It is extremely difficult, if not almost impossible, to proficient at the martial arts while training only once per week. Students who train only once a week have to relearn a great deal of information from each training session.
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If you repeat too rarely, you will have forgotten most of the information you have learned. Even worse, not all items stick equally well in your memory. Some you will forget just hours later.
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There have been many scientific studies over the years, showing us that there is the “forgetting curve”. The forgetting curve shows exactly how humans forget an initially learned fact or procedure.
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The “retention rate” (the percentage of what we still remember), decays in the first days and weeks extremely rapidly. In fact the decay is so strong, that we forget almost 80% of all new learned items within one to two weeks. That’s right: from what we originally learned we remember only about 20% after several days.
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Is there anything we can do about that?….. YES there is! REPETITION. In order to keep what you have learned you have to repeat it.
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Even if you spend as little as 10 to 15 Minutes a day learning, statistics reveal that within only a month you will be able to have, generally, a retention rate of 90-95%.
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If you really want to become proficient in the martial arts, attend the dojo more than once a week, and reinforce the things you have learned by practicing at home. Learning, repeating, knowing.…… Simple isn’t it?
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Training the martial arts for self-defense needs to be simple, routine, using gross motor skills repeated hundreds of times, with pressure testing thrown in.
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This is the ONLY way to do it. It’s only your repeated training that prepares you. And it’s the repetition of these gross motor skills that will save you at that critical moment. It has to be instinctive.
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The truth is to become proficient with your skills, you need to do hundreds and hundreds of repetitions. Students should think of repeated practice not as rote repetition, but as deliberate, goal-directed rehearsal, pressure tested, and paired with a problem-solving process or task. 
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“The eight laws of learning are; explanation, demonstration, imitation, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition.” – John Wooden
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 Photo Credit: Shoken School of Karate
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