Regardless of style, or rank, or current ability, wouldn’t you like to improve your martial skills? If so, please review the following. Afterward, consider how these powerful concepts can help you enhance your martial skills, or just about any other skill you desire to upgrade.
Be Intentional
When I train on my own, I train with intention by starting my sessions in one of two ways. Sometimes, I start with a flexible plan or training goal in mind. Other times, I simply start training and I pay attention (internally and externally) to my breath, body alignment, what I feel, and how I’m moving. I also notice questions or ideas that come to mind, and emotions that are present in the moment. Sometimes I combine the methods, other times I use one or the other. Both methods of being intentional keep me moving forward and they serve as the starting point for continuously improving my skills and gaining deeper understanding.
Be Mindful
As I train, I do my best to keep my mind focused yet open and aware. This allows me to notice my execution of the concepts I am working on as well as the outflows of the training itself. It’s like I am simultaneously monitoring and managing everything but not hyper-focusing on one thing. I enter hyper-focus mode when an unexpected or interesting insight springs to the forefront of my mind. Those insights include a feeling, a thought or idea, questions, or sudden improvement in technique. I find when I am in this open, mindful state, meaningful insights that lead to deeper understanding and improved skills materialize quite often.
Be Curious
The ability to remain curious about something you’ve been doing or studying for years is a gift and a superpower. Pure curiosity can lead to unbelievable discoveries, and it is a vital trait to cultivate if you want to continue to improve your knowledge and understanding, and level-up your skills. One of the most helpful things I do as I train is I simply and quietly, with an open mind, ask myself questions. What if…? Why is…? How do I…? What if I…? What happens if…? When this principle is united with being intentional and being mindful, skill development is all but inevitable. Add the fourth principle, and positive progress is certain.
Be Consistent
I have found that even a few minutes of intentional, mindful, curious practice each day yields faster, better, and deeper results (improvements) than practicing one day a week for an hour. This is true for just about any skill-building endeavor. It’s easy to pick out the dancers, or the musicians, the innovators, or the martial artists, etc, who practice consistently. You will immediately notice, sense and feel something is different about them. When practice is consistent, the practitioner moves differently, thinks differently, understands the principles on a deeper level, and they are able to convey the essences and nuances that those who are not consistent simply can’t. Even more, training with intention, while being mindful, staying curious and consistent is not additive, it’s multiplicative.
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If you want to improve, integrate all four principles in your practices. If you want to continuously improve, practice all four, consistently.
EDB
