By Alissa DeHerrera

I like getting involved with many art related hobbies and activities. I play violin, sometimes I draw whatever things or people come to mind, and obviously I’m in martial arts. You’d think that these things barely have anything in common, but like I said already, they’re all forms of art.

I think what makes something an art is the creativity that is involved, and it is something that is learned throughout a long amount of time.There’s a lot of different forms of arts you can do, and there are a lot of different ways that arts can be learned.

There’s different forms of martial arts that all focus on different things. There’s that creativity involved mostly in free forms, but also in the way that each student could learn things, or the way things are demonstrated. Even in self defence, you need to act fast, and that takes creativity.

With visual art, if you don’t get taught the skills needed to create something, you find your own ways of learning, and you are never limited to what exists to actually create.

Another thing involved is skill and experience. With all art, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. Maybe there’s a stance that just doesn’t look right, that you constantly need working on. Maybe there’s a form that you would mix up in some way or it’s just not a good way to help boost or keep confidence.

With playing violin, it could be that vibrato seems like the absolute hardest thing in the world no matter how much you practice. And that right there is the key to boosting those weaknesses in art. Practice. Sometimes it may not seem like it’s doing much, but the more you do it, the more you could find some small mistakes that you’re making that largely affects what you’re doing. If you just continue practicing that one small or basic skill, it could help you way more than you probably think it could in the long run.

Art is a whole process. A process that takes years for you to reach your goals. And that’s what all forms of art have in common. If you’re not getting something now, it will definitely make improvement and get to where you want it to in any amount of time it would need. Be creative with how you memorize certain things.

Continue learning from other people and practicing even those basic skills you learned at white belt in order to fix your mistakes and reach your goals. It’s possible.