Fresh Focus: How Themed Practice Can Revolutionize your Training Year

 

 

The journey of personal Practice – whether in Martial Arts, meditation, or any disciplined pursuit – can sometimes feel stagnant. Never fear! There’s a simple but powerful approach that can revolutionize your training: theming your Practice throughout the year.

 

Power of Themes

Introducing themes to your Practice isn’t just about variety – it’s about intentional growth. A well-chosen theme can deepen, challenge, and rejuvenate your Practice, making it more fruitful, inspiring, and profound. A theme can lead you toward a more effective and valuable Practice which in turn can support your development of a more effective and valuable life. I have often found that a resonant theme fuels my Practice and engages me more reliably and deeply. Themes provide a focal point that can transform routine sessions into purposeful explorations.

 

Choosing Themes

When selecting themes, reflect on several key questions: What qualities do you wish to cultivate? What elements felt missing in your previous year’s Practice? What attributes do you admire in your role models? What focus would best support your broader personal development goals?

The possibilities are vast and personal. You might choose to focus on footwork, standing meditation, martial effectiveness, self-massage, or breathing skills. Perhaps you want to explore the philosophy or poetry woven through your Art? Resistance training, partner training, and outdoor training could all suit you. Perhaps seeking ways to Practice free from bias could be your theme? Your themes could emphasize flowing movements, healing exercises, or games. I enjoy a theme which explores skills relevant to modern-day risks.

Any theme is meant to color your practice, to revivify and elevate it. While trying to see how a particular theme may fit my usual practice regimen, I often find that I am inspired to greater creativity. If the creativity isn’t there or doesn’t quite pan out or seems too forced or contrived…that’s OK. I can let it go. I already know that not all but only most of my Practice is going to be thematically compliant.

The themes we are preparing to incorporate are not meant to overshadow or take the place of your Teacher’s homework, school’s curriculum, or personal plan of Practice.

Any theme should be able to support and contribute to any lessons you receive from school. The themes are never to be a detriment to your training, rather they are meant to complement your training. Think of each theme as an added seasoning meant to add variety and enjoyment to an already highly nutritious meal.

 

Structuring Themed Practices

The timing of your themes should serve your Practice, not constrain it. You might rotate through your list of themes monthly, seasonally, or weekly. The key is finding a frequency that maintains engagement without becoming burdensome. You’ll want your theme shifts to be frequent enough to keep your Practice fresh, but not so often that they serve to help you feel overwhelmed or lose focus.

You can also decide to only occasionally keep to a theme. For example, you could decide to choose a theme only when your favorite team wins. In this case, rather than having a calendar of themes, you might have a pre-written list of themes. Each time your team wins, which cannot be accurately predicted, you choose a theme to follow until their next win. Perhaps you employ a theme only in months following a month in which you succeeded in keeping to your nutrition, rest, or fitness goals. Perhaps each time it rains, you select a new theme.

Don’t feel pressured to have twelve distinct monthly themes. Returning to particularly beneficial themes can deepen your Practice. Consider rotating through a smaller set of powerful themes, allowing each theme’s re-emergence on the calendar to build upon your previous experience with that theme.

For me, I often have a few themes which are overbroad categories and fairly vague. When I revisit them, I honor the theme but endeavor to view it and respond to it differently. For example, if Healing was the theme. The first time around with the theme, I might consider the damage each strike in my Martial Arts Practice might cause and then study modern methods for attending to such injuries. The second time around, I might accept Healing as the theme but view the theme in relation to past traumas and work on journaling in my Practice and exploring trauma-informed methodologies for stretching and breathing. The third time, I might view the Healing theme largely in light of mental health. Or I might consider ‘health’ to refer to the promotion of healthy Practices for meeting varied student populations where they are rather than as I prefer.

 

Implementation Strategies

Organization is crucial for success. Write your themes in your calendar in advance, setting reminders to ensure you stay on track. You could place your themes in the calendar for the coming year in random fashion or strategize their placement. April’s theme builds on the theme from March whcih built on the February theme. Perhaps your themes reflect holidays and anniversaries on the calendar. Perhaps your themes align with historical inflection points and their associated dates. For those who enjoy an element of surprise, try writing themes on paper scraps and drawing them from a hat at designated intervals.

Consider making this a collaborative experience. Partner with a friend to choose themes for each other, fostering creativity, camaraderie, and accountability. A near and dear friend who is thoughtful might have some great insight into your needs and thus develop or deploy themes for you which are uncannily ideal. Themes you could not have come up with, yourself. You might take turns drawing themes that you each commit to. You might challenge each other with unexpected themes which serve as poignant trials for you both.

 

Aligning Themes with Life

Think about how your themes can complement the natural flow of your year. You might consider using uplifting themes during tough times, like when you’re facing a challenging anniversary or a demanding work period. On the other hand, you might choose more challenging themes when you’re feeling energized and positive, like when your schedule frees up or during seasons that you have found to reliably lift your spirits.

 

Practicing with Purpose

Once you’ve selected a theme, you’re going to integrate elements of that theme through much of your Practice. For example, with Breathwork as the chosen them, we know that it is very likely already a part of your usual Practice, of course. However, it is now encouraged to play a more primary or heightened role in your Practice. For every (or most every) Practice until the new theme is scheduled.

Invite into your Practice elements that support, stretch, and strengthen this thematic focus. The function of themes should reflect a nice balance of additional considerations for a Practice.

Maybe these elements are old friends. Maybe they are new-to-you ideas. Maybe variations. Maybe they are familiar skills but included in ways and in places that you hadn’t previously explored them. Familiar skills folded into other skills which add complexity/challenge but which can also make for a more efficient Practice period.

Incorporate both familiar and novel exercises that explore your theme. I might imagine that a breathwork-themed Practice might include some anaerobic stretching, intercostal self-massage, reverse breathing while persevering through a partner’s onslaught of blows, ending the session with singing, sounding, and silent breathing. You might combine known techniques in new ways or introduce variations that add complexity and efficiency to your Practice sessions.

Also, you don’t have to keep to your theme with each portion of your Practice. However, you do want to keep to it more often in your Practice than not. Shape the majority of the Practice to reflect your commitment to each theme in some way. Bring these thematically-aligned elements in more often than they ordinarily would have featured in your Practice. Remember, the whole Practice must be functional and sustainable; don’t force a theme in at every turn at the expense of a long term Practice’s continued existence.

While your theme should guide the majority of your Practice, it needn’t dictate every component. Remember, the thematic elements are meant to lift a Practice not weigh it down. Jettison any excess thematic baggage if it seems to unwisely wear or weigh you down…at any point. The goal is to have the theme positively influence most parts of your training while maintaining flexibility and balance.

A themed approach ensures your Practice remains both focused and adaptable, creating a rich, evolving experience that supports your long-term growth. Remember, the purpose of themed Practice isn’t to constrain…rather, it is to enhance. Let your themes guide you toward deeper understanding, greater skill, and more meaningful Practice sessions throughout the year.

 

 

Bio:

The author, Stephen Watson will be offering many introductory sessions this year through his studio Someday Farm. Most will be available via Zoom and archived on Patreon.com/SomedayFarm.
Introductions to Stretching, Breathing, & Meditation are in the works. Find out more and enroll by following the links, here: https://linktr.ee/SomedayFarm
First up is a Meditation course designed to improve attention spans. Each Sunday in January 2025 at 1pm, New York time: You can sign up here for our
FAM online meditation course
https://square.link/u/pZedIVHA
and save money by signing up with a friend or two.