By Master Cincinnatus I’m 47, and I started this article because of questions I get from older students. Master Cincinnatus is my pen name here, and anyone who knows where it comes from knows who I am. For a long…
Sparring anxiety, training plateaus, and ego in the dojo each describe a different obstacle. Taken separately, they look like three unrelated problems that happen to show up at different points in a student’s training. They are not unrelated. They are…
Training plateaus covers what to actually do once you’re in one — but diagnosing which of the three types you’re facing depends on being able to compare how you’re training and performing now against how you were training and performing…
Training plateaus covers what happens when visible progress stalls after months of consistent training. This one covers something that shows up much earlier and stops more people before they ever get far enough to hit a plateau at all: the…
A belt is a statement from one instructor that you met one school’s standard — it’s not a measurement of how fast you’re actually improving week to week. That distinction matters most during a plateau, because a plateau is exactly…
Competition vs. street covers what does and doesn’t carry over between the competition mat and an actual confrontation. That’s a different question from the one this article addresses: if you’re preparing for your first actual tournament, what does the preparation…
The FAQ at the bottom of the complete guide to choosing your first martial art gives a one-line answer to the cross-training question: not as a beginner. That’s the right short answer, and it deserves the longer one — why…
Decades of teaching means decades of watching students navigate the same decision, over and over, in slightly different forms: keep training through this, or stop. I’ve watched people get it wrong in both directions — training through something that needed…
“The question is not whether to be strong. Of course you should be strong. The question is what strength, developed how, expressed through which training, so that it enhances the art rather than interfering with it. Bulk that slows you…
> “A technique that has never been tested against resistance has not been learned. It has been memorized. Memorization produces the appearance of skill. Testing produces the reality of it. The two look identical in a cooperative drill and nothing…
