The average person needs at least two practice sessions or workout sessions per week to make progress and at least one or two short sessions outside of class. Less than that and you are generally in a holding pattern. If you miss a class, to maintain momentum, you must make it up by solo practice outside of class. You might get away with missing one of the three, one time, but that leads to more misses unless you quickly make it up by NOT missing a session the next week.

To keep momentum and thus progress, you must do the scheduled work out, even if it ends up being less rigorous than the last one. You must do the workout, even if your convinced you’re “too tired” or you just can’t bear it. The mind must prevail over the “tired” body and the body must prevail over the unwilling mind. A trainee must get momentum. If you lose momentum, you lose training and progress is stopped. In fact, momentum is more important than other factors. You see, this is mental as well as physical training.

To make the most progress, you must start from the ground up. All the hand movements in the world are not going to move the needle one millimeter unless you start with 10-20 minutes of concentrated footwork practice.

After that, you should combine hands with footwork.

A practice partner would be a good idea. Find a training partner than can meet with you on a regular basis that is not more than two student grades ahead or behind you. This is the best advise I can give. If you stick with the above ideas, you’ll be happier. You will advance quicker. You will get training partners because people want to train with competent partners who can also help them.

-Sifu Keith Sonnenberg