5 Tips for Effective At-Home Practice

Proficiency comes from learning in between sessions by practising on your own. Class time teaches you what to practice; home practice is where the learning actually happens.

Here’s how to make at-home practice actually work.

Keep Your Commitment Small

For newcomers to independent training, begin with modest, achievable goals. In the beginning, the goal is momentum, not quantity.

Five minutes a day beats an hour once a week. The habit of daily practice matters more than the duration. Once the habit is established, increasing the time becomes natural.

Keep Your Equipment Accessible

Remove barriers to regular practice by ensuring your sword and training tools remain readily visible and prepared.

I keep my guitar and sword at work, and I use hallway breaks for footwork drills. The easier you can make regular practice - even small moments - the more practice you’ll get.

If your equipment is in a closet, you’ll open that closet less often than you intend. If it’s by your door, you’ll pick it up on your way past.

Use a Timer

Timing mechanisms help maintain focus and structure. Without a timer, five minutes of practice can feel like twenty, or actual twenty minutes can feel like five.

Shorter intervals allow for higher intensity and greater focus. Longer intervals build stamina and allow for lots of repetition. Experiment to find what works for your goals and your attention span.

Have a Plan

Design training sessions beforehand using repeatable templates. Knowing what you’ll do before you start removes the friction of decision-making.

A sample 25-minute longsword session:

• 5 minutes: Fundamental Cutting Drill Warm-up (1-minute sets)
• 10 minutes: Lesson Drill 1
• 10 minutes: Lesson Drill 2

Write down your templates and reuse them until they become automatic. Then create new templates to address new skills.

Have a Buddy

Partner accountability strengthens commitment and tracking. Having someone on your side makes it way easier to stay accountable and on track.

This doesn’t require practicing together - a text message checking in can be enough. “Did you practice today?” is a powerful question when someone is expecting to hear your answer.

Find someone with similar goals and agree to hold each other accountable. The social commitment adds weight to your personal commitment.