How long to complete your style?

[Danny T]

Yeah no one trains 20 hours a week

I no longer train 20 hrs a week I'm down to between 15-18
I have fighters who average 4-5 hrs a day 5 day a week plus road work on their off days.

 

[Kickboxer101]

How can you be so sure? I train more than 20.

Bull so you don't work or go to school or anything because if you work or go to school there's no way you can train 20 hours a week

 

[mograph]

Someone might be able to train 2 hours on the 5 weekday evenings, then 5 hours Saturday plus 5 hours Sunday to make up the 20.

 

[DanT]

Bull so you don't work or go to school or anything because if you work or go to school there's no way you can train 20 hours a week

I study health science full time, see my girlfriend daily, and train 5pm-9:30 4 days a week. On Saturday I train 9am-1pm. I then work on Saturday and Sunday's part time at night to pay for school. and when I graduate with my degree in physical therapy I'm going to open my clinic and teach night.

 

[Flying Crane]

Yeah no one trains 20 hours a week

Actually, I did until my son was born.

 

[Midnight-shadow]

20 hours a week doesn't seem that much to me, I mean it's not all falling down right? There could be footwork and other things to practice? I have a question, how do you guys break down say an hour of training?

15 minutes warm-up, 30 minutes conditioning and drills, 15 minutes forms.
15 minutes warm-up, 15 minutes conditioning and drills, 30 minutes forms.
15 minutes warm-up, 15 minutes conditioning and drills, 15 minutes forms, 15 minutes sparring.

As a general guideline unless I want to focus on something specific for longer.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Yeah no one trains 20 hours a week

Bull so you don't work or go to school or anything because if you work or go to school there's no way you can train 20 hours a week

Plenty of people train 20+ hours per week. They're mostly either professionals (fighters/competitors/teachers/performers) who do it for a living or else young guys without much else going on in their lives except an obsession with martial arts.

I'm an un-athletic 52 year old with a desk job and I train 12-15 hours per week. I have on rare occasions put in 20 hours of training in a single week, but my body can't really heal up fast enough to handle that these days. If I won the lottery and could quit my day job, hire a personal nutritionist, massage therapist, and sports medicine doctor, and get 10 hours of sleep per night, then I could probably bump my training up to a consistent 20 hours per week.

 

[Xue Sheng]

You can actually complete a style? News to me

 

[Gerry Seymour]

20 hours a week doesn't seem that much to me, I mean it's not all falling down right? There could be footwork and other things to practice? I have a question, how do you guys break down say an hour of training?

Once you get into the core, it is either 90% falling, or you replace part of that with painful locks. In a normal class (90 minutes), I'll spend maybe 10 minutes on warm-up, and the rest is all active training. Some of this might be practicing blocks and strikes, but that's intermittent. Most of the time is spent actually throwing and locking, and the strikes become part of the overall defense during those techniques. It's not unusual for an experienced student to take several dozen falls in a single class. When we're working hard, that can easily be more 3-4 falls per minute at times (exchanged between partners). Mind you, some of the throws can be escaped with rolls, which are far less exhausting and easier on the body.

For beginning students (in their first year), there's more time spent on stances, static striking, etc. Most of that goes away, as we incorporate all of that into our overall technique. Most of the footwork training happens within the "Classical Form" or "Classical Technique", which is a 2-person single-technique short kata with specific footwork. Those still involve throwing/locking each other.

I've actually added some long-form kata to the curriculum to provide more material that can be done without falling. I did this in part so folks can practice more at home, and in part because I seem to attract students over age 40. Starting at that age, the falls are harder on the body, because new students fall "harder" than experienced students.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

You can actually complete a style? News to me

I took the OP to mean getting the complete curriculum to a reasonable level of proficiency.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Basically I asked my Sifu (he teaches white crane, wing chun, and northern shaolin) how long it takes to complete (attain a high level of skill and be proficient in all aspects of the system) each style. His answer was that it depends on the student, but generally an average Joe who works his butt off (minimum 20 h of training a week) could do:

-wing chun in 8 years
-northern shaolin in 12 years
-white crane in 20 years

How about in your style?

The thing about "high level of skill" is that it's totally subjective and dependent on who you are comparing yourself to.

BJJ has been my primary art for around 17 years (although I had some exposure to it before that). I have a black belt and teach regular classes in that art. Some days, with some training partners, I feel like I do indeed have a high level of skill. Other days (especially when watching people like Demian Maia or Marcelo Garcia), I feel like should be demoted down to no higher than purple belt, maybe lower. Even on the days when I feel like I'm pretty skilled I'm still very aware that I have more potential improvement ahead of me than I could possibly make in one lifetime.

"All aspects" is also problematic. Even if I were to magically become skilled in every technique currently practiced in BJJ today, the art is constantly evolving. Practitioners are coming up with new techniques and strategies way faster than I can learn them. That's part of why, even though I appreciate the new material, I'm primarily a fundamentals oriented guy.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Bull so you don't work or go to school or anything because if you work or go to school there's no way you can train 20 hours a week

Sure someone could. 3 hours a day of training (either classes or solo work) is 21 hours.

 

[marques]

"All aspects" is also problematic. Even if I were to magically become skilled in every technique currently practised in BJJ today, the art is constantly evolving. Practitioners are coming up with new techniques and strategies way faster than I can learn them.

That is a new point in this thread. (If not new, at least a relevant one.) Sometimes where the art finishes is not obvious.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

"high level of skill" ...

IMO, "high level skill" is you know how to

- set up that technique,
- execute that technique,
- apply counters to that technique,
- apply counters to those counters.
- ...

The technique set up is the root. The technique is the main trunk. The counter is the joint. The counter to counter is the branch.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

That is a new point in this thread. (If not new, at least a relevant one.) Sometimes where the art finishes is not obvious.

In a traditional art, it may be more easily defined. For NGA, for example, there are 50 Classical Techniques that comprise the majority of the formal core curriculum. Beyond that there are about 15-20 strikes, a handful of blocks, and some miscellania (depending upon which curriculum you're looking at). That's divided up into 5 sets, so nobody gets the full core curriculum until they get through those 5 sets. There's a bit of other work that comes later in at least one curriculum, but I wouldn't consider it core to the art. So there's a distinct point at which someone has received the entire core curriculum. In some arts, the curriculum may only take 3 years (then time to become proficient). In others, the curriculum extends much longer (like some mentioned with White Crane, for instance). There's certainly a lot to work with and learn beyond that core curriculum, and I assume that's true of every art.

 

[DanT]

15 minutes warm-up, 30 minutes conditioning and drills, 15 minutes forms.
15 minutes warm-up, 15 minutes conditioning and drills, 30 minutes forms.
15 minutes warm-up, 15 minutes conditioning and drills, 15 minutes forms, 15 minutes sparring.

As a general guideline unless I want to focus on something specific for longer.

Thanks for the input

 

[DanT]

Plenty of people train 20+ hours per week. They're mostly either professionals (fighters/competitors/teachers/performers) who do it for a living or else young guys without much else going on in their lives except an obsession with martial arts.

I'm an un-athletic 52 year old with a desk job and I train 12-15 hours per week. I have on rare occasions put in 20 hours of training in a single week, but my body can't really heal up fast enough to handle that these days. If I won the lottery and could quit my day job, hire a personal nutritionist, massage therapist, and sports medicine doctor, and get 10 hours of sleep per night, then I could probably bump my training up to a consistent 20 hours per week.

This.

 

[DanT]

You can actually complete a style? News to me

Like I said, complete meaning having reached a decent level of skill and not having any more formal part of the system to learn.

 

[DanT]

In a traditional art, it may be more easily defined. For NGA, for example, there are 50 Classical Techniques that comprise the majority of the formal core curriculum. Beyond that there are about 15-20 strikes, a handful of blocks, and some miscellania (depending upon which curriculum you're looking at). That's divided up into 5 sets, so nobody gets the full core curriculum until they get through those 5 sets. There's a bit of other work that comes later in at least one curriculum, but I wouldn't consider it core to the art. So there's a distinct point at which someone has received the entire core curriculum. In some arts, the curriculum may only take 3 years (then time to become proficient). In others, the curriculum extends much longer (like some mentioned with White Crane, for instance). There's certainly a lot to work with and learn beyond that core curriculum, and I assume that's true of every art.

Thanks for the input

 

[Xue Sheng]

Like I said, complete meaning having reached a decent level of skill and not having any more formal part of the system to learn.

Then that depends on the style and the person training the style and I understand the desire to have answers to this, and I wish I had an answer, but I must confess that after 45 years in martial arts (various styles), which includes 25 years of Taijiquan (with my shifu telling me I can teach whatever I want - so no more formal training at then moment, but I am looking at other styles of Taiji as well as revisiting an old one I use to do), and probably 10 or so years of Xingyiquan (and at the moment I don't think there is anyone in my area I could get formal training from, but there are those in other areas of the continent I could that I feel are highly skilled) that I rarely feel I have a decent level of skill in any of it. But then I also know, and have been told, I am my own worst critic too.