Dan has several strengths and areas for improvement in martial arts. His strengths include aerobic fitness, which allows him to stay active longer than opponents; muscular endurance, which helps him modify attack and defense strategies; and power, which allows him to hit harder and control the pace of matches. His reaction time, flexibility, reverse punch technique, and control of anxiety are areas he could develop further to improve both his offensive and defensive abilities in martial arts. Improving these traits would help him react more quickly, achieve a wider range of movement, disguise attacks better, and reduce nervousness that could lead to mistakes.

1. Unit 27
Task 2 – Performance Strengths and
Areas for Improvement

2. Strength 1/4
• Excellence Trait: aerobic fitness
• Describe / Explain / Critically Analyze:
Aerobic fitness is how good your body is at using oxygen to generate energy, your
body uses atp and atp-pc first to generate energy first and then goes to anaerobic and
then finally aerobic respiration. So aerobic fitness is measured as the amount of
oxygen transported in the blood and pumped by the heart to the working muscles and
as the efficiency of the muscles to use that oxygen. This means that people with a high
aerobic fitness will be able to do exercise for longer and at a higher level of intensity
this means in a martial arts sense of view Dan will be able to stay active for much
longer than most he will be able to fire out better techniques then people doing the
same amount of exercise as they will be more tired then himself, which will give him
the advantage over them but it can mean being so much fitter then them and knowing
it that he might not put all his effort in as he thinks he is better then them this is a
physiological disadvantage knowing that they are so much fitter than the other
person.
Describe: Give a detailed account of something
Explain: Give a detailed account to give the meaning of something with reasons. Include the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of the topic of interest
Critically Analyse: Give your opinion of the subject of interest – consider all of the evidence and then write about both the advantages and
disadvantages

3. Strength 2/4
• Excellence Trait: muscular endurance
• Describe / Explain / Critically Analyze:
• Muscular endurance is the ability of a muscle or group of muscles to repeatedly
exert force against resistance. This means that sports people with a good muscular
endurance will be able to do a repeated exercise for longer, in martial arts
bouncing on your toes and keeping your guard up are all tests of muscular
endurance as you are doing this for a repeated amount time and against
resistance. Another reason that Having good muscular endurance in martial arts
will be a good thing for is that he will be able to modify his attack and defence
strategy what I mean by that is that we are taught to dodge attacks and use our
hands to parry but having good muscular endurance means that you will be able
to exert force back at the opponent which will often take them off balance and so
be unable to do an effective defence or offence until they get their balance back,
this is a opening to go for
Describe: Give a detailed account of something
Explain: Give a detailed account to give the meaning of something with reasons. Include the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of the topic of interest
Critically Analyse: Give your opinion of the subject of interest – consider all of the evidence and then write about both the advantages and
disadvantages

4. Strength 3/4
• Excellence Trait: power
• Describe / Explain / Critically Analyze:
• Power is the amount of force generated by a group of muscles in a single direction
in one movement. In martial arts you need good power because you are punching
and kicking and so you need to be able to do this with some force otherwise your
opponent would not be stopped by the hits you also need power to push off your
legs this will determine you ability to dodge which is an important part of fighting.
Another advantage is that you will be able to hit harder, even though the aim is
not to knock them out if you hit someone with force they are less likely to try and
attack (they don’t want to be hit again) so this means that you can control the
pace of the match this can mean that you can slow it down to get your breath back
or speed it up buy knowing that they don’t want to attack but if you have done
that a physiological effect in your opponents mind will be revenge which can
escalate quickly
Describe: Give a detailed account of something
Explain: Give a detailed account to give the meaning of something with reasons. Include the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of the topic of interest
Critically Analyse: Give your opinion of the subject of interest – consider all of the evidence and then write about both the advantages and
disadvantages

5. Strength 4/4
• Excellence Trait: linear acceleration
• Describe / Explain / Critically Analyze:
• This is how fast you can go in a straight line from standing. This is important in
martial arts as when you are bouncing on your toes you need to be able to “blitz”
from standing with out any kind of run up (otherwise your opponent will see it) so
you need to be able to have a good linear acceleration so that you can hit your
opponent. On the defensive you can go backwards, this means that you can dodge
a attack with more effectiveness and so your opponent will stretch out more
which can leave them open to a counter and as I said earlier linear acceleration
means that you can blitz with more speed which would be an ideal counter
Describe: Give a detailed account of something
Explain: Give a detailed account to give the meaning of something with reasons. Include the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of the topic of interest
Critically Analyse: Give your opinion of the subject of interest – consider all of the evidence and then write about both the advantages and
disadvantages

6. Development Area 1/4
• Excellence Trait: reaction time
• Describe / Explain / Critically Analyze:
• This is the amount of time it takes for your eyes to sense something i.e. smell, hear
see etc. and your brain to do an appropriate response. So someone with a good
reaction time will able to see something happen and react to it very quickly, this is
very important in martial arts as when someone blitzes you there is a very small
amount of time for you to react so you need to have a good reaction time in order
to dodge or counter. Reaction time would also be effective on the attack because
if someone is able to defend your attack you need quick reaction timing to change
the attack approach weather that would be changing the angle or the height of
attack you need to have quick reaction timing this would mean Dan would be able
to both attack and defend effectivly
Describe: Give a detailed account of something
Explain: Give a detailed account to give the meaning of something with reasons. Include the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of the topic of interest
Critically Analyse: Give your opinion of the subject of interest – consider all of the evidence and then write about both the advantages and
disadvantages

7. Development Area 2/4
• Excellence Trait: flexibility
• Describe / Explain / Critically Analyze:
• Flexibility is how flexible your joints are and so more flexible joints will have a
wider range of movement. In martial arts it is vital to have flexible joints as the
body goes trough “odd” movements that it would not be use to, also in points
fighting the only scoring zones are above the waist and 2 points when you kick to
the head so you need to be flexible to kick people above the waist and especially
in the head. Flexibility is not only related to legs the whole body needs to be
flexible in martial arts so for attack the term used is called “superman” which
basically means get your body parallel to the floor and so you need good flexibility
in your whole body to get that to be effective you also need good flexibility in your
chest and back as Dan will be leaning out the way of attacks
Describe: Give a detailed account of something
Explain: Give a detailed account to give the meaning of something with reasons. Include the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of the topic of interest
Critically Analyse: Give your opinion of the subject of interest – consider all of the evidence and then write about both the advantages and
disadvantages

8. Development Area 3/4
• Excellence Trait: reverse punch
• Describe / Explain / Critically Analyze:
• The reverse punch is the main hand attack in martial arts it can be used both
defensively and offensively so if you are skilled at using the reverse punch you can
be a very formidable fighter (on a side note most of the world champion fighters
use this punch more than any other) this means that if you get skilled at this then
you will have a distinct advantage over others, another reason this gives a
advantage over others is that it is easy to hid what I mean by that is that you can
easily disguise this attack as another which means the opponent will try and
defend the “wrong” attack and so be open to a reverse punch the only problem
with being good at a reverse punch is that other fighters will be aware of that and
fight in a style that removes your advantage
Describe: Give a detailed account of something
Explain: Give a detailed account to give the meaning of something with reasons. Include the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of the topic of interest
Critically Analyse: Give your opinion of the subject of interest – consider all of the evidence and then write about both the advantages and
disadvantages

9. Development Area 4/4
• Excellence Trait: control of anxiety
• Describe / Explain / Critically Analyze:
• Anxiety is how nervous you get when you are about to do something, if you have
bad anxiety control you will get very nervous going in to do something meaning
that the chance of you making a mistake will be increased. In martial arts you will
most likely be part of a team but your fights are solo fights so there is no safety
netting of other team mates on the field at the time so it is vital for a good fighter
to be able to control their anxiety. Another danger is that when you get to nervous
you loss concentration, in any sport that is bad but since in martial arts you can
and will get hit you need to have good concentration and being anxious will not
help especially in Dan's case as he hates losing
Describe: Give a detailed account of something
Explain: Give a detailed account to give the meaning of something with reasons. Include the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of the topic of interest
Critically Analyse: Give your opinion of the subject of interest – consider all of the evidence and then write about both the advantages and
disadvantages