Clean, crisp techniques

A few of our students entered online tournaments the past few months. While I applaud their efforts and commend them for competing in these difficult COVID times, I couldn’t say I was impressed by their performances. Not trying to be mean or overly judgmental, but simply recognizing that they performed better in the past.

Then I thought about it – We haven’t been in the dojo since March 16th. We’ve been working out in street clothes, wearing shoes, outside on concrete or indoors on carpeting, marble floors, or wood floors. Balance, shifting, and footwork is not the same. We cannot spar or work ippons. Almost all of our techniques have suffered, so why bother? We’ve essentially been treading water, waiting for social distancing restrictions to lift and we get back to regular training. Once we’re back to “normal” we shouldn’t be too far out of practice.

I then watched the other competitors’ videos. They did not particularly impress me either. Worldwide, techniques have suffered. While talking to other martial artists, two particular words kept coming up: Clean and Crisp. A non-martial arts friend asked me to describe clean and crisp. I had difficulty putting the ideas into words; I just know it when I see it.

I admire our students for training and progressing slowly (or at least not falling behind). It gives me hope that we will improve rapidly with clean, crisp movements once normalcy returns.