Repetition

[GeneChing]

From my article Out of the Mouth of Babes (SEP+OCT 2013)

[Faux Newbie]

At the end of your drill you reset yourself back to the initial fighting stance. That just add 1 extra move (if you only have to re-adjust your leading foot) or 2 extra moves (if you have re-adjust both feet) into your original drill. The advantage of this is you always start from a combat ready stance. The draw back for this is these extra steps may make your drill unnecessary complicate.

I follow that, I just feel that always starting from a static fighting stance is like always doing a self defense application at exactly the right distance (the typical, two people at exactly the right range, one punches without moving, the other does the application). When doing moves from lively footwork, the move is in its exact context, and the footwork is alive. When the only footwork is in the technique, the context changes, and the pairing of footwork and technique coming from normal footwork is delayed.

I've just had a lot more success with this approach, and with teaching this way, than with raw repetition. The beginning of the learning curve is more difficult, but after a few sessions, the progress is, imo, faster and involves the practitioner understanding the move better, and thus, able to benefit from repeated practice more.

[Scott R. Brown]

At the time my goal was to see just how good I could become with my kicks. At my best, before a leg injury side lined me, I could open kitchen cupboards with my feet, block hand strikes with my feet during sparring, and stand on the tip of either big toe while holding the other leg up in a vertical split.
After the year and a half it took me to heal from my injury I never had the time or discipline to get my kicks back to that level.

[Faux Newbie]

At the time my goal was to see just how good I could become with my kicks. At my best, before a leg injury side lined me, I could open kitchen cupboards with my feet, block hand strikes with my feet during sparring, and stand on the tip of either big toe while holding the other leg up in a vertical split.
After the year and a half it took me to heal from my injury I never had the time or discipline to get my kicks back to that level.

Injuries suck.

[Scott R. Brown]

Injuries suck.

I am injury prone. I have had a major injury of some kind almost continuously for tbe past 35 or so years.

The only joints I have never injured are my knees, and that's a miracle seeing as I'm bow-legged.

[Kellen Bassette]

Actually, I just did the math more comprehensively, it was something like 15 sections and somewhere between 1500 and 2500 kicks. Of course I worked up to it.

That'll get the legs burning...

[Scott R. Brown]

That'll get the legs burning...

When I was done, I wold run 4 miles stretch for 1-2 hours and do a little bit of weights and chins.

Oh to be young again and have nothing but free time to train.

What I did to beat the monotony was to train 5 out of every 7 days. My training week ran from Monday to Sunday. If I took Monday and Tuesday off I wasn't allowed to miss another day til after Sunday. But I could take any two days off every week.