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“When confronted by a situation that appears fragmented, step back, close your eyes and envision perfection where you saw brokenness. Go to the inner place where there is no problem and abide in the consciousness of well-being.” --Alan Cohen
“I train myself mentally with visualization. The morning of a tournament, before I put my feet on the floor, I visualize myself making perfect runs with emphasis on technique, all the way through to what my personal best is in practice…. The more you work with this type of visualization, especially when you do it on a day-to-day basis, you’ll actually begin to feel your muscles contracting at the appropriate times.” --Camille Duvall
So far in this series we have talked about the importance of training the mind and the benefits such training holds for our development as martial artists. In the last article we looked at meditation and its usefulness in opening up our consciousness and creating fertile ground for the changes we want to make to take root.
In this article we are going to look at an underrated technique that when done correctly can be very powerful and very effective in aiding our development as martial artists, as well as people in general and that technique is visualization.
What is Visualization?
Visualization (or creative visualization as it is sometimes known) is the act of creating visual images in your mind for the benefit of changing future behavior. The idea is that if you wish to change some aspect of your behavior or personality then you conjure up an image in your mind that depicts you actually behaving in the way that you wish to behave. You do this often enough over time and you will affect real changes.
The reason visualization works so well is because your mind communicates with your body through images. The brain processes “imagined” and “real” events in very similar ways. The same visual centers of the brain are stimulated, for instance, when you see something in the dark and when you imagine it. And because information in the brain is stored, not in isolation but in association, visual stimuli trigger emotional, sensorial, mental and physiological responses.
If, for example, you happen to have a wound on your hand you can’t talk to it and tell it to heal itself because it just won’t. If however, you picture the wound on your hand shrinking and healing then many studies have shown that it will heal significantly faster.
One theory for this is that your mind is afraid of unknowns and considers them to be “pain”, while it considers “knowns” to be pleasure, regardless of how unpleasant they may actually be. This means that once you have put that image into the “knowns” category in your head, your brain will stop fighting against you and will do everything possible to make it happen. This can work for either physical or emotional challenges.
An emotional challenge may be anxiety before a grading, fear of confrontation or apprehension before a competition fight. Once you can visualize the association of calmness or excitement to be connected to being graded or confronted in a fight, you will physically begin to feel different in that situation. By appropriately using visualization to associate positive emotions and outcomes with these situations, your feelings of anxiety, fear or apprehension will fade away.
So when done correctly, visualizing yourself doing something can be just as effective as actually doing it.
Further proof of this has been documented in a study made some years ago involving two groups of people who were asked to throw a basketball through a hoop. One group was asked to practice visualizing themselves shooting the hoops, while the other was asked to do nothing. Guess which group had the higher success rate in the final test? That’s right, the group who visualized before hand and they beat the other group by a significant margin.
So we have well established that visualization actually works and that it can have a significant impact on performance, so let’s now look at how to actually do it in practice.
How to Visualize
To get the most out of visualization you must first put yourself into a suitably relaxed state so that your mind will be susceptible enough to the images you wish to show it. So just like in the meditation practice find yourself a quiet room to be in for at least fifteen minutes or so and make sure it is free from all distractions.
Now there are no hard and fast rules as to how you put yourself into the required relaxed state. You can make visualization a part of your meditation sessions by simply doing it when you have finished your deep breathing, as I tend to do, or you can alternatively sit in a comfortable chair or lie down on a bed.
Lying down a bed is a good way to get yourself really relaxed but again, like I mentioned in the last article, you have to be careful you don’t end up falling asleep. I have lay on my bed visualizing many times before, and it’s fine as long as you stay conscious enough and concentrate on the images you’re creating. Whatever works for you is fine.
When it comes to visualization, the more relaxed you are the better. You want to get yourself down into an alpha brain wave state, which is the most relaxed you can get without actually falling asleep. In this particular state of consciousness you will have a better connection with your subconscious mind. Going into deep relaxation is like opening up a communication port between your conscious and unconscious minds, making it easier to pass information –in this case images- between the two.
There are a number of different ways to put yourself into this state, but one method that I have found to be particularly effective is using a hypnosis video that I found on YouTube about a year ago. I was preparing myself for an upcoming kickboxing match when I came across this and I found using it to be a quick and easy way of putting myself into the desired alpha state. If you’re like me then you don’t have a lot of time to devote to these sessions, so finding something like this was a real god-send for me.
All you have to do is slip on some headphones and follow the instructions given in the video. When you get to the part near the end were the voice asks you step through the door into your unconscious, just pause it at that point and then begin to do your visualization. Once you’ve finished, hit play and the voice will bring you back around to full wakefulness again.
Here’s the video. Check it out and discover how well it works for yourself.
Right, before we actually look at how visualization can improve your martial arts, let run through a few general pointers that you should keep in mind when visualizing:
- When visualizing, it’s important to view the action from the first person — that is, see yourself achieving your When done correctly, visualizing yourself doing something can be just as effective as actually doing it.goal (i.e. he behavior you want to change or improve) through your own eyes, rather than watching yourself from the outside. This method is very powerful because this is the way you already see and experience everything.
- Less powerful is viewing your goal from the third-person perspective, seeing yourself achieving the goal as if you were watching a movie. It still works, but it’s not as effective as viewing from the first-person perspective.
- Make visualization fun. You will have more success with the technique if you picture yourself actually enjoying whatever it is your doing. This seems to take away some of the stress that comes from the need to perform correctly. You put enough pressure on yourself in the real world without perpetuating and adding to it in your visualizations as well. So have fun with it as much as possible.
- When you’re visualizing try not to project into the future, but instead see yourself as if you are doing things now, right this minute. Seeing yourself doing things in some distant future is signaling to your brain that your goal will always be of in the future and therefore constantly out of your grasp. See yourself achieving now and you’re more likely to find success for your mind will be tricked into thinking your goal has already been achieved.
- The more real your image is, the better. Make the image not just a still picture, but a full-length movie starring you. Replay it over and over, seeing yourself as the hero, achieving your goal. Create background music, pump it up, make it feel real, and have fun with it. This is how you want to see your goal — in vibrant Technicolor on an IMAX screen — not in dim, dreary, out-of-focus scenes shown on a shoebox-size theater in the multiplex of your mind.
Visualization for Improved Martial Arts
To improve yourself as a martial artist through visualization it is just a matter of deciding what you want to be better at and then visualizing yourself doing better by following the guidelines above.
As an example, if you wish to improve a particular kata, then you would first get yourself into the required alpha state (deep relaxation) and then you would picture yourself in your mind performing that kata as near perfectly as you can imagine, all the while enjoying the whole process. You will be basically creating in your mind a full color movie, and the star of that movie will be you. You will be aware of every sight, sound, smell and feeling as you do this. You will be aware of the positive emotions associated with practicing the kata. Your goal is to make things as real as possible so your mind is tricked into thinking that what is happening is reality.
You do this regularly, every day if possible, for ten to fifteen minutes at a time until you feel reality has caught up with your imagination. It’s really up to you when you want to stop. It just depends on how well you wish to improve.
Marked improvement can usually be achieved after a few days of visualizing but for best results it is advisable to keep at it for longer. Real improvements can take anywhere from between twenty and thirty days, so a certain amount of diligent practice and patience is required if you want to make real gains in your progress.
Visualization can be used for anything. You can use it to improve your speed, your flexibility, your power, certain techniques; it can be used to help you prepare for a competition, to dampen anxiety (just picture yourself being calm and collected) or even to be a better teacher. The possibilities are endless and are limited only by your needs and the depth of your imagination.
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If you need further proof of this techniques validity then try this. Go into the side splits, spreading your legs as far out as you can. Are you at full stretch? Good, now close your eyes and imagine yourself going even deeper into the stretch, really picture it in your mind, feeling the burn in your legs. Now open your eyes and try to go even further into the stretch. I guarantee you will be able to go down further than you did the first time. I also guarantee that if you do the exercise again you will get even further again. Try it!
Visualization for Street Self Defense
Visualization for self defense is a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand visualizing yourself competently handling a self defense situation will help you greatly if you happen to find yourself in one in real life. On the other hand, vividly imagining yourself in such situations brings with it the danger of actually drawing them to you through the very real and very powerful law of attraction.
To imagine a situation in great detail and to do so emotively and on a regular basis will put out there in the universe that you actually want this situation to happen. The danger is you could be walking down the street some day and you will suddenly find yourself in the very situation that you have been so vividly imagining in your head! In that case, you’d better make sure that you pictured yourself handling that situation very well or you’re in trouble. So just be aware of that when you decide to imagine yourself being attacked.
If you don’t have a lot of confidence in your ability to handle a street attack then visualization is one way to help you gain more confidence in that area. All you do is create a situation in your mind were someone is attacking you and you then see yourself reacting to that attack with full skill and confidence.
If you imagine the situation well enough then you should be able to feel the adrenaline and the fear coursing through you as if it was actually happening. Just see yourself coping with all that and doing what you have to do to manage the situation, whatever that may be.
Visualizing in this way is very effective for getting you used to the flood of feelings and emotions that come with street attacks. It’s a way to experience the extreme pressure of it all without actually being there in reality, although as far as your mind is concerned, you are there.
So that’s visualization. I hope you found this article useful and I hope you begin to try the technique out for yourselves if you haven’t already done so. It really works and you’ll be amazed at the difference it can make to your training (not to mention your life) when done correctly. Just follow the guidelines given here and you can’t go wrong.
Next time we’ll be looking at how you can better focus your training for greater results. See you then!
Further Resources:
Creative Visualization: Use the Power of Your Imagination to Create What You Want in Your Life
