Training alone

One of the major strengths of martial-arts training is that you can experience real-life fighting situations by practicing your "forms."  Forms come by various names, according to your martial-arts style, but they all feature an imagined battle with multiple opponents.  As you progress from one rank to the next, you learn new forms, each highly choreographed to incorporate additional offensive and defensive techniques and combinations of techniques.  And by the time you have mastered let's say 10 or 12 forms, you will have established  "muscle memory" of a rather large arsenal of important kicks, strikes, and blocks.
     In addition, you will have learned how one technique can flow naturally into another.  For example, you learn how a left high block moves naturally into a right middle punch, or how after executing a double open-hand block to the left you can swing your body 180 degrees into a double side kick.  Because each form follows a pattern of moves that you must execute properly and in strict sequence, you are continually benefiting from the wisdom of the masters who created these forms as a means of assuring that every student of a particular martial-arts style has learned the fundamentals properly.  In this way, as an example, a student who has learned Taekwondo form Koryo while studying in Korea will execute the moves in the same way as a student who learned the form from a qualified instructor in Texas or Minnesota.
     Although the full body of training that you experience in your school may vary greatly from what someone learns in another school of the same style, what doesn't change is the forms.  These are established by that style's highest governing body and are standard from one school to the next.
     If you have never studied the martial arts, you need to begin in the company of a trained instructor who will teach you the basics and introduce you to his or her style's forms.  You will learn the forms in the proper sequence as you move from, let's say, white belt to black belt, and you will be required to master the individual techniques.  Once you know the forms -- if, for instance, you have learned the forms in a martial-arts school but must now practice on your own -- you don't need a training partner in order to engage in "hand to hand" combat.  By practicing your forms diligently, you are preparing yourself for self-defense in the real world.
     In the April 18th post about "Inspiration" you'll find a link to a black-belt form demonstrated by Taekwondo Grandmaster Kyu Hyung Lee.  You'll see what a form should look like when executed by someone who has devoted his life to the martial arts.