Drills are a hallmark of martial arts training, the world over, regardless of art or style, and they come in many different forms, with different intentions. In general, though, how do we define what a “drill” is, and how do we know if they are any good? Originally, “drills” referred to military exercises, and were so named because soldiers would march in circles, or be made to turn in place, and from above this resembled the turning of a drill. Although this origin is certainly martial in nature, it doesn’t fit very well into the martial arts as we know them, today. In a more broad, modern sense, martial arts drills are pre-arranged (even if loosely so) patterns of movement designed to be practiced repeatedly, either solo or with a partner or group, in order to develop some sort of skill or attribute related to fighting. This obviously encompasses a wide array of training methods, and even training equipment, and they can all serve different purposes.
The most common form of drilling is simply “drilling the basics,” and every martial art in the world does this in some fashion. In order for beginners to learn how to move properly, they are given a structured pattern of movement to follow in isolation, which eventually expands. For example, a boxer might learn how to stand with their guard up and throw a jab in the air. Eventually, they add a cross, and then a hook, and then an uppercut, resulting in a combination. After that, they might start using that combination to hit pads, or a heavy bag. The coach might have them start incorporating footwork. At a certain point, they will likely drill it back and forth with a partner, who simply covers up and then throws the same combination back, acting as a compliant but realistic target. Over time, this sort of drill tends to become less prevalent in a person’s training, but the fundamentals that were learned carry over into everything else that they do, even if they never throw that specific four punch combination in a fight. Such training methods are rarely disputed, as they are fairly universal, and it is generally understood that they are a starting point for beginners, or learning new techniques. While karate does drill its basics in the air, and follow the pattern of adding movement, and sometimes impact training, and eventually partner work, the transition isn’t always the most effective.
The type of drill that karate is most infamous for, and most criticized for, is really an expansion on drilling the basics; pre-arranged “sparring” drills, known as yakusoku kumite (promise sparring), or ippon/sanbon/gohon kumite (1/3/5 point sparring) drills. If one has been involved in karate for longer than a few months, they are most likely familiar with such drills, even if they know them by other names. They are characterized by the use of very formal protocol, strict stances that serve little purpose, and basic solo techniques being used in impractical ways in a back-and-forth exchange with a partner, who is also using basic solo techniques in impractical ways, and the partners performing the drill are almost always too far apart to ever actually hit each other. It is as if someone took the idea of drilling basics with a partner, and removed all realism from it, instead replacing it with formality and aesthetic.
The problems with this type of training are numerous, and yet many karateka will readily come to their defense–perhaps out of a sense of loyalty to “tradition,” although such drills are relatively modern additions to karate. One of the defenses of such drills is that they “teach distance and timing.” Unfortunately, the “distance and timing” being taught with these drills is simply impractical. The first problem is the fact that the distance used in these drills is almost always too far apart, to begin with, having been influenced by Kendo and sport kumite (sparring), and real self-defense situations simply do not occur with the attacker and defender so far apart. To make matters worse, even if the participants are not already too far away, the majority of these drills begin with the attacker stepping back, from a starting point that is already too far away, into a predefined, formal posture (discussed in a previous article: LINK). In short, this is completely unrealistic, and deprives the student of learning how to read the body language of assault. It also means that the student is only going to learn how to judge the timing of an attack coming from that distance, instead of a realistic one. The attacker in these drills then generally steps forward and executes some sort of clean, basic karate technique, which will almost certainly never happen in real life.
In looking at the defending side of these drills, the defender is almost always taught to step back, away from the incoming attacker, putting them on the back foot against an aggressor who, in reality, would keep advancing. They are also typically taught to execute techniques as though they are taking turns–the attacker steps in with an attack, so the defender steps back and blocks that attack, then the defender gets to throw their counter attack. In longer drills, the attacker then blocks the counter attack, and attacks again, and this exchange of taking turns can continue for many repetitions. A more effective approach would be to implement the ti principle of kobo ittai (simultaneous attack and defense), which changes the scenario from one of taking turns to one of interrupting the opponent, making it harder for them to react and continue their assault. Even if one chooses to teach drills that take turns, to start off with, the techniques should at least be realistic, but that is rarely the case with such formalized drills. Typically, any technique labelled as uke-waza (receiving techniques) are treated as rigid blocks against incoming strikes, with the hikite (pulling hand) being completely unused, pulled back to the side of the body for no reason. Additionally, the stances utilized tend to be arbitrary, rather then being used to shift the body’s weight in a manner that enables better execution of the technique. The defender is also, of course, too far away for most of the techniques found in kata, which are designed for close-range fighting, so the skills they can practice are limited, and even those tend to be practiced at the far end of their range, so that even if they landed, they would have little impact.
So, are these karate drills bad? Yes, they absolutely are! However, it is important to note that they stem from the idea of “drilling the basics,” and the underlying concept of taking basic techniques and practicing them, repetitively, in isolation, is not inherently bad. What makes it bad is when those techniques are used improperly, at unrealistic distances, against unrealistic attacks, with unrealistic timing. This is, essentially, a failure in the evolution from solo drilling to partner drilling, which likely stems from a systematic removal of classical karate curriculum over time, in support of a kickboxing-like approach to competitive sparring, and a lack of understanding with regard to how to analyze kata and kihon to determine how to apply the techniques within them (discussed previously, here: LINK). If one learns how to apply the movements of kata and kihon in a realistic manner, however, it is fairly easy to design drills to transition students from practicing in the air to practicing with a compliant partner, and then a moving partner, and then a resistant partner. It is also quite simple to have the attacker use realistic body language and attacks for the defender to practice dealing with, and to keep things safe, they need only slow things down, instead of increasing the distance.
Eventually drills need to be worked that teach the student how to deal with the opponent’s reactions, rather than simply responding to an initial attack, or taking the initiative and launching a pre-emptive strike. Sometimes, this may be the attacker trying another attack, because the defender’s response was not sufficient to stop them. Other times, the reaction may simply be that the attacker has blocked the defender’s response, or otherwise avoided it. This allows students to train for failure, so that they can avoid freezing in a fight when they don’t automatically “win” with the first technique that they try, and is vital to developing real, applicable skill. Additionally, drilling in this manner helps introduce students to sparring, as they can practice exchanges with a partner, as one would in sparring, but with the safety net of knowing what to expect. This is something that modern karate has done in the same manner as boxing or kickboxing, as these drills are typically based on whatever type of freeform sparring the school engages in. Of course, the types of sparring that are most popularly used in karate are based on competition formats which do not effectively utilize the classical techniques of the art (previously discussed, here: LINK). This does not make such drills inherently bad, because they do help prepare students for sparring, but the type of sparring they are preparing for is not an ideal representation of karate. A better approach would be to expand on drills based on practical kata applications, which put the student into the correct range and context, and deal with the attacker’s responses from there, based on common acts of aggression and untrained violence.
This leads to the necessary discussion of a category of drills known as “flow drills.” Flow drills are, broadly, any drill that is meant to flow from one technique to another technique, repeatedly–sometimes up to a certain point, and sometimes in perpetuity–which can be either symmetrical (both partners will practice the same thing) or asymmetrical (one partner is “doing the drill,” while the other is simply feeding techniques, or acting the role of an attacker) in nature. These drills are often misinterpreted and misunderstood, which leads to both people approaching them incorrectly and people ridiculing them more than they deserve. Flow drills can certainly be bad, but that is largely dependent upon how they are built and practiced. When they are put together thoughtlessly–simply stringing together techniques on a whim, or based on arbitrary criteria like categories of technique, or with no regard to what the opponent might do, for example–and when they are always strictly adhered to and never broken away from, they can be considered bad, from the perspective of developing practical skill in application. When drills are put together this way, or one simply trains to become proficient at performing the drill, rather than learning what the drill has to teach and applying it in resistant training, then flow drills are of very little use. The only real benefit to drilling in this way is that students do still have the opportunity to put in a large number of repetitions practicing the techniques, although there is also something to be said for training to keep trying techniques, regardless of what the opponent does, because at least it is better than nothing. Still, there are more effective ways to approach such things. Even when flow drills are approached in a more practical, thoughtful manner, they do occasional receive criticism as being “too compliant” or “too complicated,” often due to the observer assuming that those practicing such drills expect to use the whole drill in a real fight or self-defense situation.
In reality, the purpose of flow drills is not to simulate a real fight or self defense situation, at least not in the sense that the attacker is expected to behave exactly as the drill prescribes, so that the defender can do the entirety of the drill against them, which is what people often assume. What they are intended to do, when put together effectively, is teach the student what options they have to keep fighting in the event that the technique they try to use fails, based on likely–but not certain–responses from an opponent (untrained, in the case of karate, although combat sports also use flow drills for dealing with trained opponents). Additionally, the drill should be used to slowly incorporate resistance, so that the defender gets the chance to start learning what that resistance is going to feel like, which should help them recognize when to switch from one technique to another. The type of responses and resistance that the opponent provides, in the drill, will tend to be defined by the focus of the drill–a joint lock flow drill may only deal with the opponent defending the locks, but not counter attacking, for example, while a kata application flow drill may include a wide array of responses. Of course, in reality, the practitioner will likely only use one or two transitions from the drill, or may even use another technique, entirely, but the important thing is that they learn not to freeze in the face of failure, which is dangerous even in controlled situations, but potentially deadly in uncontrolled situations, like self-defense, and they learn what sorts of options they have available as far as alternative techniques. If the technique they try is a strike, and it doesn’t stop the opponent, they may simply be able to keep striking, but of the opponent starts blocking the strike, or attacking in a different way, then the defender needs to do something else. Based on what the opponent does, that may require repositioning, or changing strikes, or using a lock, or applying kuzushi (off-balancing) and trying to take the opponent down, etc. The point is not to apply the entire drill, from A-Z, in a real fight, but to learn how A can go into B, how B can go into C, how C can go into D, and so on.
Once the flow drill is learned, and the students are comfortable with it, they should begin breaking out of the drill, otherwise it is easy to become complacent and lose sight of the purpose of the drill. At random, the attacker should do something different and unexpected, which breaks the pattern of the drill that the student has come to expect. Perhaps, instead of blocking a strike, the attacker ducks under for a takedown, or moves out of the way and tries to throw a punch, or crashes in and starts to choke the defender. This forces the student to transition between drills and, therefore, between techniques, in the face of surprise and uncertainty. The drills start to become more realistic as this happens, and we begin to get into something that the late Richard Poage (Renshi, Godan, Shorin-Ryu) called kata randori, or kata no randori (free practice of kata). This is an asymmetrical approach to flow drills that is half sparring and half role-play, and unscripted, although it has contextual boundaries with regard to what is allowed to be done. The designated attacker can use any realistic attack that might come from an untrained assailant (or occasionally a trained one, just to make things interesting), and the defender has to deal with that attack with some sort of technique they have learned–in the case of karate, these techniques should come from kata, hence the name of the training method. Typically, when students are first introduced to this type of training, they are given a limited selection of attacks they know can happen, and set responses for each, but will have to switch between them at the attacker’s whim. Eventually, these limitations are removed, and the defender only knows that the attacker will use any untrained responses they like, and the attacker does not know what the defender is going to do in response, but should try to resist or avoid it, anyway, in an attempt to continue their assault in some way. The goal, of course, is for the defender to do something that would eventually render the attacker incapable of continuing, although for safety reasons this will generally either be a restraining technique of some type, or something that the partner acting as the attacker decides would reasonably make them give up, if it was successfully applied at full power.
In addition to drills which are explicitly technique-based, karate features a number which are meant to develop skills and attributes beyond simply the application of specific techniques. These skill-building drills, much like flow drills, can be bad when they are practiced without conscious thought, or for the sole purpose of becoming good at doing the drills. Additionally, they often do not appear to be relevant to fighting, as they are not obviously derived from fighting techniques. An outside observer, without having the drills and their purposes explained, will almost certainly assume such drills to be useless. The most obvious example of this, within karate, is the practice of kakie/kakidi (hooked/hanging hands), which no one can look at and say “this is what a fight looks like.” The purpose of these drills is not to be a representation of a fight, however, but to develop tactile sensitivity and proprioceptive qualities in the participants–that is, the ability to know what an opponent is doing, and how they are moving, based on touch. By using kakie/kakidi as a platform to launch into techniques, students can begin to learn how to capitalize on what they are feeling. For example, when they feel the opponent’s arm pushing against theirs, they learn that it is easier to pull that arm into a lock, or out of the way for a strike. It isn’t that karateka expect to fight someone using kakie/kakidi, but that the skills developed through those drills should help them become better at applying their techniques when they transition to combative drills and sparring.
It is important to remember that all drills have their limits, and they all have a point of diminishing returns, after which the practitioner will be getting less and less benefit from practicing them. As Ken Knight explains in this video, drills are something you eventually move on past. There can be benefits to revisiting drills to help tighten up and refine techniques or transitions, of course, but by and large, once one has learned what the drill has to teach, it is time to use those principles and concepts in some sort of freeform, resistant training or sparring. Of course, instructors and senior students have a responsibility to maintain their memory of these drills in order to teach them to others, as well. In the end, drills are only as useful as the practitioner makes them, and if they aren’t providing a benefit, then one should evaluate whether the drill is designed poorly, or whether they are simply practicing it poorly, and adjust training accordingly.