Relax into your moves: When you're learning a move it's natural to want to try your best in applying it. When most people try their best they equate this with greater physical effort which usually manifests itself as greater muscular tension. This almost always results in lowered performance. When you learn, try to resist the urge towards tension. Try to perform the move with the minimum effort to get the job done. Don't be hopelessly limp of course, but try to finesse your way through the move rather than using all your horsepower. In sparring you'll need to apply tension as the critical completion phase of the move approaches but the entry and initial execution you'll still want to be pretty relaxed. Get used to that feeling of relaxed efficiency in drilling – you can always add horsepower later in sparring – that's the easy part – getting it done with finesse is the more difficult aspect
