THE COMPETITORS EDGE
Nothing motivates a person better than the thought of not being prepared for a task with a specific deadline.
This may be a driving test, a presentation at work or an academic examination. You will always push yourself harder when a specific goal is clearly defined, and harder still when there is a consequence to being lazy.
A competitive martial artist continually has this consequence in the back of their mind. And those that use this to drive themselves into their training will progress faster and achieve more than those that just cruise along with an ‘that’ll do’ attitude.
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>Striving for your personal best
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The martial arts are very different from other competitive activities, in that they focus on personal improvement rather than simply beating all opponents. The objective is to compete against yourself, in an attempt to achieve the best that you can do personally, rather than simply be better than your peers.
This is why martial arts encompass such a broad range of people, male and female, young and old, able-bodied or disabled. Everyone can compete fairly on equal terms with themselves! The question is how to remain competitive with yourself? How can you motivate yourself over many years of training? This article aims to explain this, but first let’s consider issues that inhibit progression.
The Dark Side
Regardless of the activity you examine, there will always be those egos that attempt to elevate their own status by simply cutting others down. This is not the essence of martial arts. It’s better to concentrate on improving yourself rather than hindering others to achieve differentiation. Expending energy undermining others will not make you better at what you do.
A martial artist strives to be the best that they can be – it’s as simple as that.
Lethargy
Who cares if you skip a few sit-ups at the end of a 1-minute round when the instructor isn’t looking in your direction? ….You should!
I’m sure you can think of someone who is naturally gifted but simply can’t be bothered, or just do enough to get by. Conversely, there are individuals that aren’t physically blessed with natural ability, but have a relentless determination and a drive to improve. The former doesn’t have a martial artist’s attitude while the latter does!
Those with a great deal of natural ability can become complacent, assuming that because they easily beat those around them that they don’t need to push themselves. I like the analogy of a fight between two identical versions of yourself. If one of you has a self-competing drive to always better themselves and the other only ‘does enough’, which one will have prepared themselves better for the fight?
The Indomitable Side
The initial three to five years of training in any art will provide many reasons to be motivated. Regular gradings or belt tests provide the specific deadlines that engage the drive to improve. Depending on the syllabus of each club or academy, this effect can be diminished or lost after achieving black belt status. The role of improvement lies more directly within the individual rather than the system within which they train. Those who fight in competitions will maintain a progressive nature continually developing themselves to higher levels. Even if competitive fighting isn’t your thing, adopting a ‘self-competing’ attitude will get results.
Purpose
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>Competition makes you work harder
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Motivation without direction can be wasted! To progress you must first be willing to accept that you can do things better. It can be difficult to identify your own floors, but constructive criticism from instructors and training partners will provide training objectives that will help you improve. Once you have a specific goal you must structure your training to achieve it.
You shouldn’t be afraid of making mistakes, as long as you recognise them and learn from them. Your ego will try to make excuses, but excuses will not prevent the same mistakes being made again.
Longevity
It is natural that self-competition gets harder as you get older and your physical body ages. It’s important to set yourself realistic goals. But your rate of decline isn’t as rapid as you might think! Your potential stamina work-rate peaks at between the ages of 20 to 30 years old and then declines at a rate of 0.016 litres of oxygen per minute every year. This rate means that by the time you are 60 years old, your stamina levels have regressed to about the levels you had at 15 or 16 years old.
Your strength levels will peak at about the age of 30 years old, then plateau, and finally fall away after the age of 40 years. But even at 80 years old you can expect to achieve the same strength levels you had at 18 or 19 years old.
Your limb speed will be at its greatest from the ages of 20 to 50 years. Even at 60 years old you can still be as quick as you were at 18 to 19 years old!
This isn’t bad is it? The trick is to keep training! It’s far more likely that psychologically you’ll begin to make excuses as to why you can’t push yourself. You shouldn’t aim to beat your fastest 3-mile running time when you were 25 years old (unless you weren’t very fit at 25), but don’t go writing yourself off prematurely! Guard against injury with proper warm up, cooldown and stretching exercises, practice safe techniques and look after your rest and nutritional needs and your physical performance will surprise you (and your peers)!
Self-competition & Timer Training
Competition (even against yourself) requires some kind of comparative measurement. It may be points scored during sparring, or how quickly you can run a lap of the track. To see improvements you’ll need to gauge how you are performing. Timer training provides a datum from which relative performances can be assessed. By comparing the amount of work you have managed over a number of rounds in one session to a previous one, you can determine if you are improving.
Also by dividing up your training session into timed rounds, you break a larger (more overwhelming) session into a series of smaller manageable tasks. This will drive up your work rate and allow you to psychologically focus fully for the whole session.
You can allocate rounds with specific activities such as sparring, padwork, bagwork or exercises etc. And by training using a round training format you’ll be surprised at how much you can fit into just a half an hour.
Generally, strive to improve, compete against yourself and enjoy the competitor’s edge!
Next month we will take a look at fight conditioning through interval running.
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