What’s your “go to” technique?

You know the one – your favorite technique that you can’t live fight without?

And what about your students?

I’m sure their choices are as vast and varied as the colors of the rainbow.

Now what if you couldn’t use that technique anymore.

What would you do instead?

Last week one of my instructors and I were talking about this exact point and came up with the following idea for a sparring exercise.

Here’s how it works:

Have your students pair up ready for sparring and have each of them tell the class their favorite technique. After every student has proudly announced their choice, you the instructor explain that they’re going to fight but they are not allowed to use THAT technique.

(And if they do, think of something sinister as punishment)

You’ll have some students that can’t kick with their front leg, others who aren’t allowed to throw a reverse punch and some who aren’t allowed to sweep. With each new round make sure each student informs their opponent of their banned technique.

This exercise forces students to avoid their “go to” technique and work on other things, which of course helps them improve their sparring ability. It sounds simple I know – and it is. But it’s also a useful martial arts exercise.

Give it a go and let me know how it works for you…

Enjoy,

– Jason

P.S. I finally fixed the Captcha form below so you can leave comments again. There was an improperly installed plugin that was creating havoc, but now it’s all good.

😉