A couple students recently asked me how to train at home. Working with a living, breathing, eventually non-compliant partner is always best, but we can't always do that.
We're working adults, and some of us are married. (Don't get me started on what marriage does to your training schedule.)
Kajukenbo Okayama currently meets every Sunday and Monday barring holidays, and due to work schedules most students can only make one of those days, so for us in particular - in fact all people just starting martial arts or physical activity - this is an important question. Experienced fighters, bear with me.
Here's how to improve when you can't attend a class often enough:
Take something you did in class. Find a spot in your home. Do that something. It may feel awkward without a teacher there to make sure you’re doing it right. It may feel awkward to do it without a partner. Doesn’t matter. Just do it.
This sounds like common sense to long-time practitioners...but if you're a teacher or coach, trust me: sometimes you have to explain this to your students.
Only got 2 minutes to spare? That’s more than the fat guy sitting on the couch eating the pineapples off his pizza. (That's right, I said it. Pineapples belong on pizza.) Just run through a technique. Half-hearted practice is better than not practicing at all.
Not sure what to practice? Start here:
1) Shadow boxing. Shadow boxing is basically solo-play fighting, like a 6-year-old fighting an imaginary bad guy. The difference (hopefully) is that you have better technique than a 6-year-old.
You may have heard the saying “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.” When you shadow box, you get to work all the fighting techniques you know at a pace that allows you to make it clean and effective. Smooth.
Having a mirror is best, because the mirror don’t lie. If you’re ugly, the mirror will tell you. If your technique is ugly, the mirror will tell you.
But if you don’t have a mirror, you can still throw, and throwing a punch with bad form is better than never practicing. At the very least, you’re building the myelin (see our video on the Kajukenbo colors for more details) to develop speed, reaction, and power.
Just stand there and throw a god damn punch. Stop making excuses and practice.
When you feel comfortable with your punching, kicking, slips/rolls, and footwork, use a timer and keep moving until it goes off. Start with 30 seconds, go up to a minute, two minutes, whatever makes you work. Try a few rounds. Increase your speed but keep your form. Ask your instructor about shadow boxing with 2 kilo weights in your hands.
If you only have 1 minute to shadow box before going to work, do it, every day. It’s better than just giving up on practice as a whole.
2) Exercise. If you don’t know how to strengthen your body, start with 10 push ups, 10 crunches every day.
When you do a push up, either keep your arms wide at 90 degree angles or keep your elbows close to your body (close enough to rub against your ribs when you push up) to avoid long-term elbow damage. If they’re difficult, keep your knees on the ground until you develop the proper strength. Keep your back straight.
Traditional sit ups (with your feet on the floor) can be bad for your back. Start with crunches. Keep your feet off the ground, knees up. Cross your arms, point your elbows up to the ceiling. Bring your shoulders off the ground and touch your elbows to your knees. When you’re stronger, keep your elbows pointed to the ceiling and go up (instead of forward) as high as you can.
When you want more difficult exercises, ask an instructor or just take the ones from class that you liked.
The important thing is sticking to a schedule. Find the exercises you need, the ones that work the muscles you need to build, and do them every day you can. Squats, squat kicks, isometric push ups, shadow boxing with weights, (leg) bicycles, pushup variations, handstands, running, jump rope, etc.
Ask your coach if you need advice on choosing exercises, and don't forget to take rest days too.
If you’re looking for good exercises on your own, I recommend an exercise app called Carrot. If you’re a fan of the video game Portal or just a fan of sarcasm, you’ll like the app. More importantly, it gives a good list of effective exercises and works as a timer.
3) Wrestling. How do you practice grappling? This isn't as simple as striking practice, so here's one YouTube link for some BJJ exercises to get started with: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EXjP50SOwK4
Like striking, you can’t get the full practice without someone willing to be your training dummy. This is a large reason that respect is such an important issue in the martial arts, by the way.
But my next thought is WAY more important for any bjj/jj/wrestling/judo/cqc techniques you learn in class.
If you can meet with a friend do it. Take initiative. If there’s no class but you can meet with a classmate, do it and practice together, even if it’s only for 5 minutes before you start your Rick-and-Morty-marathon-night together. Do SOMETHING.
If life’s too busy with work, and you can’t meet with a friend, you can still work the muscle memory like I mentioned in my last blog.
Forms.
Just run through the technique on your own the best you can without a partner. It’s far from ideal, and sometimes impossible, but until you win the lottery and can guarantee an hour to practice every day with a training partner, it’s all you’re gonna get princess. Suck it up.
4) Traditional techniques. For us in Kajukenbo, we have our Punch Attack combinations, which are traditional stand-up combinations against a puncher, Grab Art combinations, which are traditional stand-up combinations against someone grabbing you, and traditional forms, which are set fighting patterns intended to teach/practice techniques and strategies and give the body a workout.
If you got 30 seconds at home, practice them, as much as you can. Simple advice right? Take the aggression you can build up to in shadow boxing, take the intention to exercise when you do push ups, and put those into your form. The best part? You don’t need a partner to still get a work out.
So, if you want to work out at home when there’s no class, just do everything you remember from class…at home. The instructor’s not there to correct you. So what? Practice. And you will improve, I guarantee.
No time? Pause Netflix for 30 seconds and just do one form, or just shadowbox, or do one of the bjj drills in the video linked above. Just practice SOMETHING.
Here’s an old zen saying that you may like, even if you hate traditional martial arts: “You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes a day. Unless you’re too busy – then you should sit for an hour”.
Take that quote, and apply it to your training. See what happens.