Excelsior

Follow us on

excelsiorathletic@gmail.com

07976 306 494

Main Menu

Latest Blog Entry

Reflections from a Gymnastics assistant coaching course
1st June 2023
A guest post from Kath Maguire. Kath is the parent of one of our club’s gymnasts. She asked about doing some volunteering a couple of months ago and whether there was a course she could do. Here are her reflections from the day. “I’ve been thinking about volunteering for a while now but as it’s […]
More

User login

Lost password?

Martial Arts- enhance or inhibit natural movement?

I was recently asked about using Martial Arts training to help a sports academy with their movement patterns. This is ironic because a lot of M.A. training actually inhibits natural movement patterns.

In fact, these artificial movements become more and more exaggerated, and then become the object of the training, rather than an aid to being a better fighter.

Bruce Lee called this “Organised Despair“.

This is common in other sports where a training aid or practice becomes the focus, rather than thinking “does this help us play our sport better?” For example in practising agility drills with equipment, coaches can focus on the drill, rather than on the movement patterns underneath (see our agility guide)

One natural fighter who used me a lot as a sparring partner (or moving target) was Elwyn Hall; this clip shows some of his movement quite well

Training with Steve Morris opened my eyes further to this, and I stopped doing the Karate immediately. This was after spending thousands of hours training, plus thousands of pounds spent on Karate: I was a 4th Dan and was on the England squad for 3 years, so had a big investment and “expertise“. (Read about my Karate training).

I stopped because I realised that it was becoming an end in itself. How many other coaches are prepared to make that type of paradigm shift?

Are you running drills that are self -serving, or do they make improvements in your sporting performance?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Client Testimonials

Scott Rogers: Footballer
I ruptured my ACL back in August 2015 playing football for Tiverton Town FC. Not only have I just returned to play again less than a year later with my knee feeling as good as it did prior to my injury,  but my my body in the whole feels like it was 10 years ago […]
 
More

Upcoming Courses