Dojo

Generally speaking, to develop skill, one must develop:
- technique
- reaction time
- reflexes
- a knowledge of strategy
- a knowledge of tactics
- the ability to utilize the previous

The stress of combat may impair technique, sparring helps "combat" (kek) that.

Practicing striking techniques in the air helps develop technique.
Practicing striking techniques on a bag or person helps develop technique better, because the intention is to hit a person.

Doing drills, even compliant drills, helps develop reflexes.
I differentiate drills with levels of "pressure," the more pressure, the more like sparring drills are.
I recommend gradually progressing drills in pressure, and then sparring, for the development of skill; but sparring is fun, so spar often, have fun.
Sparring helps with the ability to apply reflexes, but also aids in developing reflexes.

To develop knowledge of strategy, one could do this many ways: book studying, lectures, video example analysis lectures, drills, and sparring, including other means.

Simply reading about strategy helps develop strategy, and it also helps with the ability to apply it.
Drills often help people learn and understand strategy more than reading.
I recommend an increase of pressure with the application of drills before sparring, to aid in developing knowledge and understanding of strategies, as well as the ability to apply it; but sparring is fun.
Sparring often helps with obtaining knowledge and understanding of strategies, as well as aids in the ability to apply strategies.

You can read about tactics, you can watch videos about tactics, you can watch lectures about tactics, you can use drills, you can spar, I think you should get the idea by now.

I don't remember who said this, but "Balance is the key to happiness."

Individuals vary in many ways, personality, physiology, and individuals also vary in how they learn most efficiently.
Individuals vary in how they prefer to practice martial arts.

>>1090373

Individuals have varying goals in life and for martial arts.
Some people like to train with an equal amount of time spent on hitting a bag or dummy, doing drills, and sparring; some people like to spend more time on some things, some people like to spend less time on some things.

Any way you train, you'll get some skill out of it.

If I were to run a gym or dojo, I might structure things like this:
1. 20% education
2. 40% drills and technique work
3. 30% sparring
4. 10% optional
5. physical education and training is available if students wish to utilize it
Some places structure things like this:
1. 35% education
2. 45% drills and technique work
3. 10% sparring

or like this:
1. 25% physical conditioning
2. 25% education
3. 45% drills and technique work
4. 15% sparring

or like this:
1. 40% physical conditioning
2. 20% education
3. 35% drills and technique
4. 2.5% physical conditioning
5. 2.5% sparring

or like this:
1. 40% education
2. 15% physical conditioning
3. 44% drills and technique
4. 1% sparring

>>1089713
What style(s) are you looking for, what's your background, and it'd help a lot if you post links to the Dojos' websites.

>>1089713
>What should I do?
You should first tell us what you want.

Let's simplify things.

Let's say there's 3 parts to training:
1. Hitting the heavy bag.
2. Doing partner drills.
3. Sparring.

Let's say you get the most gains from hitting the heavy bag.
Let's say you get an equal amount of technique gains and ability to apply technique gains from doing partner drills.
Let's say you get the most ability to apply technique gains from sparring.

Let's say you have 100 minutes each class.

If you spend 33.33min on hitting the bag,
33.33min on doing partner drills, you have about 33.33min left to spar.
You get an equal amount of technique, and ability to apply technique.

If you spend 50min on hitting the heavy bag, and 25min on drills, you have 25min left for sparring.
You develop good technique, but your ability to apply the technique isn't as good.

If you spend 25min on hitting the heavy bag, and 25min on partner drills, you have 50min left to spar.
You're ability to apply technique is better than your technique.

>>1089713
Look for people with credentials and who taught the people. Just because someone claims to be a 10th degree blackbelt magic super special badass doesn't mean shit. There's a few major organizing bodies of martial arts that serve as a means of ensuring the person isn't full of it. A major one is the Dai Nippon Butoku Kai for Japanese stuff, I'm not familiar with anything similar for not Japanese arts but I'm sure there's something. Basically just take an hour or two and google stuff.

The other, and probably most important one for me, make sure you like the people. Main reason I've done martial arts the last decade consistently is because the people in the organization are like a second family.There's a spirit of compassion and camaraderie that I've hardly seen and it's really refreshing. In the short term the people don't really matter as much as you just busting your ass to get stronger, but long term? Long term you wind up good enough to start teaching and spreading the art.