Home Practice Help
It can be hard to practice at home. From motivation to distractions, there’s many things to overcome to get regular, effective practice at home happening. Here’s a few things that can help.
Routine. Making practice a regular occurrence helps to form a habit and become something you just do. Setting a reminder for a specific, convenient time of day is really useful. When the reminder goes off, you do the thing. I like to start the day with at least one Sanchin kata. That way I’ve at least done something and often it leads to more practice.
Preparation. Take a moment to prepare for training. Gather your gear. Put on your karate-gi or other specific training clothes to help mentally prepare for training. While you can easily do some practice in whatever you are wearing, I find a more intentional preparation leads to more focused training.
Space. Anywhere can be your dojo, but having a dedicated training space that’s always available is helpful. No need to clear an area, just get in and go. It doesn’t have to be a big space. A few square meters can be enough. A patio, shed or under shady tree can make great training spaces. Maybe you can find a tree or beam to hang a punching bag.
Support. Not everyone has Sensei at home but a parent, sibling or friend can provide encouragement and assistance with various aspects of training. Whether it’s someone to hold a pad to kick, practice kata applications on or just say “hey it’s time to practice”, we all need support.
Fun. Do the things you enjoy. Hopefully there’s plenty of aspects of karate that you actually like to do. I know it’s probably push-ups, right? While it’s important to work on all aspects, doing the fun stuff can be a great way to get into practicing more. So if you like hitting pads, do that a lot and then do a bit of other stuff like kata and stretching. If you have someone to practice sparring or kata applications make sure it’s clear what you are doing and be careful. When you enjoy practice, you’ll get more out of it and do more of it. Figure out what you like.
Hope this helps. Go practice.
