Repetition Without Repetition: Striking Case Studies

Real life taekwondo, boxing, and karate examples.

Repetition without repetition (RWR) is an ecological practice design principle first posited by legendary Soviet researcher Nicholai Bernstein. In short, the purpose of it is to give learners repeat exposure to solving a problem instead of making them repeat the same rote solution.

According to The Constraints-Led Approach (2018) by Renshaw, Davids, and Newcombe, RWR is applied to more complex sports by creating environments in which players can solve the same sport-specific problems but in different ways (p. 81).

With martial arts, there are nearly infinite movement problems, but there are some major top-level situations that all learners will often find themselves navigating, regardless of the sport. When thinking of a problem, it's easiest to start with these common situations.

Let’s set out to analyze three sport-specific striking movement problems:

• Sport taekwondo: dealing with the cut kick

• Sport karate: dealing with the reverse punch

• Boxing: offense-defense distance management

A quick refresher on my process:

1. Identify a movement problem

2. Translate problem into a task

3. Ensure sufficient time on, and repeat exposure to, the task

For this post, we’re going to zoom in on phase 2 to analyze some real examples of how sparring games create RWR in striking sports.