If weapons are a part of your martial art your regime must incorporate command, mastery and retention exercises with realistically weighted training weapons.
Once your retention and command of the weapon are sufficient to insure safety, regular sessions with live weapons are essential.
In short, you need to be out there hacking stuff to bits, not pretending to hack stuff to bits.
Here’s a short video on command, mastery and retention for beginners. I made this for my Bobcat Martial Arts program where I teach Frontier Rough and Tumble, which includes Bowie and tomahawk, but it’s useful regardless of what weapon you use.
If you are training only with lightweight weapons and/or not actually hitting things you are doing interpretive dance, not martial arts.
