Very important question here (martial artists please)...?

Question

Ok. In any discipline, the time-honored skill builder is practicing techniques over-and-over-and-over until they're perfect. Many sources claim that you should work techniques (punches, kicks, etc) at least 1000 times a day to perfect them. Now, I've tried, and I just CANNOT seem to accomplish this. Sure, maybe I'm uncommited, but seriously: how many of you actualy do this? Be honest, now. Thanks.

Answer 1

Practice does not make perfect .Perfect practice makes perfect.

The prime element in perfect practice is a resisting partner who gradually increases his resistance as you improve.

Then there is accuracy striking at a moving target or some one moving the target for you in a random non predetermined fashion.

Just striking empty air and you soon run into the law of diminishing returns as far as getting faster but it can serve to strengthen the muscles used in the technique and build up endurance if done rapid fire with out any breaks or pauses between movements.It's like doing wind sprints but using technique instead.You will reach a peak of how fast you can become and reaction time will be governed by how many "fast twitch" muscle fibres you were born with.

Dont concern yourself with any set number do what you can do until exhausted then add a few more reps and later a few more.No hurry you have your whole life ahead of you.Being in a hurry is what makes most people give up.

Answer 2

They probably mean a thousand times total.  As others have pointed out, for most techniques it would take several hours to perform a thousand reps, if you factor in the rest time you would realistically need.  After a thousand reps your joints and muscles would be trashed - you wouldn't be able to work out again for a week!  For grappling techniques or longer combinations, you would become exhausted long before you hit 1000 reps.  As for perfecting your form, once your muscles become exhausted (which would happen after only 50 reps or so), your form would start to degrade and get sloppy, so the additional reps would not really help you at all.

Answer 3

There is a concept of compounding interest that people miss with regards to this kind of training.  

To train for an hour a fighter might get 100 reps of a certain technique.  After 1 month and 3000 or so reps he might gain the skill and speed to fire off 200 reps in an hour.  At this rate you would expect that the next month he could fire 300 reps, but, instead of training 100 reps a day he'll be doing 200 so he'll get better faster and therefore by the end of the month he might be at 400 reps.

As a beginer or intermediate MA you can't fully grasp this until you've actually experienced the growth but this is why 1000 reps seem so daunting at the begining but can quickly become reality as you progress and your 'progression' progress.  Einstein refered to this as the most powerful force in the universe.  There is a fable about a hores shoer that describes this too but I couldn't find it.

Answer 4

what you are referring to is muscle memory.  once you perform a certain motion or set of motions after awhile, it becomes instinctive.  however, for striking, no amount of punching or kicking a bag will "perfect" your technique if it's flawed to begin with.  

if you're a grappler, practice the movements over and over on a semi resisting opponent.

if you're a striker, practice your punches with a heavy bag, a target, and a moving opponent.

do not put a number on your techinques.  you will improve if you focus more on the quality of your technique (form) rather than the quantity of of it.  commitment and practice will shine above all else in a martial artist who is dedicated to improving.

Answer 5

You dont need to do it over and over...but to truly be great at certain things the body should just react.  It you repeat things so often the body will eventually just perform an action in reponse to a certain position.

Answer 6

If I am working on a specific technique, like jump 360 side kick, or a 540, or monoplata from half guard, or switchback sweep, I will focus on doing that technique 300-400 times in a week. I try to hit 1000-1500 reps in a month. After that I work on using the technique in sparring/rolling. There's not much more you can get out of drilling once you've done something 1000 times. It's all about doing it against resistance after that. And even while I'm trying to get 1000+ reps in I still am rolling and sparring and trying the techniques there.

1000 times per day would be rediculous. If it takes you 20 seconds to go through the technique correctly, and another 20 seconds before and after to reset and analyze to make sure you are doing it right then that's 1 min per rep, at 1000 mins you are looking at 16 and a half hours of nothing but constant reps of one technique. And if you are doing it right and checking your technique each time it's probably going to take more than 1 minute per, especially as you get tired.

Answer 7

Lol what a coincidence. I'm doing this today. I'm practicing my kicks 1000 each leg. I just finished my left leg like half and hour ago and now im on my right leg. 900 more to go then i have to do core workouts and maybe 4000 punches.

This is for wing chun.  I have nothing to do all day so i'm committed. You don't have to do 1000 if you dont want to or cant. Do 200, 300, 400, and make your way up day by day. Practice makes perfect.

Good luck!

Answer 8

to perfect them   practice techniques  forms many times  - muscle memory will come - but be comfortable in your form -  the body should just react like water does to anything

Answer 9

1000 times a day as previously mentioned would leave you time to get a good night's rest wake up and start over. The point of the statement is that you should practice often, even the most rudimentary techniques. As bumnjutsu mentioned "perfect practice makes perfect", so in essence...

Practice it with everything you have only when you are willing to give it your all and perfect the technique. Do not practice if you are not willing to give your very soul to your practice. That should hold true to anything you do in life.

Answer 10

I spend at least an hour to an hour and a half a day on average when I'm not teaching. I teach approximately 8 hours a week. When I am getting ready for testing I kick it up to two or three hours a day. I have a full time job as a research technician and I am a volunteer leader in Scouts.

I'm not sure what you mean to accomplish. If you mean to find the time to do Approximately one thousand repetitions a day. I think if you do 20 sets of one kick 20 times that is 400 kicks. If you do that twice a day that gets you to 800 kicks. That isn't too bad. You should be able to do that in less than an hour even giving time to focus on the move and slowing down from time to time to get it right. Better to do 100 correct than 1000 poorly, especially in the beginning when you need to work on accuracy and technique. I think if you are serious about your training you can find at least an hour a day for practice. Then there is working your practice into everyday things like practicing stances while standing around weighting or doing mind drills when you are on the bus or riding in the car. Practice C stepping while walking. There are many ways to work training into everyday things we do. If you watch TV a couple hours a week you can do drills while watching TV.

Answer 11

I can tell you that the techniques I practiced long and hard like my reverse punch, side kick, front leg sweep, jab, straight right hand, and hook are far better than those others that I did not practice nearly as much over a long period of time.  There is a lot to be said for practice and repetition although the current generation does not proscribe to the above quite so much or so easily.  Then again that might be one of the reasons why the quality of fighting and fighters in general has gone down some with the exception of MMA which is relatively new.  Perhaps what you have to do is what they sometimes refer to as "disguise repetition" which you often have to do with younger students now.  An example of this is take your side kick for instance.  Practicing doing 200 of them stationary and then put it with another technique doing it in combination and then do 200 of that combination.  Then practice doing that combination using slide action kicking for another 200 and now you have literally down that kick 600 times.  This will help break up the monotony of it as well as give you an opportunity to develop using that technique in a variety of different ways.

Answer 12

Effort is no substitute for intellect.  1000 times practise can help you improve, but it's slow and not neccerssary.  IT depends what you are actually trying to improve.  If you're trying to improve the strength of the move, practising the move won't help much.  Do muscle toning activities like weight lifing to improve strength.  To improve accuracy, find a training dummy of some sort (h**l, even some cardboard cut out) and attempt to hit the same point with the same move repeatedly.

To improve the form of the move, think through every step.  Know exactly what you're doing, and think of ways or additions that would help, and add them in.

I'm training in Shaolin Kung Fu.  This art focusses more on skills than how you perform them.  It's a very freeform type of fighting, as I think that sticking to a rigid set of moves is a weakness unless you have incredibly fast reflexes :P

Answer 13

If you think of something you really hate, it puts more aggression into ur technique (at least that's what i've found) if that's what u want....

You don't need to practice 1000 times a day,, just do it over a length of time and eventually your muscles take over and you can do it...

DON'T GIVE IN

TRUST ME

x

Answer 14

Go for the 1000! ITs an awesome goal! Just pick one awesomely cool, core, basic, effective strike (grappling is for f**s), and drill it one arm after the other, 1000 times! It does a world of good, you can do it at varying speeds. Just harden the **** up and do it!