“My police work influenced my drive to seek practical application practices and not be content with simplistic explanations that might not survive the rigor of an actual confrontation.” (End quote) – Taira Masaji 9th dan Goju Ryu
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A technique might work very well against somebody who is your friend in the dojo, using only passive resistance against you. But, against somebody offering active resistance?
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One of the more contentious long running debates in the field of martial arts is over the issue of performing techniques in slow motion and with no resistance, to learn the actions of the art of fighting.
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When doing combat drills, you and your opponent should not be posing and softly performing them as a sort of dance routine, but by executing them with the requisite speed and intensity. In other words; stepping, turning, striking or displacing with proper force—the force necessary to deal effectively with a violent encounter (within the realms of safe practice).
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This force is not going to manifest without correct biomechanics, using proper form. Form cannot be acquired or be developed in you as a fighter, as a practitioner, unless you are doing it with the requisite speed and power intrinsically necessary to defend an attack. There is no escaping that you must train with speed and intensity.
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The obvious counter-argument to this is the view that in order to first learn them you have to practice combat actions slowly. But in practice this notoriously permits slow-motion teachings that fail in both theory and execution when they encounter real world physics of real world violence, or skilled practitioners who don’t cooperate with it.
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When I am teaching a new student I will demonstrate something at full speed and intensity to display that this is your goal, this is how you apply it, this is the motion and action when real power is involved….. “How am I doing it it?” I will ask. “Let me show it to you slowly first.”…. So then, when they start practicing it right there I can adjust their form—correct their arms or feet, change their position, posture, or grip, etc. Then they immediately start to perform the movement harder and faster and stronger.
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Because only through that kind of exercise are they going to understand and appreciate its function. I’m not concerned about some perfect idealized “form” or some prescribed aesthetic, but only the proper function of their motion.
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When I train on my own, I will still sometimes go through some motions slowly, precisely because I have the form down already and know how to perform its function at full force and speed. So, when I need to execute something reflexively with explosive power and good martial spirit (emotional content), I can.
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For personal self-defense it is nearly impossible to generate the intensity needed to effectively strike out in sudden violence unless a person is accustomed to striking at things with practiced violence.
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“No fight [is] perfect that is not done in force and true time.” – George Silver 1599
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Train the way you will actually fight when your life is endangered. No one seriously fights softly and slowly if they want to live through it. 
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 Photo Credit: Goju Ryu Kenkyukai. References: John Clements ARMA Director
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