A friend of mine got injured the other week while training at the dojo. Not seriously, I’m glad to say, just a minor groin strain, but painful enough to keep him away from training. My friend, much like the rest of us, has had quite a few injuries of varying severity over the years but it seems this one in particular was just one too many. It was the proverbial straw that broke the camels back.
My friend was so fed up he talked seriously about hanging up his gi and calling it a day, never to train in the martial arts again. I mean, here he was, in his mid thirties and training in a highly demanding physical discipline more suited to someone half his age, allowing people to throw him around like a rag doll and put at times ridiculous pressure on his rather sensitive and over-yanked joints. If his sinews could talk they would probably scream for mercy.
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?” they would demand in a probably shrill voice. “YOU THINK THIS IS PLEASURABLE? YOU THINK THIS IS NORMAL, PUNISHING YOURSELF IN THIS WAY? NO MORE, FOR GOD’S SAKE…NO MORE.”
And so for once my friend listened to his bruised and battered body. Maybe he wasn’t being a sissy and over reacting after all, maybe partaking in such a gruelling pastime wasn’t as beneficial to his health as he thought it was. Maybe martial arts’ training was a hazard to one’s health, a danger to its participants.
He began to wonder what the hell did he got out of it at the end of the. A set of hard won skills that he would probably never use for as long as he lived and if he did use them they probably wouldn’t work as well as he thought they would. He would have spent years training for something that he would ultimately fail at. Were is the rational in that? Were’s the sense?
A Crisis of Confidence
I recall having a similar crisis of confidence some years back, shortly after I got my black belt. My commitment failed me and I quit training with the vague notion that I had only quit temporarily, that one day I would return to training when I was ready.
I did return to training (thankfully). Seven years later. It was a long break, during which I was overcome by laziness, self indulgence and a complete lack of discipline. I never stopped thinking of myself as a martial artist but I was too stuck in my own indolence to actually do any training. I tried to return a couple of times but never lasted longer than a few months before my interest level fell drastically away and I just stopped training again, seduced by the comfiness of my sofa and the comforting glare of my TV. Inwardly I felt ashamed for wasting myself in such a way. I felt dull inside, like I was on low grade sedatives all the time. I had little or know conscious awareness. If I wanted to use stronger words to describe the state I existed in most of the time during that period away from training, I’d say I was dead inside.
I can’t put all these feelings down to just being away from the martial arts because that would just be over emphasising the importance of one aspect of my life. The martial arts had played a big role in my life since the age of seven, but even so, other forces existed that were equally as strong in terms of influence. I had little direction in my life back then and did little of any consequence to fill my time. As the saying goes, the devil makes work for idle hands. I exhibited behaviours that were not very beneficial to me, behaviours that had quite a negative effect on me and my life in general.
Luckily, I woke up eventually. At my lowest point I began to tap into my inner power again and I began to take heed of the wisdom that was inside of me. I got my act together. I reconnected with life and myself again and I have done my best to keep from looking back ever since. Occasionally I can’t help myself and I glance over my shoulder at the life I used to lead and I feel depressed at the thoughts of slipping back into it again, only this time, that was it for good, I’d never be able to get back out again. I’d be stuck in a soulless life until the day I died. That vision is enough to keep me motivated to stay on the path I am now on.
A Purpose to Everything
I believe there is a purpose to everything that happens in this world, no matter how small or big that thing may be. Everything that happens in your life happens for a reason, even though you may not always be aware of that reason and it would seem to you that something is just random or serves no real purpose except to bring you misery. The dead years when I wasn’t training in martial arts were a necessary thing in my life. They had to happen to get me were I currently I am. I needed to live those times in order to have the times I have now.
You may be wondering were I am going with all this? What does this have to do with my friend about to quit martial arts? Did he leave or not? Well, I’ll tell you in a moment if my friend quit or not. The point of this post is to highlight the importance of commitment in the martial arts and how difficult it is sometimes to maintain that commitment.
It is really difficult to keep training religiously week after week, year after year, like clock work, doing the same sort of things over and over again with the amount of pain and discomfort you feel apparently increasing along with your skill level. It’s like you sacrifice something more to the art with every session, be it sweat, blood, tears or just inordinate amounts of pain. Perhaps I’m exaggerating just a little. Perhaps the pain isn’t that bad (sometimes!) but you get used to it anyway, don’t you? You realise this when newbies come along and they grimace at the tiniest of pressure exerted on them. You realise just how high your tolerance is and how much you can actually take. But I digress.
Commitment ensures you keep going through the pain barrier and any other barriers that stand in the middle of your road to…what? Where are you going? Where do you want to end up? You need to know these things so you can decide if what you’re doing is worth committing to. What are your reasons for training? Why do you keep at it?
When you know the answers to these questions you can then tap into the power of your resolve and use it to fuel your engines and keep you motoring along. When your commitment fails it means your motivation has failed. Rather than feel bad about how weak willed you are, take a close look at your motivations and find a way to fire up your desire again.
We have to keep re-inspiring ourselves through various means in order to really stick at something. Initial desires and motivations often wane over time and they loose their power to spur you into action. They need re-evaluating. You need to be really clear on why you keep turning up at the dojo however many times a week. When you’re completely clear in this way then it’s just a matter of employing a bit of self discipline to keep you active. All the self discipline in the world will not spur you into action if deep down, you really don’t want to do it. You really have to want to train in martial arts in order to do it. That may sound obvious, but I suspect a lot of people kid themselves for whatever reason into thinking it is something they do want when in fact they would much rather do something else completely. An honest evaluation of your motives is needed for real commitment to take hold.
If you’re motivated enough then you will find it easy to commit to training. If you find it hard to commit, change your motivation, and if that doesn’t work then maybe it’s time you spent your time doing something else. It’s that simple.
And by the way, my friend is back training. Despite the period of doubt he suffered his motivation was strong enough in the end to keep him committed. No doubt his resolve to keep training will be even greater now, as mine was when I decided to recommit.
Renew Your Commitment
No one ever said it was going to be easy. You will always have ups and downs throughout your training career, times when you will feel like giving up altogether. At such times the only thing that will keep you going is your resolve and your commitment to your goals.
Your goals and motivations will change over time as well and you have to recognise this in your own mind so that you don’t mistake a lack of motivation for a lack of commitment. If you’re pulling away from training then it’s because the reasons you had for training before are not resonating with you anymore, not because you are not committed to the training itself. Rediscover your reasons for training and your commitment will come back again.
Training in martial arts is a journey you take and like all journeys there will be inevitable complications and times when you will feel stuck and you will feel like you’re not progressing at all. You need these challenges in order to grow however. Sometimes you fail but each time you fail success will be come ever closer. Overcome the challenges and you will be all the more powerful for doing so.
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