Only a Matter of Time
In a world where spare time is a rare commodity, we need to improve with managing our time, and to recognise and deal with time wasters, so we work in the most efficient way possible to be able to do what we want to do.
Over thirty years ago, martial classes were 2 hours or more but sessions of that magnitude, today, would be difficult to sustain over a long period of time. If we can somehow find a better way to reduce the warm-up drills without jeopardising the integrity of the workout then we will have more time to concentrate on the actual techniques. Traditionally, warm-ups can take as much as 20-30 minutes which may include stretching, and aerobic and anaerobic calisthenics but that is too long with the little time we have today with classes being anything between 1 and 1.5 hours.. Long warm-ups are not going to make all that much difference to your martial arts anyway. In fact, they can get dragged out which may set in the boredom prior to startin up your techniques. The exercises need to be quick and intense, and tailor-made to compliment the art.
The Tabata Protocol is a very good solution. John Will has been spreading the word at seminars and I have found the Tabata system to be, not only a great warm-up, but really improves your overall conditioning. The beauty of this is it only takes 5 minutes. This allows maximum time for martial arts training. All you need is a gymboss timer, a bit of knowledge and imagination. In a nutshell, workouts are based on 5 X 40 second rounds with 20 second breaks, using 5 different exercises. This also works with 20/10 seconds and 30/15 seconds depending on what you are trying to achieve. This is the way I do my kettlebell training; it's much for fun, more intense and much quicker.
Anyway, the point of this is there are ways to make better use of your time. Maybe, it's worthwhile investigating. We actually have more time than we think we do, it's only a matter of time.
GA