Keeping it Fresh -

You’ve been training for years. You go to class twice a week, you workout extra on weekends, you read books, magazines and web postings. You connect by phone, e-mail, and chat rooms. Every day you discipline yourself to basic punches, kicks, blocking sets, patterns, stretching, strength conditioning and meditation. And after all of that, some dumb mugger doesn’t have the common decency to attack you in the parking lot! I mean, come on...what did you do all this training for anyway! It’s enough to burn a guy out and decide to quit the martial arts and take up transcendental rock skipping.

To be sure, anyone who has trained in the martial arts has experienced burnout. If you want a reality check, ask your instructor if there was ever a time when they wanted to hang the black belt up and call it quits. Of course you will first get the general "perseverance is part of the martial way" speech, but then when nobody else is around they will tell you how much they understand.

Doing the exact same thing day in and day out is boring. Those of us who have taught have racked our brains for hours trying to think of new ways to approach the material to keep our students interested. But here is the catch; I have noticed that most instructors don’t innovate the material for themselves. They fail to become their own instructor and face the obvious fact that they are not challenging themselves or learning anything new. This paper is for the instructors. Those who need a little kick start in their own training but have few to turn to for motivation. Our biggest asset is our experience, but just like our students who fail to relax when learning a twist kick, we fail to have some fun when it comes to ourselves. So, here are some ideas...

Set Goals:

We all used to have goals in the martial arts: Earn a black belt, break a cinder slab, make next month’s rent, you know...the important stuff. Goals are what motivate us to get out on the floor and crack a sweat. As instructors, we need to look inside for our goals and know that it’s quite possible that nobody will ever acknowledge our successes. Here are some ideas to get you started:

It’s important to remember something about setting goals. If you don’t write them down, they don’t really exist. You will instinctively lie to yourself about the goal being real and slack off. Writing it down, and setting a completion date (like a test date) forces that white belt in all of us to snap to attention and get down to work.

Add Music:

Sounds simple, and it is. Pick out some dance tunes, rock and roll, techno, rap. Pick something with a beat for awhile. After a few weeks, pop in some classical, try country, blues, or R&B. See how the different music makes your workouts more physically intense, or more mentally stimulating. I’ve tried any type of music I can think of to workout to. I find that if I’m not particularly geared up for a hard workout, that something with a beat seems to drive me further than normal. I’ve tried rap but find I spend valuable mental energy trying to follow the lyrics, so I don’t do that anymore. When I’m already pumped up (too much coffee) then something with some brass helps out. It’ll sound nuts but Tony Bennett is great to do patterns to; emphasizes the need to be smooth. After several workouts with your favorites artists, workout in complete silence. I mean put in ear plugs if you have to and see what happens and how you do. Again, you may want to write down what works and what dosen’t.

Play with Patterns:

Final suggestion here is to play around with the patterns. Sure there is a "correct" way to do each pattern, and come test time that is just what you do. But there’s also a "correct" way to drive a car, eat a pizza, slow dance or kiss someone...or is there? If you find your pattern work is becoming a weighted chain in your training, shift gears. I know many people who will do forms really fast then in complete slow motion. That’s not what I’m talking about here. Try these:

These are simply some suggestions for fending off the evil opponent of boredom and stagnation. Some of these ideas may work for you, some will not. But if these ideas get you thinking of what might work for you, then your path to mastery has been revitalized. Remember, martial arts is a lifelong meal of knowledge, don’t limit yourself to just the salad.