Instructors are bound to get the question from certain younger students who may start wavering in their training, "What's the point?".  When training kihon every lesson, those younger students with less enthusiasm may well ask this.  Some may be struggling with motivation and can be challenging whatever you try and teach them.  The repetition of kihon can be an easy target to vent their general frustration.  So it's worth keeping in mind why you spend so much time with basics.  We should not lose sight of the fact that much of martial arts training methods are not about "fighting tactics" to score hits but are drills; drills for inculcating fundamental principles for maximum efficiency, power and conditioning the body. Sometimes these can look very formal or non-martial (for example, the uninitiated might wonder what skipping with a rope has to do with boxing). But this misses the point. Not everything…