# What are some drills that you can do to help improve yourself



## ipawnu (Jun 19, 2010)

So, I am just looking for some drills that I can do to help my martial arts, I haven't taken any classes or anything yet, but I would like to start to learn.
I'm just trying to find a few drills I can repeatably do by myself.   

Like, in a few martial art shows/movies, they have someone do an everyday chore over and over again and helps them improve, example, picking up your jacket off the ground, put it on, hang it up, drop it, over and over again.. (this is just an example I just saw)


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## Skpotamus (Jun 19, 2010)

Without any martial arts background, the skill development drills you could do are extremely limited, and any that you do could actually be detrimental to your skill development.  Like working on a jab cross combo 1,000 times, then heading to a boxing gym to find out that your punches are telegraphed and you're leaving yourself open.  That's a lot of reps to undo to get it right.  

Your best bet would be to work on physical conditioning drills until you can get to a gym for instruction.  

http://www.trainforstrength.com/workouts.shtml is a set of workouts setup by a Navy Seal candidate with MMA experience.  We used to do them for conditioning at my gym.


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## Sukerkin (Jun 20, 2010)

Exactly what I was going to say, *Skpotamus*.  

Repetitive drills work to grind something into muscle memory, that is one of their major purposes.  To spend all that effort 'learning' something that is incorrect means that you then have to spend just as much effort grinding the faulty techniques back out again.

By all means get a book or even a DVD on the style you're going to follow, just so that not everything is utterly unfamiliar to you from the start but it would be unwise to try to 'teach' yourself from such a source for there are things that no book or video can ever show you.


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## Tez3 (Jun 20, 2010)

Fitness and stretching, normal everyday stuff before you start training for real.


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## Cirdan (Jun 20, 2010)

Don`t wait, join a club. 
One hour of proper instruction beats years of trying to imitate movie-fu.


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## Omar B (Jun 20, 2010)

Do not belive the movies where everyday chores turns a kid into a walking death-machine.  That's just fantasy bud.  What you should be focusing on is general fitness and flexability as well as stamina.


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## ipawnu (Jun 20, 2010)

ok thanks, so fitness and stamina.


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## teekin (Jun 20, 2010)

Cardio, cardio, cardio. Don't build bulk, think of a marathoner. Train to go forever at a reasonable pace with a few sprints thrown in. You can never have too good of cardio.

Lori


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## Bruno@MT (Jun 21, 2010)

Grendel308 said:


> Cardio, cardio, cardio. Don't build bulk, think of a marathoner. Train to go forever at a reasonable pace with a few sprints thrown in. You can never have too good of cardio.
> 
> Lori



+1 and the same applies to weight training imo. Go for lots of reps with weights you can handle.


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## Bruno@MT (Jun 21, 2010)

ipawnu said:


> So, I am just looking for some drills that I can do to help my martial arts, I haven't taken any classes or anything yet, but I would like to start to learn.



Then join a club and start training for real. Hollywood movies are not an accurate representation of what martial arts entails.

They say practice makes perfect, but in reality only perfect practice makes perfect. If your practice is sloppy (it will be, without proper guidance) then you will just be very good at sloppy movements. Not only will this not help you, but it will be very difficult to unlearn.

This may not be what you wanting to hear, but get a teacher and start training for real instead of trying to recreate the '_boy trains on his own and beats adversary'_ movie meme.


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