How to learn martial arts
Learning is an individual experience, specific to a person’s needs and way of understanding. The learning process is therefore necessarily unique to every individual and situation, and this should be recognized in the flexibility given to how one learns, both from the learner’s perspective and from the perspective of one who is instructing the learner.
However, good instruction and reception of knowledge flow from certain standards, which remain true in nearly all scenarios, and HMA considers several approaches as being key to a constructive process of martial arts education:
1. Replication must precede individuation (generally).
This tenet reflects that the techniques and processes of a martial art have been cultivated over time by many experts, sometimes for years and sometimes for centuries. Naturally, every person’s physical structure and individual needs will differ, and as a learner progresses, they will gradually make subtle adaptations of the techniques to their own physical needs. However, such adaptations should come from a place of understanding, which generally cannot be recognized solely from within — that is to say, the traditional reliance on the judgment of an instructor or one’s senior is key to determining one’s own understanding of a martial art or its subjects.
Only once a reasonable level of understanding and competency has been reached should the learner endeavor to adjust the techniques even minimally to better suite their own needs.
Put in more simple terms, this might say: First, master the technique as taught. Then, refine the technique.
This principle does not intend to suggest that the learner should ignore cues from their own body, or not attempt to integrate understanding of the technique in terms of their own body’s unique structure, but rather that these should take a backseat to reliance on repetition and replication until the needed level of mastery has been reached.
A standard chestnut of many martial arts traditions states that repetition leads to comprehension. Following the movements of a master, even without understanding them at first, will lead to proficiency, often much more rapidly and with better results than trying to “outsmart” the system and learn it without repetition.
2. Value instructors over institutions
Martial arts institutions have many merits. In ideal form, they maintain transmission of traditional techniques, limit the profusion of illegitimate schools claiming to be something they are not, and aid in the organization of inter-school collaboration and healthy competition.
But institutions, especially the larger and more fractious among them, become bogged down in political quagmires and interdisciplinary feuds. Small differences in interpreting a technique can become a wedge that breaks apart a tradition. Personal differences can result in cultish behavior. As such, the mark of an institution in itself may be insufficient to gauge the quality of a school. In general, when seeking instruction in a martial art, look to the instructor for the sign of quality.
Key aspects of quality instruction include clarity of education over autocratic dictation, focus on the advantages of one’s own art as opposed to focus on the disadvantages of another’s art, and demonstration by example rather than by words alone.
There are many other methods and observations by which one may discern the quality of an instructor besides those noted above. This will in part always be an exercise dependent on the needs of the learner. A careful search for a quality instructor is especially critical when early in one’s martial arts journey, as it may be more difficult to discern the qualities which reflect positively on an instructor.
3. When lacking information, place trust in individuals of quality.
Following on the previous principle, when lacking information about an art, institution, or instructor, look to learn from those who appear to embody good principles of teaching and communicating — regardless of the art itself. You can determine to an extent the value of a school by those who attend it, if you know them better. In a larger school, you may find other learners who understand the principles of the art, and not only glean information from them but use them as a bellwether to judge the various qualities of instruction that come your way from different instructors and senior students. In all situations, explore the qualities of the people around you, and build an implicit network of trust — those who you believe to be compatible in their character and in their journey of learning, and which you will hopefully soon join as a valuable member yourself, as your learning continues.
4. Time and training are the answer.
The process of learning martial arts — one martial art, or an integrated system — is never brief. Do not expect results overnight, but look for and celebrate the smaller victories along the way — they count for a lot. Small changes, over time, yield huge results.
In the meantime, along the way, maintain faith in the process. Training is its own reward, and the very essence of martial learning. Come to appreciate it for its own merits (of which there are many) and you will find yourself universally more successful.
When you have doubts about what you are learning, keep training.
When you struggle to perform a technique, keep training.
When you think that you will never improve, keep training.
When you wonder if what you’re learning is worth the effort, keep training.
Only your training will answer these challenges.
The actual learning process varies greatly depending on the goals and the needs of the individual learner.
Learning a martial art can satisfy many purposes, as explored in Purpose of Study; these can include learning how to defend oneself, becoming physically fit, and many other reasons. Generally however, from the perspective of HMA, martial arts is a lifelong endeavor, and likewise a learning process that continues on throughout one’s life. Boiled down to basics may be summarized as the inculcation of a worthwhile skill that challenges the physical and mental capabilities, supports one’s health, and provides a deep and broad avenue of exploration that can — and should — last the duration of one’s life, providing continual and generally increasing benefits the longer and more wholely one pursues it.
In light of this, HMA defines a series of methodological objectives to be applied to the learning process:
- Approach all learning with an open, clear, unbiased mind. There will be plenty of time to disagree or dissent later on.
- A martial art should be learned in its own merit before transferring or applying skills from other martial arts. Give a new art a chance to stand on its own merit, and do not seek the merits of previous art within a new art, but find its own unique merits as you learn.
- Trust your instructors. If your instructors are not trustworthy, find new instructors.
- Build a network of hardworking, intellectually curious students, both your juniors and your seniors. They will be your path to success, and you theirs.
- Meditate on what you have learned in a class throughout your day. All skill requires time to ruminate.
- Approach learning as both a physical and mental exercise, no matter the bent of the art towards the physical or the metaphysical. All martial arts are best understood comprehensively.
- Ask questions. If you cannot ask of your instructor, ask of senior students. If you cannot ask of senior students, ask of your classmates. If you cannot ask of your classmates, ask of yourself, and do not be satisfied until you have arrived at a satisfactory answer (and even then, maintain an openness towards possible new and superior, more comprehensive answers).
- Questions and uncertainties may be held in abeyance even as you continue learning. Do not allow a doubt to unseat you from your valiant steed.
- Do not allow lack of total success to act as discouragement. Learning exists for its own merits. If something is missing, seek it out.
- Your goals and needs remain your own at all times. Your technique may be corrected; your goals may only be guided.
- Weigh all new information in context of the information which has come before. Do so silently.
- When in doubt, train. Your training alone of all things will not let you down.