Winter - a time for EXTRAORDINARY effort

In the antipodes, winter is upon us. Usually, at this time of year, most schools experience a drop-off in students. I guess it's because it's already dark when people get home from work - they hit the armchair and decide to pay heed to an ancient piece of hardwiring - not to leave the cave if it's dark outside. Perhaps it's a little of that, it's a little cold, the flu is out and about, etc. For me though - winter presents a golden opportunity. I love it!

Winter is an opportunity to make improvements across the board in my life. What if we all emerged from winter; 5 percent better at five aspects of our lives? Five percent stronger, five percent aerobically fitter, five percent more flexible, five percent better at groundwork, five percent better at stand-up. All those five percenter's add up to a significant improvement in our overall performance - in fact, they have a compounding effect on how we perform. Five percent more endurance, for example, means better groundwork, better stand-up, etc = and if we also improve those things, we get even greater increases in performance.

Personally, I also like to extend this habit beyond the training environment. I try to do 5 percent more reading, five percent more research, etc. it really ads up.
This allows me to experience growth through winter (a normally less productive time) - and if all goes to plan, I emerge in Spring, really ready to rock! I don't have to get in shape for summer - I am usually well ahead of the bell curve by the time years end comes around mainly because I took time to lay the foundation in winter!

So, hit the pool once or twice a week - do twenty or thirty laps. Do a kettlebell routine once or twice a week - just for 15 minutes! Skip, run, pushups, pullups - pick something that you currently don't do - and start doing it. Don't be crazy about it - just do an extra hour of fitness work a week. You will be amazed at the results. Improve 5 things by 5 percent each - do just that and Spring will be a time of serious growth for you when September comes around. it's all about consistency - and consistency is about sustainability - so start small, in a way that compels you to repeat every week. Make new habits - small ones - five of them!

Train well - and remember, ordinary training/learning/effort produces ordinary results. You only get EXTRAORDINARY RESULTS if you do EXTRAORDINARY THINGS.
JBW

DECISIONS!

Our decisions shape our lives!

Imagine how much more enabled we would be if decision-training were a part of our formative education. For most of us, the taking of martial arts training was a pivotal decision; one that has probably shaped each of our lives in very meaningful and significant ways. Hopefully that decision for each of us to take up martial arts training has had more of a positive effect than a negative one.

The potential for positive outcomes within the martial arts arena is certainly, from my perspective, significant. This arena is rife with potent forces however, and there is equal potential for negative and destructive outcomes. Are we really better off?

The answer can be found by standing still for a moment and looking around a bit. Who are your friends? What kind of people are they? Are they good people, positive people, people who are ease with themselves and enjoying their lives? Are they passionate about the things they undertake?

Like attracts like. The way most of us are organized is that we like what is familiar and so we tend to gravitate toward those with similar ideals and belief systems. Most people don’t look to hard at themselves – so it can help sometimes, to look at those around you. Our circle of friends can act as a kind of mirror and give you a look at how we ourselves are travelling.

Like attracts like – that seems to be a fundamental truth – but the strange thing is, we learn by noticing what is different. This is very convenient because it allows is the possibility of change. Hopefully, toward the better.

When we notice ‘differences’, we can’t help but start to ‘compare’ – is this new way of doing something better than the old way of doing it? And if so, why? People can’t help but ‘compare’; we do it all the time. Advertising people know this, and that’s why the show you the pretty girl and nice house in the ad that is really just trying to sell you that new set of garden tools. Gee – if I buy that set of garden tools … ??

Deciding to take action, to break out of our pre-programmed routines, to try new things and experiment is a part of what makes us a unique species on this planet.
When wobbling on stuff, I find it very useful to talk through it with someone who had been through it before me. This kind of inoculates me against possible downside – and preps me to take action. Sometimes we can have all the understanding, know all the angles – but it’s not being able to make the final decision to ‘take action’ that holds us back. ‘Pulling the trigger’ – deciding to act – this often separates the successful from the ‘not so’.

Some decisions cost. That’s okay – it’s all part of the learning. As long as we can survive those costs, then we train our brain to make a better decision when similar circumstances arise in the future.

Decisions shape our lives – it’s useful to be good at making smart ones.
Train Hard – Train Smart.
JBW

Are you ready now?

As the famous 16th/17th century Swordsman and strategist, Miyamoto Musashi said in his wonderful text, The Book of Five Rings: "Timing is Everything'.
Understanding timing is an essential skill understood and utilized by musicians, jugglers, surgeons, businessmen and fighters alike. It is about understanding the importance of 'WHEN' ...

Throughout my martial arts training there have been countless times when I have been exposed to ideas, concepts or techniques that I was simply not ready to understand, appreciate or 'take on board'. It seems there is a right time to learn things. We may be exposed to them at one point, but the 'lesson' may not sink in until we are ready. I find this to be an interesting phenomenon.

As a teacher of martial arts, I need to continually try and be aware (a difficult job) of when students are 'ready' for certain things. When you teach someone something at the the 'right time', they often experience a quantum jump in understanding and performance.

Of course, this thing goes well beyond the teaching/learning of martial arts - it pervades all of our lives. We turn our noses up at something one year and embrace it like a drink in the desert the next year. Why is that? Because for a hundred little reasons, we were just 'ready' for it that next year!

I was teaching at a martial arts school the other day and the owner of that school asked me if he should subscribe to a martial arts business service (for a monthly payment he would receive ad slicks, marketing and student retention tips, etc).
I looked around his school, saw crap all over the place, focus mitts and kick pads lying on the floor, paperwork all over the place; the mat was messy, in short, the place was in a state of chaos. So my answer to his question was simple - 'No!'
He asked 'why not?' - I replied 'Because you are not ready to take in more students. Your place is a mess, you have no systems, you are not ready to offer a professional level of service.'
I told him to clean up his act - get his place looking professional - and then ask me again. He was simply NOT READY to go to the next level; he had some serious house-cleaning to do first!

This got me thinking of course, how in thousands of ways, all of us are NOT QUITE READY to go to the next level in the various areas of our lives that need improvement. And more to the point, what is it that 'KICKS US OVER THE EDGE' - what set of circumstances, events of experiences conspire to MAKE US READY?

Take buying our first house for example: many people that have bought one, have bought many. Others are struggling to pay off their first home first - while many, many others are struggling to build up the courage to jump in and buy their first home. How do we get ourselves, or our friends to do whatever it takes to make that first move - how do we get them READY?

I have found what works well is to show them how many other people, especially their friends, have done it already. This sends a message - HEY, IT"S NORMAL TO DO THIS - WHAT"S UP WITH YOU? This taps into their unconscious desire to conform and move toward SAME or LIKE behaviours. In my experience, pointing out that hundreds of thousands, if not millions of other people have GONE BEFORE THEM, is a powerful way of getting them to consider the possibility of them doing it. It seems strange to me - but apparently, most people do not like GOING FIRST!

Anyways, enough waffling on. This is a vast subject - and one that is integral to success in many of the ways we tend to measure such things. It's great to be able to interact with people who have already done the things that we have written down on our own 'to do' lists. Read up on how other people have done things, on how successful they were because of doing those things; all this is part of the preparation that gets us ready to take action ourselves.

Food for thought - and thought is where it all begins!

Train Smart - Train Safe.
JBW

Quick Interview by Fariborz Azhakhk

A New Landscape

We are living in interesting times. These are times when there is more information available to us than at any other time in the history of mankind. There is no excuse, for any serious martial artist to be ignorant of what is going on in the larger martial arts landscape of today. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we all need to go down the ‘reality based’ path, the MMA path, the sporting path, the traditional path or follow any current or particular trend; but it does mean that we each should understand where we sit on this vast and ever-changing landscape.

As the saying goes, ‘Ignorance is bliss’ – but I say ignorance is just downright lazy; and at worst, dangerous. It is unfortunate, even profoundly sad, that many people are practising one thing, thinking they are practising another. There is just so much great resource out there nowadays that we can all get whatever we want or need; exactly what we want or require, without the need to compromise or ‘make it up’. The only problem is that it costs time and money to get some of this training; hence the tendency to take shortcuts, pretend or massage the truth.

However, with so much information available, there are certain problems that begin to arise. I sympathize for the newcomer, for the person who has made the decision to take up martial arts practice for one reason or another, but is not sure where to start. Now, that person has one tough job ahead of them. Unless these newbies are introduced to the arts through a friend already training, they will likely take to the yellow pages or martial arts mags and base their decision on an advert that takes their fancy. The thought of this gives me the shudders. I see people advertising their secret-filled, instant combat courses, wearing their military cam’s, and bragging how they teach special forces, law enforcement, etc (although in reality the military/law enforcement agencies have never heard of them), and they are signing up droves of the unsuspecting as fast as they can lay the contracts down in front of them. These unscrupulous operators are all about making outrageous claims and serving up qualifications that they themselves don’t even have. It seems that marketing skills are the order of the day, not actual teaching skills or real-time experience other than the odd seminar here and there.

This new breed of instant martial arts instructor, is best at muddying the landscape, and making it more and more difficult for the average person to make a good decision when trying to choose a place to train. They know how to run a good advert, they know how to tell people what they want to hear; they are experts in misdirection when you try to pin them down on their actual qualifications, coming back with answers like, ‘I teach kickboxing, grappling and reality-based self defence’, when asked where they learned these things, they reply ‘with lots of people.’ They say things like, ‘we don’t wear black belts cause belts don’t mean anything’ – the reason they say things like that because many of them have never earned a black belt themselves. The information age is definitely a two-edged sword. It’s difficult for people to work out who’s who in the zoo; and I don’t see things getting any better.

I guess my blood sugar levels must be low right now, because usually I am much more upbeat that this. But sometimes the whole story must be told and not just the good bits. Nevertheless, I shall finish on a good note.

The landscape of today is vastly different from the landscape of yesterday. The next big wave in the martial arts will be the MMA boom. This will be driven by the fact that the 15-30 year old demographic tends to be quite switched on to whatever is happening and according to some of the latest stats from the USA, very interested in the reality-based fight game. When more people in this age group tune in to the UFC-like broadcasts on cable TV, than tune in to the American Football games, you can bet the big-money sponsors will not be far away. It won’t be long until this wave hits tsunami proportions and everyone will start offering MMA as part of their schools curriculum. This is both good and bad. My personal viewpoint is that although this will mean a loss of traditional martial arts values, it will make for better outcomes for those people taking up training for the self defence aspects.

The challenge of the next ten years will be for instructors to create training environments that do a good job of balancing good values with potent real-world combative methodologies. The landscape may be muddy but there are many serious and dedicated instructors out there who will continue to strive to make a positive difference and contribute at the pointy end of martial arts evolution.

Train Hard – Train Smart.

John B Will 2007

The Total Package

With more and more people taking up martial arts practice, the number of so-called martial arts instructors is also on the rise. Sadly though, like the increase in population of gym instructors, many of these are a far cry from being true professionals. In fact, the martial arts industry is serious lacking in professional instructors.

In my view, the hallmark of a professional is that he/she is the 'Total Package'.

As a professional, I think the instructor has a duty of care to actually deliver what he or she is promising. If a part of this promise is that he/she will enable the student to deal with real world conflict; then he/she needs to understand the fundamentals of both striking and grappling skills, pre-fight dynamics/strategies, an understanding of adrenal stress management, multiple offender tactics, etc.

The true professional must be constantly updating and seeking out better teaching and delivery strategies. In fact, this part of his/her study is even more important than his/her personal physical skill set. To be the total package requires that we have an understanding of how people learn, remember and take ownership of new information. Understanding how this process plays out allows us to teach far more effectively and achieve outstanding results.

Another mark of the true professional is that he/she can still retain high cognitive function under great physical stress. Amateurs can often put forth the same intense effort as the pro but they seem to lack the experience to retain their ability to think and apply strategy whilst doing so. True professionals are thinkers as well as doers.

Being a professional martial arts instructor is a lot of work. It requires business skills, physical skills, teaching skills and a countless collection of other talents. All of this requires work, training and research - and lots of it!

And believe me - these few things I have mentioned, are just the tip of the iceberg. As an old teacher of mine told me some thirty years ogo - "to teach one thing, you need to know a hundred things." A truer word ...

Train Hard - Train Smart!
JBW