Making Martial Arts lessons fun

[Tony]

Last night I had a really enjoyable class! My instructor is very creative with his classes and he makes them fun which is one of the reasons I always go back. For one part of the class we partnered up and had to play catch. You may ask what this has to do with our training well it helps coordination and reactions. Then one person had to throw the ball then the other had to thrust kick it back, thenwe woudl change the kicks to low stomping kick, then roundhouse. All this helps accuracy, timing, coordination and reflexes but most importantly its fun!!

As well as doing fun exercises like this its valuable training so we don't always do the same thing all the time. What makes me laugh is if someone had come in off the street they might have thought they had the wrong class when we were kicking the balls.

So what kind of simple fun drills do some of you do and how does it help your overall training?

 

[The Kai]

We Finger Paint. It is a great way to train Spearhands, Tiger Claws, Eagle Claws, Thumb Strikes. Then when we are done we can put them up on your refrigerator

 

[TigerWoman]

Fingerpaint, haha. Very messy class that would be. You would know exactly where you hit on your hand though, if you paint your hand different colors.

Well, we throw up balls and roundkick for beginners and spin heel for the rest. Double balls for double spinheel for 2nd deg. Or, the master throws balls at us and we have to avoid getting hit. :idunno: about that last one.

Also another dubious one, is trying to get a ball up with one foot, rolling it over the top until it pops and hitting it up with the top of your foot then roundkick or spin heel. I never got past the point of getting the ball up the first time. Feels like a juggling act. TW

 

[swiftpete]

I always think the fun parts of my lessons are where we get to grapple to submission. I'm pretty flexible and am pretty good at grappling so making the bigger guys submit always feels like fun to me!

Not so fun parts are getting hit hard in the neck with forearms/shutos, I've never really enjoyed that part all that much. My rib getting broken in class wasn't too fun either!