I practiced BJJ and our black belt advised against “drills” in favor of sparring.
Now I train gymnastics and “drills” is basically the name of the game. I prefer the drills, gives a clear feeling of progression that I like.
Now I train gymnastics and “drills” is basically the name of the game. I prefer the drills, gives a clear feeling of progression that I like.
You can get really good at kata by, well, doing kata, but that doesn't mean you're going to be able to employ your knife-hand block when someone's trying to punch you in the face. That drill lacks an important aspect of the actual practice.
On the other hand, if you can pull off an armbar against a guy that's really good at defending armbars, you can almost certainly pull one on a drunk guy in the Kroger's parking lot.
Gymnastics doesn't have that dynamic variable. The drill and the skill are largely the same, or the drill is at least a component of a larger skill. There's huge transfer between the two.