Practising forms is important in martial arts because:

After I execute one of these moves on an opponent, I know exactly the position he is going to be in, I know where his head should be, where his torso should be, etc. If I execute the same move with my eyes shut in a pitch black cave, I still know exactly what I have just done to him and his body position. Depending on the exact application I just used, I know whether I need to follow up with something else, and depending on his (and my) body position I know which technique I should use next.

Every single move you execute in a form, you should be visualising what you are doing on your opponent. As your knowledge grows you will have more options to visualise, even back in the basic form you learnt when you were a white belt. Visualising the application of the form assists with the state of mushin, where you do not have to consciously think about your current or next move, it just flows. I will help the kids more with focusing on understanding the forms and visualization this season.

Years ago, I thought about a system to train all techniques within our Invincible Coaches Accreditation, called Wind-Thunder-Lightning. Wind is practising in the air, like doing forms or shadowboxing. Thunder is for power and weight application, like on shields and pads. And Lightning is for speed, reflexes, distancing and timing.

When in a fight you can use moves 2 and 10 from the form provided you have sufficient understanding of it to do so, you don’t have to start at move 1 and progress in the exact sequence.