CHOREGRAPHY TRAINING

Choreography training consists of two or more martial arts practitioners following a fixed set of moves.

Martial arts choreography training is pretty similar to theatre or dance. The main difference is that martial arts choreography training is done for skill development rather than entertainment purposes. 

Choreography training is done in many traditional martial arts.

Because choreography training is prearranged, it is looked down upon by those who focus more on sparring.

The fact of the matter is, while choreography training may not be as realistic as full contact sparring, but it's the next best thing.
With the right training partner it can be done with critical timing, speed, and intensity. 
It is possible to do choreography training and get your heart beating real fast.

The reason why many martial arts practitioners of the old chose choreography training over full contact sparring probably had to do with safety issues.
It just doesn't make sense to beat each other up for the purpose of becoming better, by the time the village is going to be raided you guys are going to be injured and messed up. 

Medical technology was not as developed back in the day, and injury was not a risk people were willing to take in an already harsh life.

The quality of life has become better today, and some people are willing to sustain injury for the purpose of developing better abilities.
Sparring is done in many combat sports and as terrible as this sounds, injury is simply seen as part of the training, part of the whole experience.
Many athletes beat themselves to a pulp and by the time they retire most of them are broken. 
In some sports the life expectancy is lower for the athletes!
It just doesn't make sense to damage yourself that much unless you really can't make a living any other way.

In conclusion I always tell my students that if your serious about self-defense you need to experience full contact sparring and train in combat sports, but after you do some of that, get out as fast as you can before you get jacked up, it's just not worth it!   

Comments