How to Practice Fighting Skills

As any fighter knows, excellent physical conditioning is prerequisite to learning combat skills. Physical and mental strength are an essential foundation on which to build your fighting skills. To increase your fundamental physical
condition, practice healthy habits in your everyday life. Adopt a daily conditioning and exercise program that exercises the whole body and especially the muscles and joints used in your combat training.

Based on your physical conditioning, start practicing the basic fighting skills. When you are ready to begin, take the skills one at a time or in small groups and work slowly at first. Every movement is a dynamic entity that cannot be expressed except through movement.

When you begin a new skill or movement, first visualize the ideal action. See yourself performing an accurate, fluid movement. Begin practicing slowly, with the focus on imitating the correct line of movement. Refine each skill individually adding speed and power when you have established the correct movement pattern.

Once you have practiced a technique thoroughly, begin practice with a partner. Start with arranged interactions and limited skills. Increase the spontaneity of the interaction as your skills develop. Always use excellent control
when practicing with a partner. These skills are meant for self-protection in actual combat and may cause serious injury if control is not exercised.

The Need for Realism in Self-defense Practice

There are several categories of combat among humans. Combat can be arranged such as in boxing, wrestling, or martial arts practice. It can be spontaneous, as in fighting and self-protection. The difference lies in the imposition or lack of rules and the level of conflict between the contestants.

Arranged combat is a common way of testing combat skills. It can be among friends or rivals. It can be for fun or high-stakes. It can be with strict safety rules or anything-goes type matches. Most often, however, it is contested with the safety of the contestants in mind and the outcome is secondary.

Arranged combat is a good method of practicing skills within a framework of safety rules. For optimum results, it should allow the widest range of attacks and defenses possible. If you train for the possibility of a  life-endangering encounter, you should not be limited by unnecessary rules and gear that will not exist in the anticipated attack.

For example, a woman who trains for self-protection would not gain much by putting on boxing gloves and sparring according to boxing rules. She is unlikely to face an attacker who will give her the room to punch and she is at risk of seriously damaging her hands in a barehanded attack. A more realistic approach for her would be to engage in simulation training in which she is faced with an attempted assault and practices thwarting the attacker.

Arranged combat should closely model its goals. If its goal is sport, train for sport. If its goal is self-protection, train for realism with a minimum of rules and a heavy dose of reality.