This is a guest post from Oscar Del Ben. Oscar is the publisher of Freestyle Mind, one of the classiest personal development blogs on the web. In this article he talks about internal motivation in the martial arts and touches upon some of my favourite subjects, including fear and visualiztion. I hope you enjoy it and don’t forget to check out his site.
I have been studying martial arts for nearly two years now, practicing for the most time sanda, which is chinese kickboxing. I really love the martial arts world and I really think studying a martial art is one of the most rewarding thing in life.
However, when I go to my gym I often see some people who are there just to do some physical exercise, with little or no motivation to really learn the art behind what they are doing.
There’s nothing wrong with doing some exercise to remain fit, but sometimes you’d really like to go to the next level. I’m talking about the path between the “I have to go to the gym tonight, let’s hope it’ll be easy” to the “Can’t wait to go to the gym tonight!”. Let’s face it, it would be better to start a training session with that kind of motivation, right?
The truth is that internal motivation is everything, and that’s what you really need.
It doesn’t matter how many hours of training you do, if you are not motivated inside, you’ll always have an hard time seeing remarkable results. Think about it, what separates world class athletes from average athletes? Well, it’s not just countless hours at the gym, it’s also something inside of them.
So the question is, is it possible to reproduce the same motivation like a world class athlete? Is there any way we can improve the quality of our workouts just by being more motivated inside? You bet there is, and believe me, it’s a huge one.
I’ve been lucky enough to have the opportunity to study a lot about the human brain, and I’ve read hundreds of documents on the topic.
There are two main tools that are valuable to us in this context: desire and visualization. Many athletes already use these techniques to achieve great performances.
Lets first talk about desire. If you don’t have a strong desire to develop your physical level beyond average then there’s not much you can do, but given that you are reading this post, I expect you are really interested in becoming physically better.
One source of discomfort when it comes to desire, is fear. A lot of times we would really like to be like <insert your idol here> or to be able to do <insert complex form here>, but we are afraid of failing. Now, let me tell you a secret. Failing is not bad. Failing is nothing more than a valuable experience. Every time you fail you are only discovering one more way to not do what you have to do, so you are in reality moving closer to your goal. Every person in the world who has done something remarkable has failed several times before succeeding. Don’t let fear kill your dreams. When you desire something, do it fully without worrying about consequences.
The second step is visualizing. This step is more practical than the first, and it consists on consciously visualizing in your head what you want to do. For example you could run an fight match all in your heard. Now, I know that if you have never heard about this technique before you might think it’s bullshit, so let me tell you that this technique is used every time by all the top performers.
Visualizing is one of the most important tools for martial artists. You can use it to imagine yourself doing complex moves, or improving on certain techniques that are still difficult for you to do properly.
To visualize properly, you just need to close your eyes and imagine your ideal situation. Make it real. Feel the sensation of pain if necessary. Go beyond yourself and forget that you are just visualizing.
What happens when you visualize? It turns out that it happens a lot inside of you. Visualizing is not just a great way to gain motivation, but it’s also a way to exercise without exercising (how weird is this?). Your brain cannot distinguish real situations from imaginary ones, so you are at all effects building expertise, and before you ask me, yes you’ll still need to do your real workout, but you’ll become better in less time, and you’ll notice it.
How much visualization you have to do is up to you. You can begin with 10 minutes every day and see how it works. You can use visualization before running a competition to let go some of the stress or fear that you might have. Whatever you choose, do it consciously and keep an open mind.
Here are some further resources if you are interested:
http://www.championsway.com/consulting/articles/Martial-Arts/Articles/Visualization-for-Success.html
http://ultimatefightingsystems.com/blog/?p=123
Author bio: Oscar talks about personal development and lifestyle at FreestyleMind.com. You can read his blog and subscribe to the RSS Feed to get more tricks about improving yourself.
