Rec and Sports

The stepping stones of martial arts training progress

Learn Martial Arts Online

On your journey to martial arts training excellence it’s important to understand the stages we go through as we are learning and developing, so we know where we are at and know where we are going.

Here are the 4 stages of martial arts home study learning.

I Unconscious incompetence

Blissful ignorance

Confidence exceeds ability, we are not knowledgeable/skillful

We don’t know we don’t know.

I don’t know how do this martial arts technique or whether I am doing it right.

II Conscious incompetence

We discover a skill we wish to learn – driving a car, riding a bike

Confidence drops as we realise our ability is limited

We need to practise to learn. Often this means not succeeding at first.

This is learning; unfortunately, in our culture it is often labelled ‘failure’. We feel uncomfortable.

We know what we don’t know.

I know I can’t do this martial arts technique or do it very well.

III Conscious competence

We acquire the skill. We have become consciously competent. Our conscious mind can only cope with a small number of new bits of information at any one time.

Our confidence increases with our ability, we have to concentrate on what we know/do

Can do if know how to.

I know how do this martial arts technique but I have to think what to do to get it right.

IV Unconscious competence

Lastly, we blend the skills together and they become habits – we can then do them while our mind is on other things.

We have reached the stage of unconscious competence.

Our confidence and ability have peaked, we no longer have to concentrate on what we know/do; this is the start of the next learning curve

We can do, but don’t necessarily know how we do.

I can do this self defence technique without thinking and I know it works.

In different areas of our life we will be at different stages on different learning curves.