Recently, I was working on one of the Bamboo Spirit flow drills with one of the newer students in a class. Consequently, he had little idea how to relax during the flow drill.

While going through the flow drill, he struggled to remember the sequence. However, I was not concerned with this as I was confident he would eventually grasp the sequence. Most importantly, the main concern was that he was stiff and strong-arming his way through the flow drill.

In this situation, most martial arts instructors would say, “Just relax!” It makes sense for us to say this to students. We hope that by magically saying “relax”, the student would automatically relax.

Voila! He’s got it!

Except the command to “relax” almost never works.

Why?

Teaching relaxation is a challenge for any instructor.

Telling a student to relax is just too abstract for many.  Consequently, they’ll say to themselves, “But I am relaxing!” not realizing they are not. As a result,  frustration sets in as they hear the instructor repeat the relaxation mantra for the umpteenth time.

How do you teach a student to relax?

You, as the instructor, need to take concrete steps to enable the student to relax.

Going back to the student who was having difficulty with the flow drill, I did the following:

(1) Go Slow: I told him when we would slow the drill down substantially. Nice, smooth, slow, and deliberate. In doing so, we killed two birds with one stone. First, going slow helped him memorize the flow sequence to his satisfaction. Secondly, slowing the tempo got him on the road to relax. As a result, this allowed me to address the next issue.

(2) No muscle tension: Firstly, I asked him to be loose and not to put any muscle into the drill. For example, there was one section of the drill where he would really stiffen up. To address this, we reversed roles in this section, and I stiffened considerably during this section. As a result, he immediately understood my point. Understanding what he was doing was the first step. Secondly, I asked him to be aware of his muscle tension or stiffness. Therefore, that means many repetitions to get rid of the stiffness.

(3) Tons of repetitions: Many repetitions go a long way to mastery of a technique. As a result, this enables the instructor to guide the student toward relaxation. For instance, 50 repetitions of Flow Drill #1 are far better than a handful. That said, mental breaks for beginners are important.

(4) Mental breaks: Often, the student will get mentally tired, and their form will start to break down. As a result, they get more tense and frustrated. At this point, I will call for a brief mental break. I will tell them to shake it out and empty their head. After this brief break, we will immediately resume the drill.

Often, these steps help to address the relaxation issue and get your student on the road to mastery! More importantly, relaxation is the key to developing martial sensitivity and fun counters!

If you are a student aware of relaxation issues, try going through the aforementioned steps to see if this works for you.

The bottom line, telling a student to “just relax” is often unhelpful. It’s a lazy way of teaching relaxation. Obviously, just throwing out verbal instructions and expecting the student to “get it” will not cut it.

In conclusion, concrete steps such as those outlined above are effective methods to teach a student the concept of relaxation.

Additional Reading