A common fear shared by developing martial arts students is the threat of stalled progress—often referred to as “hitting a plateau.” While, at Modern Martial Arts and Fitness, our training structure and curriculum are designed to mitigate against this, there are several things you can do as a developing student to keep yourself on track. Here is a short list of simple strategies you can employ to ensure that you’re getting the most out of your training!
- Be Consistent: Whether you are studying Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, No Gi Jiu Jitsu, Wrestling, Muay Thai, MMA, or any other martial art or combat sport, consistency is strongly correlated with progress. Consistency, in fact, is perhaps the single most important factor that determines whether one experiences continued improvement. That is because the process of learning a martial art is very similar to the process of learning a language. While the process begins with knowledge acquisition, there is an internalized (and embodied) aspect of your development that allows you to replace your physical combat instincts with learned behaviors. This takes time! And like any learned behavior, the more time you spend practicing it, the more “natural” it begins to feel. Make a plan to keep a consistent training schedule of at least two sessions per week to keep yourself on track and working toward your goals!
- Keep Your Training Focused: When you first begin training a martial art, simply showing up to class, doing your best to follow the class instructions, and remaining consistent is more than enough to ensure that you are steadily progressing. But once you begin to gain an understanding of the fundamentals of the martial art you are studying, as well as a general sense of what your particular strengths and weaknesses are, you will strongly benefit from keeping your training focused. Whenever I step onto the mat, I like to have a particular skill in mind that I intend to work on. For Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, perhaps this means spending a day focusing on using my open guard to sweep my training partners to the mat and looking for opportunities to pass their guards rather than looking for opportunities to submit them from bottom position. For Muay Thai, perhaps, this means spending an entire month looking for opportunities to attack from clinch positions rather than looking to land strikes at distance. The length of time I spend focusing on any one of these particular skills will vary depending on how much I’m looking to improve them but, either way, focused training leads to focused improvement!
- Focus on Skill-Building Rather Than “Winning” Rounds: When you are sparring, it is natural to want to “beat” your training partners. To you, this may mean landing more strikes than your training partners in Muay Thai, securing more takedowns than your training partners in wrestling, or submitting your training partners in Jiu Jitsu. But while learning to compete is an important aspect of your development as a martial artist, competitiveness can become a hinderance to your improvement when it prevents you from taking risks and working on new skills for fear of “losing” rounds. It is important to remember that training is not competition! Sparring should be an opportunity to work on new skills and troubleshoot them; it should not be used as a substitute for competition. By cultivating good relationships with your training partners, you will contribute to a culture of learning and development and ensure opportunities to improve your weaknesses without the fear of repercussions!
- Set Measurable Goals to Stay on Track: One of the most common questions I hear from developing students is, “What should I be working on?” While this is a great question, it is also one that every student should be asking themselves! When I was working toward my black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, I would keep yearly and monthly “notes” in my phone that listed particular skillsets that I wanted to improve upon. The yearly goals were usually quite broad, and included skills such as “takedowns” or “guard passing.” The monthly goals were often much more focused, and included skills such as “single leg takedowns” or “toreando passes.” This format allowed me to work toward big, broad goals while keeping a focused game plan for making steady, incremental progress toward reaching them. In sparring, for example, I would specifically try to implement toreando guard passes so that I could learn how my training partners would defend against them and then come up with solutions for dealing with these defenses. Then, I would see how these techniques connected to my other guard passing techniques such as “knee cut” passes and “long step” passes to develop a system of guard passing that allowed me to navigate all the possible defenses I was likely to encounter while guard passing. This goal setting also provided me with a way to document my progress over time. At the end of the year (and sometimes even at the end of the month), I would often look back on my goals and think, “Wow! Just a year ago I felt this was a weakness in my game. Now, it’s one of my biggest strengths!”
- Utilize Supplemental Learning Materials: While consistently showing up to training is the biggest thing you can do ensure that you are progressing as a student, all developing students can benefit from utilizing supplemental learning materials. And perhaps the best resource of all is combat sports competition! Students can grow immensely from their exposure to combat sports competition—both as a participant and a spectator. That is because combat sports provide us with empirical data for identifying what works in live combat! Learn to use this resource for your development. For example, when watching Jiu Jitsu competition, try to identify the techniques, tactics, and strategies that each competitor is looking to employ and try to anticipate what is likely to happen as a result. For instance, will one competitor’s knee cut pass be met with a reverse de la riva guard? How will the guard passer look to navigate this? What are the main battles taking place on each competitor’s body? Is it a battle for inside knee and elbow position? What role does off-balancing play? These are just a few examples of the types of questions we can ask ourselves while watching Jiu Jitsu!
If you are looking for martial arts or self-defense classes in Pasadena, California, send us a message through our contact page or call us at 626-227-1414 to schedule your FREE trial class at Modern Martial Arts and Fitness today!