There is a great article in black belt magazine that proves what we teach in the school about going slow to learn a technique. This is appropriate whether you are practicing mixed Martial arts (MMA), Krav Maga, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Kick Boxing, or any other martial art.
First execute slowly until you have the technique down pat.
When a new student is concerned about blasting through a technique as fast as possible we always advise them
“you will learn this sooner or later but the sooner you learn this the faster you will progress.. execute slowly to obtain perfect form. then learn about speed.”
Blackbelt finds: “The more time you take to contemplate a physical task before you perform it, the more accurate you’ll be. However that holds true only for novices and/nor new tasks”
Blackbelt highlighted studies on the speed accuracy tradeoffs performed on golfers. When a new golfer was given 30 seconds to line up the shot they performed significantly better than when rushed. But when pros were given the extra time it caused their game to degrade.
What seems to have gotten in the way was information cost. Novices spent the time and improved. Experts, for whom the reaction was already learned got significantly worse when forced to think for all that time. hey over thought the problem.
They also found that is the experts were forced to solve a math problem in their head during the setup time they again performed well.
“So the next time you feel yurself start to choke assign yourself a mental task. Then go back to what you trained long an slow to do fast.”
