persistent.

There are guys who are stronger than you, faster than you, more talented than you, and yet they work their asses off like they're none of those things. This is the point where you realize that life is, in fact, inherently unfair.

 

Don't worry...Rickson Gracie is that guy too.

 

That's actually his way too, maybe it stays on better?

Or .....
I like the Hollywood version myself....

 

Top tip


1)Be as coachable as possible,
2) they're is no "right" way to do anything, but they're are lots of wrong ways.

 

If you find yourself exhausted and getting sloppy with your form, make a special effort to keep your technique correct and avoid the sloppiness.
Allowing yourself to be sloppy on form/technique when you get tired leads to multiple issues:
- Much higher injury risk (in my personal experience).
- Ingraining bad habits. If you are ever going to compete, or if you are ever end up having to physically defend yourself (if unable to avoid/de-escalate/escape from a situation), you don't want to get sloppy as you start to fatigue. Opens many holes in your defense, allows easier counter strikes against you, and you are more likely to lose balance/fall/whatever. Plus the extra injury risk on top of all that.

There are probably other issues with it too, but those are the main two that come to my mind.

 

Take notes and review them - don't expect your instructor go over everything from the beginning every time. Take responsibility for your own progress.

Be a good partner - encourage your partner, work with him/her, try not to hurt them, go with it when you're supposed to and resist when you're supposed to (listen to the instructor's directions)

Listen to your instructor and practice what is being practiced, even if you know 47 other ways to do it, especially if you're working with a junior partner. That said, also be ready to share your experiences and ideas after everyone "has it" the way the instructor has shown it - there is a time and place for discussion, feedback, and sharing.

Yes! And if you are an instructor who one day will be presenting belts, take some time and practice wrapping belts around people and tying them - it's a bit different than putting your own on!

 

Yes! Tied my own double wrap belt on myself for years but had to look up how to tie a single wrap on my kids.

 

Repetition makes automation regardless of speed, and physical speed is subordinate to timing, positioning, and correct movement, so train only as fast as you can move correctly. Correct technique under repetition automates the proper motor patterns, but technique automation is subordinate to it being naturally expressible, so don't obsess about technical nuances that even after automating you cannot casually replicate at will (do train them, but with the aim of making them natural, automatic and casual).

Half-baked analogy time! Speed is internal combustion, and technique is your engine. If you want to win a race, you still need the rest of the car AND a driver who knows what they're doing. If the race is a death race along a cliff-edge, priorities become clear pretty quickly