Systems

[Oraenor]

I have a question on teaching methods:

Is a structured systematic approach better (ie. forms, drills etc.) or a broken learning approach better (ie. fight club , street fighting) a better approach?

[Nothingness]

You need both. It works like a feedback loop to each other. Supposedly you start green, the systematic approach gives you a rough idea about how you supposed to move in different situations.

Then you need to try out what you have learnt and see how it goes. If it works, that's great you can move on to the next. If it doesn't work, you have to investigate, then re-train until it works.

Pain is a very good motivation. However, if you sustain too much damage during your training, your can't really train since you have to rest to recover from your injuries. In addition, people can't just learn from doing something only once. You need repetitions and corrections. This is the purpose of drills; so that you can fix your mistakes and train yourself without having to wait for a week to recover from your injured body.

Forms are only useful if you know how to use it. It is an accumulative wisdom from the previous generations. You have to know the (maybe multiple) usage of each movement. Solo training the form is to train your power and speed and reflex so that you have somekind of coordination in your movements. Once you are sufficiently coordinated, you need to train the movements in drills. Once you are sufficiently confident in your drills, you need to spar to see how it goes. If it doesn't work that well, go back to the form and drills and investigate what went wrong. It is a good idea to ask your instructor at this point.