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For what its worth, I empathize. You sound as frustrated as I do when IÂ’m pressing. I donÂ’t know if taking some time off would help or not but thereÂ’s nothing wrong with a mental health day or two.
Otherwise, when IÂ’ve run into a bad patch, IÂ’ve always found it helpful to ramp up my solo training and getting back to basics; stretch, practicing moving through low kamae, sanshin, punching/kicking.
IÂ’ve also found that itÂ’s better for me to hit reasonable goals. If I say IÂ’m going to do solo training five times a week and only hit two, the danger is that itÂ’ll put me in a deeper mental hole. Lately, IÂ’ve been lucky in that there is a gym across from my work and I can usually grab time during lunch or right after work. (Notionally, if I aim for 4-5 days and actually get to 3-4, I feel IÂ’m doing all right. If I miss a day, I donÂ’t try to make it up later. I just let it go). I have better luck doing a bit everyday but some people I train with prefer 2 long sessions a week.
Also, and this is my experience only, when IÂ’m pressing IÂ’m usually better off going through things slowly. When stretching, I make sure I hold the stretches for a slow count of thirty. When moving through kamae, it's a minimum count of 50. (Just pick three at a time) For sanshin, a ten count at the extreme ends of the movement and an eight count in the transition. When punching or kicking, I just work on one strike at a time (IÂ’m sure you know we have more than the lunge punch). Throw 100 right, 100 left and repeat. When your form starts to break down stop of take a rest.
Your body will make specific adjustments to this type of training so if you fall into the habit of consistent solo training, youÂ’ll have to change things up periodically. However, for me, slow training is usually pretty good at clearing out the cobwebs. Usually (after a couple weeks), I figure out that IÂ’m too tense in the upper body and rediscover the feeling of moving from the point an inch or two under the belly button. I suspect leg strength has a lot to do with it.
Some other points (sorry if this is long winded, IÂ’m almost done).
• If you do try this, work up to things. There have been posters in other boards that talk about throwing 1000 punches a day. While I agree with the concept, it takes time to build up to it. The first time I actually tried something like this, I did eight sanshin on a slow count before I had to stop to avoid the embarrassment of falling down.
• This type of training shouldn’t take away from dojo training. If you find yourself missing dojo training for solo training, re-evaluate. Solo training should make dojo training better/easier/more accessible. It shouldn’t replace it.
• Doing things slowly, can expose a lot of flaws in your movement. Make sure you are running questions past your teacher so you don't get into bad habits. For me, this was particularly true of punching.
• On the plus side, it can give you a good platform for asking specific, technical questions of your instructor.
• On a related note, pay attention to things you feel need work. I think part of training is identifying your own weak points and then working on them.
Finally, if you are still cross training, things change some. If you are still concentrating on the Bujinkan but keen on cross traing, IÂ’d recommend doing at least 15- 20 min of sanshin or kamae work after every cross training session to keep the Bujinkan movements fresh in your system.
I hope that helps. And if anybody has any solo training ideas, I'd like to hear them.
-al
