Honestly looking at yourself

One of the toughest things to do is to self assess your fighting skills. In the same light, self assessing anything that you do in life is difficult. Coaches, teachers and training partners can give you their objective perspective on what you need to do to improve but you don't have to take their advice. In fact, you can rationalize that their advice is not accurate because they don't really know what you are capabile of as an individual.

A lot of combat athletes do this type of rationalization.

One of the ways to self assess is to use the mirror. Look at yourself. Whether you are shadow boxing, shadow wrestling (Dan Gable did shadow wrestling) or practicing traditional Kata, the mirror can be a great training tool IF you use it honestly. Once you understand the correct body mechanics of the movement, you can self assess. A video camera is another great tool to assess your movement. The challenge is not to get caught up in "looking at yourself" but to study yourself as you would if you were someone else being objectively critical.

Improvement comes through hard work and effort, however that diligence has to be correct technically. The mirror and video camera are great resource in which to begin.

Good luck.

PS I just finished Joe Frazier's book, Box Like the Pros This book was fantastic. It was straightforward and easy to read and understand. The ideas he outlines in the book are easy to incorporate into your everyday workouts. Next time I'm in Philadelphia, I can't wait to get over to his gym and hit those bags!