Practice Makes Perfect

I know I'm stating the obvious here, but it is common sense, practice does make perfect. 

Drill something until it becomes second nature. Alternatively there's another other quote: an amateur practices until they get it right, a proffesional practices so that they never get it wrong..   

But you will have to know HOW TO do it right, otherwise you wouldn't know what to aim for! Lets just asume you've learned how to do it right (you've seen it demonstrated, have been taught etc.) how do you ensure that you get it right?  

First of , spend the time:  As with anything, it's easy to get carried away. Lets say you're practicing a punch on a heavy bag or similar target. After some time you might just be hitting the bag as it 'feels good', you're letting of some steam etc.. but did you lose good form?  If you did, then it's high time to take a step back, slow down, and if needed go to all the way back to slow motion to go through all the mechanics in detail, and slowly speed up again.  

The point is, if you're doing it wrong, and you don't know, or don't care, the risk is that you condition yourself for failure, it becomes a bad habit and very , very difficult to put right!  That punch becomes sloppy by nature, it won't have the correct allignment, you end up being telegraphic, it won't be power full, you risk injury (either by wrong execution, or by the fact your opponent saw you coming by a mile and beat you to it!) , it won't be as fast as it could be etc etc etc. 

So as soon as you sense you're starting to make mistakes, do yourself a favour, slow down and focus on correcting it or STOP, and focus on something esle for a while.

It might al seem so straightforward, but so many people don't do it, or don't realise they probably own one of the best tools to check yourself, a mobile phone! Film yourself, either in normal speed or if you really want to pick up on the finer details, go for slow motion capture.  What mistakes or habbits can you pick up on.  Did you 'set up' your moves with something preliminary, however small, is your footwork good or are you flat footed, do you drop your guard when punching, are you dropping your hand on recovery etc. etc. 

If you don't know, share the footage with someone, preferably with your instructor to see if they see anything and give you pointers to work on.  Take your training and practice sessions seriously, and you'll make great improvements soon enough! 

Walk On!