The most important season for improving one's skills in the martial arts is the summer. The reason is that many students get involved in other activities during this time (i.e. camps, soccer, baseball) while those that remain diligent in their training get to take advantage of smaller class sizes, and henceforth, their capacity to absorb new knowledge is endless. Indeed, the summer months have given me the opportunity to share knowledge that is not always possible with large class sizes. For example, in the past, I have been able to use these months to teach traditional and modern weaponry from a Kenpo perspective, advanced forms, techniques with extensions, and intense sparring sessions.
For those that take the summer off (or any month or two throughout a year for that matter), many simply don't come back. Although their intentions were to jump right back into the swing of things come September, many are apprehensive about returning because they don't feel their skills are where they should be relative to the rest of the students who kept training. For those that do return, I estimate that only about 50% will stick with it.
The longer the duration of time off from Kenpo training, the less likely you are to return, and I say this with 100% confidence. There is a lot of truth to what Mr. Miyagi said in the first Karate Kid movie, “Either you do karate yes, or you do karate no; you do karate guess so, get squashed like grape”.
