SW Portland Martial Arts Blog

There are many good things to be gleaned from learning martial arts. We, as a school, think that competency should be ranked number one. Students don’t need to learn fast and push themselves at every moment, but the goal should be improved skill in martial arts – without that core growth of competence, all the other good things fall away.
What “other” good things are there besides getting better at kicking, punching, throwing, choking, pinning, and evading punches? Staying calm under pressure. Today in kids class, we worked on trying to defend efficiently. When the punch comes in, if we use two hands, scream, close our eyes, and fall to our knees, that’s not particularly efficient. It might stop that attack, but it’s liable to open us up pretty wide for the next attack.
Alright. So what does defending efficiently have to do with staying calm? Well, inevitably, students will notice that they have, in fact, defended inefficiently. If, in that moment of noticing, they get upset at themselves and stop to grumble, groan, or throw their arms down, then they are likely to be opening themselves up even more so than if they had simply defended poorly.
Over-reacting emotionally almost always opens us up to attack. Thus, over time, martial arts, if practiced with an eye toward competence, should help us remain calm in the face of difficulty. Hopefully this skill transfers to more than simply defending punches in sparring and helps students stay calm when they make mistakes in “real” life like forgetting to bring a lunch to school, or missing the bus, or whatever – because as in sparring, so in life – over-reacting almost always leaves us less able to solve the problem at hand.

Martial arts isn’t all about technique, but it’s the most important thing we can deliver as teachers and it’s the thing that will matter the most over the long haul.

If you’re not fast, strong, or big – that will only make technique more important. Indeed, it is often those folks who aren’t physically gifted that end up with the best technique because they have no other tools to get the job done.

So how do you get good technique? Go to class, do the drills, ask questions, and train consistently. It’s the same for kids and adults.

Interested in kid’s classes? Check out our schedule here.