Generally, how often and how long should you train per week?

[Dirty Dog]

But how much can you learn in 3h per week?

More than you can sitting on your *** for 100 hours watching videos and asking inane questions.

 

[kuniggety]

Holy crap dude. You're always learning but you don't always need someone standing there correcting you. You learn a principle and you go practice it over and over. Then your instructor offers you a tweak and you practice it over and over. Literally millions of people have learned this way. Maybe you're the special snowflake who doesn't get it but don't worry about it until it happens.

 

[kehcorpz]

But especially in stuff like wing chun it appears to me as if it heavily depends on proper technique.
i mean even in the videos i watched the instructor showed how not to do it! this means you can do a lot of stuff wrong.

imagine how cool it would be if a computer could supervise your technique and correct you. then you could basically train
24h per day and make insane progress but this is far off in the future.

 

[Midnight-shadow]

But how much can you learn in 3h per week? And the chief instructor also won't be standing right next to you all the time
and supervise everything cause there are many other people there.

My concern is simply that during the actual training I'm not able to really pick up much cause of being too nervous and then
during the week I can't do anything on my own.

I don't think that Bruce Lee for example only trained 3h per week. He probably trained every day with somebody.

I realize that this is a major criteria. I need something where you can do something at home. If you cannot do anything
at home at all then this would be too frustrating for me cause then I have no influence on my progress at all!

How do I find out which kind of MA allows you to practice stuff on your own?

I get it, you are afraid of learning/remembering a technique wrong and consequently practicing the wrong technique and turning it into a bad habit. This is an issue, but a minor one. Nobody is expecting you to be able to perform a skill perfectly straight away, and some techniques take years to learn to do properly. This is perfectly normal. If you are worried about practicing techniques wrong outside of class then just do body conditioning instead. Just do something because right now you are aren't helping yourself at all getting all worked up over training when you haven't even started yet.

 

[kehcorpz]

my concern is that if i learn a technique the wrong way it also won't be effective in real life and this seems to be the case cause in the one video
the guy said if you do it wrong like this then it won't protect you! this is pretty scary imo. the stuff needs to be right otherwise it's useless.

 

[Ironbear24]

my concern is that if i learn a technique the wrong way it also won't be effective in real life and this seems to be the case cause in the one video
the guy said if you do it wrong like this then it won't protect you! this is pretty scary imo. the stuff needs to be right otherwise it's useless.

Dude, chill the hell out. If me of all people is telling you to chill, then you know you have a problem because I am possibly one of the most obsessive people here.

You will do it wrong, you will fail, and learn to accept these facts because "doing it wrong" and failure is all part of the learning process. Nobody gets everything perfect on their first couple of tries, and if they do then it that's called dumb luck, you can't always count on dumb luck though.

You will fail, get over it, you will however learn from failure and get better and better.

 

[Midnight-shadow]

my concern is that if i learn a technique the wrong way it also won't be effective in real life and this seems to be the case cause in the one video
the guy said if you do it wrong like this then it won't protect you! this is pretty scary imo. the stuff needs to be right otherwise it's useless.

The chances of you having to use the techniques you learn in a real combat scenario are very unlikely (unless you are a policeman or in the armed forces) so I wouldn't worry about that at all. You are still overthinking things and getting worked up over nothing. As Ironbear said, chill the hell out.

 

[geezer]

You will fail, get over it, you will however learn from failure and get better and better.

Absolutely, failure can be the first step in eventual success, But you left out one important point, Ironbear.

You can't even fail if you don't try!!!


...now I think I need to chill....

 

[Ironbear24]

Absolutely, failure can be the first step in eventual success, But you left out one important point, Ironbear.

You can't even fail if you don't try!!!


...now I think I need to chill....

Yes. He needs to try, try often.

 

[Tez3]

Starting martial arts would be a good first step...even given all the medical issues he has.

 

[The Great Gigsy]

I do 3-4 hours a week of training with my sifu. Outside of class about another 2 hours of training, whether that be working on footwork drills or beating Bob up. Training at home is like homework. Your instructor teachs you a technique and you go home and work on it. Will you make mistakes at home most likely yes, but by regularly attending class those mistakes can be corrected.

 

[Phobius]

my concern is that if i learn a technique the wrong way it also won't be effective in real life and this seems to be the case cause in the one video
the guy said if you do it wrong like this then it won't protect you! this is pretty scary imo. the stuff needs to be right otherwise it's useless.

Everything is wrong until it becomes right. You dont just do a technique right, you do it wrong over and over again until you grasp all the details. The moment you grasp all the details you realize there never was a right or wrong. Simply a state of going from bad to good.

So if you do not train, you have failed. The moment you start training you will start moving from having failed to actually succeeding.

One more thing, why care so much about your teacher. You are the martial artist, not your teacher. What you learn you test through sparring or fighting. If it does not work for you, you train harder and study more. Might even remove some techniques and study new ones. It is nearly impossible to do something over and over and not getting better at it.

 

[Dylan9d]

You have to imagine, how many hours you were looking and asking here, now turn that over into real training hours...........you feel were im going at....

 

[KenpoMaster805]

I go to Karate 3 times a week Tuesday Thursday and Friday and I go to my karate Studio at 530p and im on a Swat team Program at my karate school and our duty is to help kids with their karate lesson and soon ill be assistant instructor after I help the kids with their karate lesson I practice from at 615 to 647pm then our class is at 700 to 745 and i practice at home too

 

[Chris Parker]

In the following quotes, you start four out of the six with the word "but…", and then interject your own completely uninformed opinions. What that tells me is that you aren't listening to anything anyone has said… and are simply putting up your own walls against actually training. That said, there's a few things to point out one more time…

hi folks,

i know that 2 times per week for 1,5h is better than 1 time for 3h.

How do you know that? I mean… I can cover more material in a single 3hr session than two 1 and a half hour ones… mainly as I don't have to account for two warmup sessions, two explanations at the beginning of class, two end recaps, and so on… I can also give more repetitions, and go into more depth in a single session… of course, on the flip side, more frequent repetitions (and shorter classes) can lead to higher retention for the student in some cases…

The point is, frankly, you don't know what's useful or not… so second guessing doesn't do you any good.

But time and money also play a role.
If I have to driver a longer distance then i'd rather go there only once per week
than having to go there 2 times.

If I don't have to travel far then going more often would be better, but I think that generally you don't train
more than 2 times per week. I looked at different stuff in my area and
they all trained 2 times for 1,5h expect the one which only has a training per week for 3h.

Welcome to reality. If you can't afford it, you can't afford it. Deal with it.

If you can train something on your own at home also depends on what you're training. For example when
you do boxing then you can hit a bag at home for hours.

Er… how much training in boxing do you have, as opposed to the zero training you have in anything else?

But what if what you do heavily depends on technique like wing chun? This is nothing you can just train
at home without supervision!

I'm sorry, are you saying boxing doesn't rely on technique? And frankly, if it "relies heavily on technique", then you practice the techniques. Dude, it's not that complicated.

I don't know if I'd even "learn" much during the training. I mean what do you do if during the training you're
too nervous and can't really memorize how to do a technique
and then you go home feeling crappy and there's nothing you can do until the next training.
This is something I worry about.
I don't think that I can just watch how something is done and then directly repeat it, especially when I'm nervous.
And if for example you fail at repeating something correctly
then you become even more nervous and totally shut down.

Yeah… look, I'm going to cut to the chase here. You are in no way suited to study martial arts. It's a fantasy for you, and something you can't see yourself actually doing. So don't.

If you could just watch something during the training and then spend the week at home practicing it
then it would be much different but if you basically only the training
sessions to learn something then this is a short window of opportunity.

For example if you watch a video where a certain technique is demonstrated then should a normal person
be able to just watch this and then duplicate it? For me this doesn't work.
And in real life when an instructor demonstrates something you cannot watch it in slow motion or watch it
again and again like in a video.

You do get that you get the opportunity to practice in the class so you do get some understanding of how to do it, yeah? I mean… do you think the instructor just shows stuff, and you then have to try to remember it when you get home without having done it at all? Really?

How do you practice solo forms without partner or dummy? What forms do you mean?

What? How do you practice solo forms without a partner?!?! They're SOLO forms! You know… only one person…

I watched a video where the instructor demonstrated a lot of techniques first he showed them on a dummy and then he showed them against an attacker.

That was a demonstration VIDEO… you know… not a class….

It provided a real good overview over different techniques but at the same time I thought this stuff all looks so complicated even mastering just 1 of these
many techniques probably takes months. Now imagine there are 50 of them then you can calculate how many years you need to learn them all. If every single
one of the techniques exists for a purpose then this means it's important and you can't just replace it with something else you already learned, right?

Either go to a class, and see how things are actually done (here's a clue… you don't get all those techniques in a single class… you'd cover them over months or years…), or forget this fantasy of yours.

but how do you practice a form on your own without risking that you do it wrong and then train your body to do it in a wrong way so that you cant even correct it anymore?

You practice it, you go back to class, the instructor corrects what you're doing wrong, repeat ad infinitum…. all of this is reliant on you, you know, actually going to a class, of course…

for example i watched a docu about kung fu monks. these guys already knew what they are doing and still the master corrected them all the time showing them little things
which they did wrong. this shows that you always need somebody to watch and correct you.

No, it showed you need someone with more experience to instruct you… which means you need to get to a class… but yeah, classes are always about correction. I'm constantly correcting my guys, and when I go to one of my teachers, I get corrected a lot as well. I look forward to it, in fact. It's how I get better.

But how much can you learn in 3h per week? And the chief instructor also won't be standing right next to you all the time
and supervise everything cause there are many other people there.

How much you can learn will depend on the art, your aptitude, the instructor, and the class itself… but I can happily say you can learn three hours worth.

But dude, if you need to be babied that much, and have the chief instructor watching over every single repetition you make, you'll never last past the first technique.

My concern is simply that during the actual training I'm not able to really pick up much cause of being too nervous and then
during the week I can't do anything on my own.

What is there to be nervous about? You're not the one teaching the class, you're simply a student… go to class, follow what's shown as best you can, go home, practice what you can remember, go back to class, and repeat… that's it.

I don't think that Bruce Lee for example only trained 3h per week. He probably trained every day with somebody.

You're not Bruce Lee, son… and frankly, you don't have any clue about his training regime… of course, not that that actually has any bearing on you at all.

I realize that this is a major criteria. I need something where you can do something at home. If you cannot do anything
at home at all then this would be too frustrating for me cause then I have no influence on my progress at all!

No, it's not a major criteria, it's you being completely uninformed, and not doing the only thing that will help, which is to go to a damn school already.

How do I find out which kind of MA allows you to practice stuff on your own?

ALL OF THEM. ALL.

I'll put it this way, I travel from Melbourne to Perth to train in a particular sword art a couple of times a year (which is about 2,700km, or about 1,700 miles), for a few days at a time… the rest of the time I'm training by myself. I use my personal notes and my memory. That's it.

But especially in stuff like wing chun it appears to me as if it heavily depends on proper technique.
i mean even in the videos i watched the instructor showed how not to do it! this means you can do a lot of stuff wrong.

Yes, you can. Which is why you keep going back to the class so the instructor can correct you when you start going off base. But, again, all this hinges on you actually getting up, and going to a school first.

imagine how cool it would be if a computer could supervise your technique and correct you. then you could basically train
24h per day and make insane progress but this is far off in the future.

You're talking about a sci-fi fantasy, kid. Here's reality. Go to a school. Follow what's shown as best you can. Practice what you can remember, and go back to the next class for correction and new information. Repeat.

my concern is that if i learn a technique the wrong way it also won't be effective in real life and this seems to be the case cause in the one video

What the hell are you going on about?!?! A guy in a video was showing some common pitfalls to a technique, and why it's done a certain way (which most instructors will as well), and you take that as "if I do it wrong, I'll die!!!"

Dude. If you do it wrong, you'll be corrected. You won't suddenly be attacked and need that exact technique on the way home.

the guy said if you do it wrong like this then it won't protect you! this is pretty scary imo. the stuff needs to be right otherwise it's useless.

Which is why you go to a school and learn under an instructor.

But really… there's only two options for you now. Either actually bite the bullet, and go to a school, or give up your fantasy and quit with the lunatic questions. That's it. Go to a school, or give up on martial arts. I don't care which, but that's all you have left available to you now. There's nothing else to say.

 

[kehcorpz]

I'm just worried that I can't deal with the pressure of having to understand stuff during the class. I mean this is a very short window of opportunity
which you have to learn something. I am somebody who learns and understands things better when I have a lot of time and when I'm not under pressure.
What if I go there for 3h and during this time I wasn't able to gain more understanding? This would be very discouraging and then the pressure would be
higher as well next time.

For example if you're shown a technique in class and you can't repeat it yet then you also cannot practice it at home which means you can't do anything
in the meantime to get better and this is also discouraging.

Another example, if you suck at math and understand nothing in math class then you still have the chance to go over it at home and then understand it!
But you cannot do this with techniques can you? How shall you practice a technique at home if you cannot even repeat it yet? Then there's nothing to
practice!
This is the same as trying to memorize a song if you don't remember parts of the lyrics then you also cannot try to memorize them.

 

[The Great Gigsy]

Dude, you act as if making a mistake in class is going to lead some dire consequences. Its a learning environment and as a general rule most people make mistakes when learning new things. It's called being human.

 

[kehcorpz]

No this is not what I mean. Does nobody understand me?
I am talking about making progress.

Imagine you're a professional dancer and the instructor demonstrates a new coreography and
does all the moves in front of you and you watch him and can't memorize the stuff and he repeats
it a few times and you still cannot memorize it and then the class is over. And next time you pick
up where you left and couldn't practice anything in between.

 

[Tames D]

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

I can almost guarantee that WHEN YOU GO TO A DOJO they will teach you something you can practice on your own. You will likely not be doing it fully correctly when you practice, but then next time they go over it (which hopefully is the next class) they will correct it. You will not be able to do anything perfect after the first class, but you still need to go to the first (then a second, then a third, etc.) or you won't learn anything good or bad.