Fine-Tune Your Form
Eric Lee’s 17 Training Tips will Get your Routine Firing on all Cylinders.
By Doug Jeffrey
10. Bam, Boom
To keep the judges interested, your form should feature a good beginning, middle and end. It’s also important to choose a form that has a high-degree of difficulty and is as different as possible from the rest of the competitors, he states. Thus, it should feature leaps and complex moves that require tremendous body and mind coordination.
“You’re going to start with something that gets everyone’s attention, slow it down and end with a bam, boom finish,” he says.
11. Make It Spicy
Variety is the spice of life. You don’t want everything to be the same all the time. Thus, your form should be fast and slow. When you kiai, sound a little different each time. Change your facial expressions. Throw in a little variety.
“If every actor had a poker face, no one would buy a ticket,” suggests Lee.
12. Seek Wisdom
In the grand old game of baseball, you’ll often see a player ask an umpire if the pitch he swung at was a strike. You should also be inquisitive. After your performance, ask a judge or the head referee how you can improve. Don’t be afraid to ask your instructor or other competitors who also may have been around the tournament block a time or two.
13. Trading Places
Losing is never fun, but you have to find the silver lining. One of the best ways to do that, says Lee, is to have someone videotape your routine, because it gives you a chance to really study your moves.
Another technique requires a little imagination. While competing, put yourself in the judge’s seat and evaluate yourself.
“If I were judging, I would not like it if a competitor didn’t make eye contact with me,” he says. “Furthermore, I wouldn’t like it if a competitor had to fix his uniform in the middle of his routine. On the other hand, I would like to hear a competitor say thank you and show respect. Try trading places.”
14. Freight Train
If you’re as powerful as a locomotive, the judges will notice. To bolster this attribute, you want to maintain good body posture, breathe properly and focus. It’s also vital that you relax your muscles and recoil your technique fast. Thus, if you throw a technique at ‘100 mph,’ you want your arm (or leg) to come back (even) faster,” says Lee.
Photo Courtesy Knownows
15. Get Blurry
If your techniques are a blur, the judges will notice that too. Speed work can be done several different ways.
• Turn on the television and turn off the sound. When someone on screen moves, throw a technique. Gradually increase the time until you can go for an hour, he says.
• To enhance your coordination and reactions, pull up a chair, plug in your favorite video game and start “training.”
• On a windy day, stand near a bush or small tree and throw techniques at as many leaves as you can.
• Train with someone who is faster than you.
16. Shape Up
If you’re huffing and puffing so badly at the end of your form that your technique starts to suffer, your score will likely suffer, too. To shape up, there are a couple things you can do.
First, train hard. Second, sprint. Grab a good pair of running shoes and get thee to the nearest track. When Lee was competing, he’d run sprints for two weeks prior to a tournament. He divided the track into thirds. He’d sprint one-third of the way, walk one-third, sprint one-third and continue that pattern until he’d done ten-to-20 sprints. If you’re going to do more than ten, you may have to rest longer between sprints, he says. He did that routine five days a week.
17. Stay On Course
Keep the fire burning. If you win, don’t become complacent. You have to keep working hard.
“Just because you win one time doesn’t mean you know it all,” says Lee. “You still have to practice, practice, practice.”
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