Focus, or DIE!
If we are a person who participates in any type of combat training, we should ALWAYS ask our self, "Why am I dong this? and we should always have a sincere answer. I am going to assume that if you are in a combat training class it is because your primary priority is self-defense. That would be sensible for anyone in any sort of combat training like boxing, kickboxing etc... If you attend a real deal class, don't waste your time and money there by focusing only on using it for fitness and socializing. Get the best ingredient out of it!
In this blog I am going to talk about the importance of proper combat technique execution and how your neglect of it can later cost you your life.
The Martial Arts have recently been invaded by the activity and ideas of fitness. Some Martial Arts have been re-structured to better serve fitness desires and others have just been created. The unannounced rooming up with the Martial Arts by the fitness industry has caused a lot of changes including helping to get many slacking Martial Artist back into healthy shape. Fitness has brought fun, outfits, colors, and a huge audience into the house of the Martial Arts that did not exist before. One could even profess that the fitness industry has breathed real life back into the Martial Arts. This all may be true and as exciting as it all has been for everyone there is a crucial element that might have been taken from the Martial Arts when it was given it's new life. A piece that made the Martial Arts the Martial Arts and kept it from becoming only fitness and fun...
"DEATH!"
Yes, Death. Death is the reason for the creation and even practice of the Martial Arts. To protect self and others from an un=timely death initiated by an attacker. The purpose of Martial Arts education and training was to develop and practice the execution of techniques that were formatted to stop other life threatening techniques. The mission of the Martial Arts was always to think about facing death and to prepare self to be ready to fight against and disrupt that which was working to connect you with death. Pain, fear, and hurt feelings were a MUST when training Martial Arts. All of this has been taken and even reversed to serve the efforts of fitness. Martial Arts Combat fitness classes are now fun, loud, sexy, and technique mindless, with a primary focus on sweating and weight loss. GREAT for fitness and sweating but not for Martial Arts and preparing to face DEATH!
If we want to get the intended maximum result of the Martial Arts from it when training under it's name, with it's techniques, we must have the mind. We can not view our techniques as a inconvenient movements that we are flinging around because we were told to and want to sweat. We can not slump through our rounds while watching the clock impatiently for the end. And neither can we sloppily execute our skills as fast as we can to assure we get a good workout for the day.
When training as a true Martial Artist our mind must be focused on executing each individual technique in the same manner that we want to execute it in when facing a lethal threat. This discipline will program our muscle memory to execute the technique just as we do in training, when under the pressure of an attack. It also will increase our speed and contact power with the technique.
This proper way of Martial Arts development training will condition the mind to trust the body when it has to execute under real life pressure. Most people freeze and panic when shocked by the element of a real criminal who is about to bring harm upon them. Even though an initial shock is normal for everyone, the state of staying frozen and afraid occurs because that moment is new to the brain and it does not trust any new response from the body so it stays there.
When we train and envision these fears we condition our mind to de-sensitize itself towards it because it becomes familiar to it. And when we execute our defensive tactic while in the mindset, we teach our brain to trust movements of the body during that situation. Committed training in this manner constructs this non-threatening movement in the training room, into an automatic reflex like reaction of lethal potential if alerted. The Martial Arts trained student becomes a threat to the one who will push him to feel threatened.