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?

• Developing Movement patterns 
• Bruce Lee on agility