One of my favourite things to do aside from training Self Defence at Interception Martial Arts Hull is to read. I love motivation or management books.
One of my favourites is the 7 habits book by Stephen Covey. ( https://www.franklincovey.com/)
One of the first habits is, To begin with, the end in mind.
I love this….why would anyone, including you start a new endeavour without knowing the outcome they want?
Before doing your Google search or asking on Facebook about Martial Arts & Self Defence you need to ask yourself –
“Why do you want to train Martial Arts & Self Defence?”
From my experience, there are too many different answers however they all tend to boil down to a select few when thinking about self-defence training & Martial Arts. I can give you what I consider to be the top examples.
- Self-defence
- Fitness
- Structure
- Discipline
- Social
- Emotional
- Sport
- To look cool.
My personal reasons to train martial arts are simple –
I want to protect my family at 3 am when someone is breaking in through the window in my kid’s bedroom.
This has been my Self Defence motivation from the very start. I didn’t want to learn forms, fitness was a byproduct of training & Black Belts are irrelevant in a real fight. Just like most of the reasons above I will say, I never thought about looking cool. I’m the person in the gym with holes in my tops and shoes (Much to my future wife’s annoyance)
Your Answer?
Be honest, why do you want to train Martial Arts & Self Defence?
The answer will be the most important answer in your Self Defence training life.
What I mean is – if you’re like me and want real fighting, meditative Tai Chi would be the wrong art, if you want to be in the Olympics Kali would be wrong, you would want boxing or Tae Kwon Do.
This also applies if you’re doing Tae Kwon Do to be in the Olympics and you’re struggling to get up at 5 am for a session. Remember…..What is the bigger picture? & can you handle it?
Backward Visioning in martial arts & Self Defence.
Do you want Olympic gold? Do you want to protect the family? Whatever your vision is, see it and work backwards to where you are now.
What do you have in the vision that you don’t have now?
Do you need more cardio, more strength, flexibility, even a more experienced instructor to achieve this? Then go and get it!
No one will help you more than you help yourself.
Amazon, Google and YouTube are a wealth of knowledge. Nothing can replace the feedback from an instructor, however, the basic mechanics of anything can be picked up from a book or video. If you want a good jab, watch a video. If you want to know the correct deadlift form…..you guessed it –
YOUTUBE!
To cut a long story short you won’t enjoy your Self Defence training or anything else in your life if you are not doing the right thing for the right reason. The passion will die and on a January morning when it’s snowing leaving the couch to go for a run will never happen.
Your energy to train does not come from running, bag work or lifting weights, they only aid your training. The energy comes from your bigger picture.
This is the same energy as someone working 80 hours to feed their kids as this is what drives them.
Jim Wendler ( https://jimwendler.com/) has a great point of view on this
“Discipline over motivation”
Motivation will go Discipline gets you to the gym!
Until next time.
Paul
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