Training & Application

Frequency of Training

How often should we train to maintain proficiency? The answers vary from 3 to 6 times per week of at least 1 hour per workout session. The amount of training needed has many variables, but it is certainly true that the amount needed increases with age.  The types of training needed for self-defense and martial arts need to included cardio, strength and stretching exercises as well as specific proficiency training.  Emphasis in each area depends on your needs and interests. But proficiency training is an absolute necessity. Each person needs to develop an approach that allows them to grow and over come any deficiencies.

Training as Reinforcement

Professional athletes exercise and train for specific plays before the start of their seasons and during the season.  Military and police personnel exercise and train frequently in their specific areas.  Musicians do scales and practice works they are to perform.  Pablo Casals, the great cellist, played scales every morning for 20 minutes, even in old age. Marital artists exercise, train in basic techniques, self-defense, and prearranged sparring drills as well as sparring.  To be proficient they need to do it nearly everyday.

The same drills must done over and over until we can do them with the same semi-subconscious level of involvement as we have when driving a car.  That is why sparring when exhausted is so very good for fighting skills.  The same applies to weapons such as knives, batons, and the like.  It also applies to use of sprays.  Anyone who would use a spray for self-defense should use a practice spray in deployment and aiming drills.

The Physical Power Path in Inner Peace

Richard Hackworth, Ph.D. in Martial Arts As Preventive Medicine gives a list of ways in which martial arts exercises are good for us. 

	Feeling better, more energy
	Improved blood chemistry
	Reduced risk of disease
	Cognitive improvements
	Improved immune system

See http://www.completemartialarts.com/publications/articles/article3.htm.  Improved feeling of wellbeing is part of the reason why people who start training for self-defense become happier and less defensive people. Of course the feeling that they can defend themselves is a great plus as well.  So development of physical power is one path to the development of inner power. 

The link between inner peace and external power is nowhere clearer than with the chi'ishi.  The word itself in Japanese means inner power stone.  Working with the chi'ishi promotes good breathing which in turn promotes inner peace.