As I’ve been teaching my students techniques, I’ve been trying to figure out how best to refine their techniques. To me almost all techniques, involve movement of the following: the limb executing the technique, feet, shoulders and upper body and hips. What I am trying to figure out is what is the best sequence to address these movement in.

Generally I have trained my students in that order. First get the limb used to the movement. I don’t focus on exactness here only that the body part moves in the general pattern that it should. Once that general movement is consistent, I refine the movement. For example, if it is a post block, then ensuring that the student doesn’t block too high or too low. After this, I focus on the foot work. In the example of the post block, at the basic level, making sure they are stepping into the block. The third thing I focus on is the shoulders. The two things I try to focus on with the shoulders is the movement during execution to add power as well as the final placement of the shoulders, which is many cases should end up facing the opponent or the strike squarely. Finally I focus on the hips and their movement for power and their final position post execution.

What I question, however, is there a right sequence. There is lot to be said for getting the foot work perfect before training techniques. My gut feeling is there isn’t a right sequence. But I’d love to hear from you with regard to how you train and focus on refining techniques.