Slow and smooth and smooth is fast

Slow and smooth and smooth is fast

Slow down! My instructor would say as I tried to replicate the martial arts movements as fast as him.

Now I am repeating the same things to my students. We have a tendency always to go as fast as possible whether this is to hide the lack of technique or by thinking that by going fast it is better or maybe it is just way too much enthusiasm.

Best ways to learn in my experience are practicing a little every day so instead of cramming 8 hours of training into one day try spreading it over several, there are many reasons for this;

1. It is easy to find the time to practice for an hour a day.
2. Your concentration and efficiency will be better with small bursts.
3. You will progress quicker doing it every day as repetition is the mother of learning.
4. Retention of the materiel will be better as we know you only retain a little of what you study, studies have shown that within three days you lose about 90% of the knowledge learnt but by practicing every day you will reinforce your learning to reduce that trend.

So slow and smooth and smooth is fast, when you can consciously do this you will then incorporate your sense of feeling instead of just using your eyes which in a lot of cases is not a true reflection of what is actually happening in the practice.

When you consciously feel what is going on you will no longer rely on speed as you will be able to detect subtle changes in your and your opponent’s energy. This will allow you to do through feeling the necessary action to ensure the appropriate defence.  This will be a lot quicker than using just your eyes as when you only use your eyes you then try to decipher the information through your mind and work out your plan of action although we are only talking nanoseconds it is still slower than having the sensitivity in your whole body which will respond naturally.

To recap do the movements slowly, feel what is happening through the body using sensitivity and energy awareness.

Don’t rely on your eyes as they lie.  In fact try and close your eyes and do the same movements then you can detect the subtle differences in the energies.

Slow and smooth and smooth is fast.

Train safe

GM Angelo