subject: The Exact Length Of Time, Patterns And Self Defense Moves, That It Take To Master Aikido! [print this page] Whether you want to master Kempo, Master Gung Fu, Master Aikido, or any other art, the good question is...how long will it take? I am going to tell you the answer in this bit of writing, but it may not be what people want to hear in this fast food culture. For the serious student it does take a considerable time to really master the martial arts.
The common wisdom handed down to this author when he was trying to become karate master, and this was prior to the establishment of such organizations as the World TaeKwonDo Federation or the Kenpo Karate Association, and their official 'rules' on such subjects, was that it took three lifetimes. Apparently this concept had been passed down from shaolin kung fu monks. Glad to say, the rule is not ironclad.
Now, whether you are a student of goju ryu karate, or James Mitose Kenpo, or some other variety of art, the real facts are that you have to repeat a form 1000 times if you are going to master it. In this writer's experience, this is the truth, and this whether you are trying to master tae kwon do, or master martial arts entire. Simply, you don't know a form until you have done it a 1000 times, and...there are some who hold to a ten thousand rule, which we will return to by the end of this article.
To Master Karate is one thing, but what if your style isn't form based? What if you are attempting to master aikido self defense moves? What if you are trying to master kenpo self defense, as prescribed by various kenpo karate association?
If you are attempting to perfect only individual moves, then you have to do the techniques a thousand times. If you have 500 techniques, then you have to do 500 times 1000, or 500,000 repetitions of the moves. If you can do 5 moves in 60 seconds, this comes out to 100,000 minutes, or 1667 hours of individual self defense applications.
1667 hours of techniques, divided by the number of years you wish to take to master kempo karate (without forms), or aikido martial arts, or any other martial art you may wish to study and which doesn't have forms, will tell you how many hours you have to work in a year...or a day. If you were to do martial arts tricks for an hour a day it would take you almost 5 years of hard work to reach your goal. You have to be quite serious as a student to achieve your goals.
To return to kata based arts, which will give you time to shadow moves through the kata, you should be able to master your art faster. If you have 15 forms, and it takes a minute to do a form, it will take you 15,000 minutes to become a master of your art. Of course, what if the 10,000 times includes all your forms, as long as you practice a fair amount of form related techniques at the same time?
In this last case, form based arts, including Ed Parker Kenpo and Shotokan Karate, need only take 10,000 minutes, which you can divide by 60, and you can perfect your martial art within 166 hours, or three years at an hour a week. No way. You're going to have to work through 15,000 reps of kata, an equal amount of time for the self defense movements, and equal time for the freestyle fighting...that's the only way to be sure that you are going to master Kung fu.
