By Gavin King, 2nd Dan Go So Kempo

One of the main mistakes a new student will make when trying to learn a new movement is doing it too fast too soon.  They see their instructors performing these beautiful techniques at fabulous speeds and try to emulate it.  I personally love watching beginners trying new techniques; they never fail to come up with weird and wonderfully incorrect ways in which to move their bodies.  This is meant in no way to be disrespectful to our new students as each and every martial artist since the dawn of time has done this (I’m sure even the great Funakoshi left his elbows out on a reverse punch once or twice), it is meant to serve as an example that no one is born a Black Belt. 

When a new student first sees a new technique, they are trying to replicate is a physical movement interpreted from a visual input.  Their bodies have never actually performed these tasks, so their brains are not familiar with the muscles that need to be employed in order to perform the task, what they get is a kind of best efforts attempt.  This first attempt then becomes the foundation upon which they will build the whole technique. 

The first stage of learning a new technique is a completely conscious endeavour, it can be thought of as the brains experimentation phase.  The brain will experiment with many different versions of the movement, changing the angles, directions, forces and speeds used as a student will try to perfect the performance.  During this phase the student will feel clumsy and awkward, and will most probably become disheartened.  Remind them that this is a completely natural stage of their development and is precisely the reason why the techniques should be practiced slowly. 

At slow speeds we have the opportunity to become fully accustomed with a technique’s movement. Moving slowly allows our instructors to correct our movements, and because we are not performing at breakneck speeds allows us to apply these corrections.

Another important reason to slowly learn new techniques, especially for new martial artists, is that our bodies may simply not be physically prepared to perform the technique.  Performing a new technique with maximum power and speed puts huge stress on the body, which could result in an injury.  Slowly performing a new technique will place less physical stress on the body, reducing the chance of injury and giving the body a chance to condition itself to the new movements.

Over time, the more we perform a technique our bodies will become more familiar with the movements.  We no longer have to consciously remember to keep our elbows in, make a proper fist or bend legs in the correct fashion.  All of the things that used to cause us endless frustration will simply dissolve away with the countless repetitions of techniques that once seemed impossible.  At this stage you will have a full understanding of the movement, now you can start to think about adding the power and speed!