There are few things that rank as highly important as having the right mindset, Not just for Martial arts but for life. The mindset and attitude you approach everything with will have a massive effect on the outcome of challenges you face. Training in Karate is as much mental as it is physical you train your body to perform each technique but you have to understand what you are doing to make it happen, and when you first learn something one of the hardest parts is convincing yourself you can do it ! I see this often when we start to learn jumping kicks for example, As soon as you leave the ground your subconscious is telling you to get back to the ground pronto ! (Not a bad instinct to have) your mindset to this has to be I can and will do this as jump kicks are nowhere near being a natural movement you’re fighting against your own thoughts not to mention a small thing called gravity but the reward eventually of archiving that jumping side kick or Jump spinning hook kick is a great one. I use this example as I believe it’s a good one for training your mindset you have
- your goal
- you know it’s out of your comfort zone
- it will take effort & practice
- But if you stick at it you will get your prize ! A new technique in your arsenal.
This type of mindset can be applied to most things... you start a new job where you are potentially entry level but you can see your path ahead for promotion & learning new skills, will it be easy no, worth it ? Absolutely
As I write this we are in the midst of a UK wide lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic & training together as a group has been limited and close quarter combat training completely ruled out. This has meant a large portion of our training over the last year has been done in isolation over Zoom calls, Facebook and others. It’s been made a little difficult but by no means impossible to train, and your mindset will be the major difference right now more than ever, we will all be back to training together at the Dojo and at some point all elements of training will be back on the question is do you want to get back to training in the Dojo and feel like you are about to try ice skating uphill ? Or add a little training into your week now and get back to training hitting the ground running prepared and ready ?
We cannot control everything that happens to us but we can control how we react to it.
