Pictures

Just a few pictures in class from August that were taken by Amrit.

Visualization of Form

In response to JP's comment on my past post, I do have ideas on maintaining your training while injured or unable to train for other health reasons. I am a believer in visualization as a training aid in a student's progression.

When you are unable to train properly due to health issues or even lack of space, I recommend visualizing yourself performing your forms and techniques properly. This will help remember the sequences so you are still able to do these things when you are able to train regularly again. The visualization must include the reminder of what is proper because this will help you remember what points are important to do your form correctly. Remember all details such as how your feet should be positioned, where your hands should be, posture, correct stance, how power should be generated in the technique, etc.

If you are not feeling that visualization is enough, there is the hybrid of visualization of your proper steps and stances while performing the hand techniques. This allows you to still move your upper body while not requiring you to move your legs. If your health issue is with your upper body, you can reverse this and only perform the lower body parts of your form while visualizing the upper body.

Train To Fight Against Your Personality

While teaching some fighting theories in a recent class, I realized that I often advise individuals to do things that are the opposite of their personalities. How this translates into sparring matches is quite interesting. More aggressive personalities tend to be more aggressive fighters while less aggressive personalities are less aggressive fighters. Careful personalities are careful during their fighting, detail oriented people are more detailed in their fighting, etc.

I see personalities exaggerated during sparring matches which is the reason I would advise students to train against their personalities to become a better rounded fighter. A very aggressive personality may be an overly aggressive fighter who leaves themselves vulnerable in their enthusiasm towards the attack. A cautious personality may be overly cautious during sparring and have difficulties generating any offence. By working on being the opposite of your personality, you will be able to learn to do the things that are not natural or comfortable to you.

My theory is not designed to completely suppress your personality because being comfortable will allow you to relax and have a better fight but a bit of training can really help. An example would be for the aggressive fighter to take more caution to avoid leaving themselves vulnerable to counterattack but still utilizing the aggressive instinct to quickly shift from defence to offence when it is time to attack an opening in the opponent's defences.