I apologize if this article appears a bit preachy or even judgmental, however everything I’m writing about I’m first applying to myself. In my forty-plus years in the martial arts I’ve hit many plateaus – and I continue to do so – and had times where my skills development has stagnated. In this article I want to look at three reasons why we can end up feeling like we are not progressing as fast as we should. At some point I’ve been guilty of all three and had to change my way of thinking in order to move on.

Reason One: You think you’re doing what the instructor is telling you but you’re not. This is perhaps the most common issue that people have, which is why I’ve listed it first. It’s especially prevalent amongst people who have failed to correct bad habits that they’ve built up over a number of years (and I include myself in this e.g., I practice Karate, and have a bad habit of not pulling the opposite fist back as far as I should when punching; it’s something I dedicate time and effort to correcting). Oftentimes it seems/feels like you are doing something when you are not, and you can become deaf to correction. Practice does not make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect. I don’t believe that there are advanced techniques etc. Advanced is just the basics done better, and “good enough” can become the enemy of “best”. Nothing in our practice should see us simply going through the motions. The only time we can switch off and let our subconscious take over (which is our ultimate goal when learning to fight), is when we’ve worked at it, putting in the highest degree of conscious effort, so that we are able to do something without thinking; this is generally estimated at around 10 000 repetitions – this is 10 000 perfect repetitions, which will need to be increased significantly for every poor repetition we perform. If you’re dialing something in because you think you’ve got it, the truth is you probably haven’t. If you think that you’ve got the basics, and you’re ready to move on to the next thing, you probably aren’t. Boxing is limited to a small number of punches however I don’t believe you’ll ever meet a professional boxer who doesn’t want a better Jab, Cross, Hook or Uppercut – and who won’t put in the time and effort to make that happen. If you find yourself in a class waiting for the instructor to move on to the next thing, you’re wasting your present training opportunity. One of the things I always do when an instructor makes a general point, criticism or observation to a class I’m in is to assume that he’s addressing me personally, and whatever is being said is something that I should focus on, and put more effort into addressing.   

Reason Two: You think that something you’ve added in – or taken away – is an improvement on what the instructor is teaching you. A long time ago, when I was teaching a seminar, I had a participant fight back on a correction I was trying to make concerning how to throw a Cross. I took the time to explain that the Cross was a straight punch, and didn’t have a “swinging” action at the end etc. After I had gone through a fairly detailed explanation, the participant ended up “agreeing” but insisting that this was their own version of the Cross – they’d personalized it. The fact that almost every other element of the punch was also missing, or performed poorly, and inconsistently hadn’t registered with them; they were incredibly happy with the improvements they had made to the punch and weren’t going to be told by anybody that they were doing it wrong. It wasn’t as if I was teaching my “version” of a Cross, it was a standard Cross that you would teach a beginner who was starting boxing. There are things in the martial arts that can be improved on, or that may need to be amended due to the context of a situation etc., however when it comes to power generation when punching, certain things have to be present, and if they’re not, maximum power will never be generated. There isn’t a way for somebody – unless their body is somehow different from everybody else’s – to put a personal “twist” on something that is so standard and basic. If a person is having difficulty performing a technique, such as a Cross, correctly the solution isn’t for them to personalize it, and do it their way; they have to conform to the principles and components that make a Cross, a Cross. Jazz musicians who can improvise, can only do so because they went through the process of learning to play in a structured way; there is a huge difference between improvisation and random noise. There are boxers such as Muhammad Ali, who defied convention, and at times looked like he was ignoring principles, but when examined closely all the components were there. If you are going to try and “personalize” things it is likely you will quickly stagnate, as you will not be able to build on and develop your technique e.g., with the Cross if you decide not to turn the hip – because that’s the way you do “your Cross” etc. – you’ll never be able to turn your torso fully, and your punch will never be as hard as it could be. Ultimately you need to conform, rather than think that your adaptions are an improvement.

Reason Three: You think the instructor is wrong, and you are right. I fight from an open stance e.g., my feet are pointed forward and my torso is turned, so that my chest is facing whoever I’m dealing with etc. My defense is my control of range, my movement, and my attacks, but if I were stationary, I would be a very open target, as my hands/guard are positioned for attacks, rather than defense, and my body isn’t bladed, which would make it a smaller target etc. Other systems and styles teach different types of fighting stances, and I wouldn’t even argue that I am right, and they are wrong. However, there are people who if they don’t understand the reasons why I fight from such a stance may look at it - especially if they are looking at a photograph, without possibly reading an explanation - think that my stance is “wrong”. Stances are designed to facilitate a certain way of moving/fighting, with some having more defensive attributes than others etc., and this doesn’t make some wrong and others right. However, if you are to come and learn how to fight from me you have to accept that this is the stance/position that I will teach you to fight from. If you don’t like it, you can’t replace it with a different stance, because everything I teach is built on this foundation/concept e.g., I teach power generation, movement etc., from being in this stance. If you like the stance that Muay Thai fighters use, or the way that Wing Chun practitioners stand etc., those are systems you should be learning, as they are built and designed around those particular stances and ways of standing/moving. You are not going to improve in a system – whatever it is – unless you conform to that system. Trying to bring things in from other styles to replace what you are learning because you think you know better will ultimately hold you back. I still cross-train in other martial arts but when I do, I do it their way, not mine. Fighting systems are systems, and there are reasons for the way things are done. It is worth being curious about these, rather than concluding that the approach is wrong. A good instructor should be able to explain why they teach something the way they do and should be open about explaining this.

There are no short cuts to progression, but we should be aware of some of the thought processes, and “excuses” that we make to ourselves, which may hold us back. In my own experience practicing the basics whilst consciously focusing on and checking various aspects of what I am doing has given my performance the greatest boost. I have found that the biggest danger is the assumption that I’ve got something or am doing it perfectly, or at a level where I am able to switch off. Resetting my attitude and attention when this happens is usually what gets me across the plateau quickest.