With the advent of social media and mobile phones with quality cameras everyone and their dog can publicly post their martial arts, this is both a good and bad thing.

From an observational point of view I often find myself thinking that many people look like they are moving reluctantly and with their ‘handbrake stuck on’ and what they are doing wouldn’t work – and asking myself why.

These are my thoughts:

Too much negative gym work and vanity training is isolating muscles instead of connecting them and is stiffening their body negating mobility and power.

They never seem to have their body weight fully in their limbs and are unable to smoothly accelerate, focus and discharge any created power.

A subconscious fear of engagement and getting hurt is causing a lack of commitment.

Training has to work on mobility, balance, connection, fluidity, power and involve the combination of emotion, focus and intensity through layered skill work.

To make martial arts work there has to be a mutual agreement with training partners that between bows they are training to finish the fight with 100% commitment. They control their technique but the full intent has to be present and venom and cognitive dissonance is being trained along with technical skill.

My advice is to source the training that works on all the above skills in a layered, synergistic way – and take that fluffing handbrake off!

If you’re unsure, look to the animals to see how they are able to do this naturally, not having the their self consciousness in the way.