When it comes to Martial Arts Training Tips I have to recommend a couple of freestyle exercises. Freestyle, of course, is where you get to fight. You learn good control, but you still get to let it all hang out.
There are two specific Martial Arts freestyle Drills that should be taught. The first one deals with kumite specifically, the second deals with a more street style type of self defense. Both should be practiced until one is a well rounded street fighter.
The first is the old standard you will see in most training halls, you take your place at the head of a line, and the people in line take turns attacking you. This is a fun drill, as you don’t have time to think, you just learn to deal with each fight as it develops, and do what you have to. A few times doing this drill and you learn how to survive without all the foofaraw.
The second drill, and one that isn’t done as often, is to set up a gauntlet. This is not going to be a set and gunfight type of fight. It is going to be a much more natural situation which actually duplicates what you might encounter in a real live street fight.
I learned this one many years ago, in a chinese Kenpo school, and we used to love doing it. The teacher would set up a gauntlet, ten students in two lines standing across from each other. The fellow who was to run the gauntlet would face away, and the teacher would pick out three people.
The karateka would be given the command, and he would turn and make his way slowly between the lines. When he passed one of the fellows who had been pointed at, they would suddenly attack him. He would never know when the attack would come, or from who.
Attacks would be a taken to winning a point. Thus, the fellow who walked the gauntlet could get three points max, but, if he was successfully ‘mugged’ three times, he might not get any. First person to reach seven points was declared the winner.
Guaranteed, this type of training teaches you to relax and yet be ready at all times. It is also a great work out, designed to sharpen you up like nothing else. What I liked about it the most, however, was that it did get us out of the ‘gunfighter mentality’ of set and explode, and into situations that one might encounter on the street, and this makes this gauntlet exercise one of the best martial arts training tips you will ever find.