Life is not a Montage

PERFECT PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT AND TAKES TIME

· Please enjoy these pictures of some classic montages throughout the article.

To start out, this popped into my head because I started a new Woman’s Self-Defense class and a couple of the girls tried the techniques on some guy friends and told me that they didn’t work. I asked them to show me what they did and they clumsily tried to wrap my arm up into something that didn’t resemble anything we did the class before; so of course it didn’t work. These girls have ability and seem interested but after seeing the technique and practicing a couple of times they usually stop and wait.

It can get boring drilling something over and over again but the payoff is that when you need to do it, you can do it and if you practice perfectly OVER AND OVER AND OVER, many times over, you do it perfectly each time.

Life is not a montage and although every movie makes it look like a skill can be mastered in 5 minutes.

The techniques involved in combat sports or self-defense need to be practiced much more than most sports. These techniques and moves need to be applied while someone is punching and fighting against you and you can never expect to pull off something that you’ve trained twice and stopped.

Don’t waste your time while you’re in class, you might as well get the most out of it while you’re there not matter how ‘boring’ training is. The best athlete are always the ones that are hitting the bags after class and finding a training partner to work drills outside of class time. Take Wayne Gretzky for example, his skills weren’t built in the ice time that his local leagues allowed. His dad would train him hard every day and when he was on the ice he made the most of his time there. Every great athlete is the same and they’re great because they go above and beyond.

I see the same thing at every gym I teach at, even competitive gyms. I’ll show a technique or a drill and a student will try it once and assume that they’ve got it. When I see students standing around while others are drilling techniques I usually try various ways to show them that they don’t know the technique as well as they think they do. Usually every class, the same people are spending almost no time learning the techniques while the one’s that drill consistently are getting better every day and dominating in sparring sessions.

I’ve spent hours only throwing a jab. Jabbing at different angles, throwing multiple jabs, changing levels and just going until it felt like my arm was going to fall off. Each time after, trying to go longer and harder so that could make my jab the best it could be

Gyms in Thailand are notorious for doing the same. Throwing only swing kicks for an hour straight and training clinch work twice a day for an hour each. Anyone who’s rolled in Submission Wrestling or BJJ knows the difference between someone who’s done a triangle choke thousands of times and the guy who’s trained it 50 times.

Often, mostly with grappling, students fly threw techniques in a sloppy mess, gumming everything up but assuming that they have it down. Slow everything down! Practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect. Start out nice and slow making sure each movement is exactly right and once you get comfortable with everything then add some speed. If you don’t understand something, you think you have a part wrong or just have any questions ask the instructor and start over drilling consistently until you know that technique inside and out; perfectly.

You know why a black belt in BJJ is good and could choke out a white belt in less than a minute? He’s drilled his techniques a million times.

In an attempt to drive home a point: life is not a montage, take advantage of the time you have to train and skill takes hard work and practice.

So like Ralph Macchio from Karate Kid, PRACTICE PERFECT!