Giving Yourself an Idiot Mark

Finding time enough in our busy lives for quality martial arts practice can be difficult. One thing that has helped me is recognizing there are many moments in life where I can give a little attention to my martial arts, and that giving many small moments to martial arts can be very impactful as a whole.

An “abort” often occurs when you catch yourself applying old skill “A” when you intended to do new skill “B”, and you stop yourself mid-action. The risk of this behaviour is that you bring over-thinking into your sparring.

When training, there are long periods where even well-disciplined chunks of movement are not organized into useful overall models. Much of your mind will still be occupied with managing what’s going on inside while you try to respond to what is happening outside. This can be a very frustrating stage, especially in swordplay.

Ideally every lunge, every cut, parry you perform on your dominant side you would echo on your non-dominant side. This not only leads to a more physically pleasing physique, one where you don’t have a massive shoulder on one side, butt cheek on the other, but also to a healthier and higher performing body.

One of the core reasons to set goals and work to achieve them is to build happiness, fulfillment, and sense of self. But if you’re using your goals to beat yourself up or hold yourself back, you’d do better to change your strategy regarding goals.