For the uninitiated, in martial arts, we often teach forms. They are called Kata in Karate or Poomse in Taekwondo, we just call them “Forms.” They are choreographed sets of movements. Many instructors have moved away from teaching them because of their perceived impracticality and the difficulty modern students have with learning them.
We teach our own forms. They are modern, with hands held in practical positions and movements done in useful and realistic ways. They develop our students’ abilities to do set combinations in a fun and realistic way. I am not bad-mouthing traditional forms. Whether you teach modern forms or traditional forms, or just combinations, they are more important than most people realize.
One of my instructors’ favorite words was, “Again.” He seldom would tell us what we were doing wrong, or how to sharpen the technique. He just made us do it over and over again. He knew we would guess on our own what was wrong, either correctly or incorrectly, and not wanting to continue doing the kata, make everything better. He also knew that there was probably nothing that needed too much improvement that more repetitions wouldn’t fix. It may have needed no fixing, but he knew the value of repetitions.
Repetition is the key, and you might be underestimating how many repetitions it takes to master something. In self-defense, we have to be able to react to violence without thinking. That means we will need to have practiced to a point that our body reacts on its own, from muscle memory…correct muscle memory.
According to Dr. Ann Quinn, “When teaching physical skills, it is said to take 30,000 repetitions to master that skill, to create a muscle memory. One very minor change to a technique also takes 30,000 repetitions too!”
However, when memorizing katas or forms in martial arts, it isn’t about putting it into your muscle memory, that’s the end goal, it’s about putting it into your cognitive memory, into your mind.
Once it’s in our cognitive memory, then we will do the “real” repetitions. We don’t practice until we get it right, but until we no longer get it wrong. Sounds like a lot, but it’s probably even worse than that. To maintain our skills, we will practice it frequently for the rest of our lives.
Do we get bored? Sure, that’s probably the most important part. I’ll get to that, it’s life changing. One of my instructors said, “Practice is what happens after you’re bored.” What he didn’t realize, or maybe he did, is that those times when we are embracing the repetitions and in that mentally bored state, we are then, and only then, developing true mental discipline. Mental discipline is what allows us to be controlled in traumatic situations. It allows us to say “No” to those tempting things that negatively affect our lives, to say “yes” to the things that we should do every day but require work. It is what eliminates outbursts, anxiety, worry and stress. It is having a still mind. It is mental clarity and emotional control.
So how do we memorize the forms? How do you memorize anything?
Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers states, “The key to mastering any skill or any activity is practice. The more you practice anything…the more you become better at it. And this saying brings us to the 10,000 hours rule which says if you roughly dedicate 10,000 hours to any activity…you will achieve mastery in it.”
The Hebbian scientific learning theory says that neurons that fire together…wire together. This means that there are connections in the brain that are activated when you perform a certain task and when you perform this task repeatedly these connections strengthen.
But again, we first must deal with cognitive memorization, of the katas or forms, not muscle memory…not yet. How do we memorize the katas?
Let’s say you are in a lecture hall and the speaker is giving an interesting, (or not), speech, what do you do to remember it? You probably take notes or even write it down word for word. This takes the things you are hearing into your brain in a way that is different than just listening, reinforcing its value on the neurons. Then to really know it, you might start a study group where you each give the same presentation to the group, reinforcing it again on those neurons. You might even need to rewrite the notes just to be certain. You might create flash cards and then use those to go back over everything. It’s called studying. University students do this. They paid for their education, it hopefully will pay them back with knowledge and a career someday, it is so important to them that they will do whatever it takes to learn it.
Is it more important that being able to defend your life in an act of violence? Why would you not be willing to put the same level of importance on your martial arts education? Does college education teach you emotional discipline and mental calmness? Why would you not be willing to put the same importance on kata, knowing it can give you so much?
If you record the lecture, and hopefully listen to it in the future, you gain a little something. If the teacher gives out his notes, or presentation and you hopefully review it, you gain a little something. But you won’t gain nearly as much as you would if you write it down, make note cards and present it to someone else.
We can give you written copies of your katas. We can make videos of them for you, but the fastest and best way to learn them is to write them down yourself. Document them in your own handwriting while either watching us do the kata or doing it yourself. Then re-write it, practice it, re-write it again and again and then teach it to someone else.
There are real benefits of martial arts from being more fit, from being capable of self-defense, but the biggest benefits come from being able to win our most difficult battles against our most dangerous opponent…the inner battles we fight every day, against ourselves. Our own bad habits, self-loathing and subconscious impulses. Learning Kata is the best way of doing this. The benefit isn’t in knowing them, it comes from the act of learning them.