7 Things I have learnt about life from being a Martial Artist.
Posted by Ben Lumley on Mar 24, 2010 in Geek, Success, Thinking Differently | 25 comments
Note: This is not a post about encouraging everyone to start up taking Martial Arts Class. It’s more about sharing my experiences with you so hopefully you can take something from them.
I’ve done various Martial Arts over the years. From Judo and Kickboxing, to MMA and most recently Tang Soo Do. But whatever style I’ve tried I’ve always found that, when taught well, they foster the same principles that can help in every part of your life.
I have been blessed to have an amazing instructor in my Tang Soo Do teacher, Master Baldantoni. He has not only helped me to learn the technical aspects of the style but also the mental and spiritual side of things as well.
Below are the 7 things that I have learnt about life from the practice of Martial Arts.
Control
One of the most important parts of Martial Arts is control. From the controlled nature of the movement of our bodies to the control of the strike that allows us to defend ourselves, control is a key component of what we do. A proficient Martial Artist uses control not excess force.
But life is also about control. Examples of this are the control you have over the way you think and feel or how other people have control over you. Another way is the control over your actions when all you want to do is send one last tweet but you know you should go to bed instead. If we can learn to develop control we can be more precise with our lives and reap the rewards from it.
Discipline
If you’ve ever witnessed a Martial Arts class you’ll have an idea of the discipline involved. I’m not taking about shouting and screaming at people to get them to behave but rather the little things like people bowing at the door as they enter the training room, remaining silent during class, using “Sir” or “Madam” when addressing a senior student.
We can also develop discipline in our own lives. Ensuring that we eat right, exercise regularly or remembering to call mum each weekend for a catch up are all things that we can do. But don’t forget the little things. Ensuring that you maintain a tidy house or flat, putting things back after you’ve used them and dedicating time for each other also requires a lot of discpline but are very worthwhile.
Respect
Respect for others during training is something that is at the core of Martial Arts. This does not just mean that you respect those who are more senior and more experienced than you, but also that you respect those newer and less developed students. Respect is always given regardless of likes or agreements.
Respect is also an important part of life. Respecting others irrespective of whether you like them or not or even agree with them, it is an important part of fostering positive relationships. The ability to respect everyone you meet in life is a valuable characteristic and one that we should all strive towards. Respecting yourself is also a very important part of it.
Focus
You can’t make it through a Martial Arts class in one piece unless you focus. You need to focus on lots of things such as what your body is doing so you can better understand the move or technique you’re trying to achieve and what you’re opponent is doing and what they are possibly thinking about.
The focus we have in life ultimately determines our reality and we should always remember this. We can shift our focus in a minute from positive to negative or from good to bad. We must be aware of our focus at all times to help make the most of every situation we come up against in life.
Hard Work
I’m still to find a work out harder than a Martial Arts workout. When you’re working, focusing on what you need to focus on and acting at all times with control you can’t fail to work up a good sweat. If you want to move up through the grades you need to also put in the hard work or you won’t be ready when the time comes.
If you want to succeed in life you need to be prepared to work hard. Success doesn’t come to us with ease; it’s a fight that you have to take on every day, even after you’ve achieved your success. But hard work has a benefit and that’s the ability to look back after everything is over and claim responsibility for yourself.
Practice
At a Martial Arts class you repeat the same techniques over and over again until such a point where your subconscious mind learns the motor skills and can perform them without the need for you to think about them consciously. This practice on a regular basis helps to build proficiency while also developing experience.
You’ll never be able to achieve anything worthwhile in life by just doing it once. You need to practise the skills and techniques that bring you success as well as the ones that cause you to fail. You need to be constantly working on yourself and developing to the stage where you can achieve the things you want to achieve in life. Practice makes perfect, remember!
Patience
I see a lot of novice students rush to their first ever class and expect to be able to master every technique after their first week. It doesn’t work like that. In a Martial Arts class you need to be patient and let your body adjust to the skills you’re being taught. A patience in fighting is also important. Rushing in for the kill in the first seconds of the bout doesn’t usually achieve much. You must be patient and let your opponent expose their flaws.
Patience is a key life skill too. Rush off to buy that purchase you don’t really need will lead you to just spend the money in your pocket. Expecting a relationship to develop over night won’t do a couple any good at all. If we can develop patience in life, which is a very long journey in itself, then it the ride will become a much more enjoyable one.
You can learn these kind of skills and traits from anything in life I suppose. You’ve probably learnt many of them, if not all, from the experiences you’ve had in your life already. For me it was learning the Martial Arts that allowed me to make sense of them.
What things have you learnt about life from?
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Ben Lumley writes about Success and Personal Achievement at 6aliens.com. He is a Personal Achievement Coach and Motivational Speaker.
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Interesting post Ben. That's cool that you did martial arts. You keep coming up with new surprises.
What belt did you end up becoming?
When I was in high school, I was on the cross country team. What I learned from there was endurance because if you ran too fast at the beginning of the race, you'd be walking half way through the race. I think life is about pacing ourselves. We can't try to rush and do everything at once; we must endure until the very end. Sometimes it may be painful, and sometimes we may run out of breath, but if we keep pushing ourselves to what we are capable of doing everyday, eventually we'll hit the finish line.
Thanks Ben. I enjoyed reading about your relationship between martial arts to life!
hi ben
how are you?
if i may add please, it increases your mental alertness and stamina. I learnt this from practicing judo although some experiences weren't too pleasant like breaking my left arm twice during sessions(6times in my entire life lol!!!). I guess alertness would come under focus and stamina under hardwork, discipline and endurance(hulbert).
do have a lovely day.
” life is about pacing ourselves. We can't try to rush and do everything at once; we must endure until the very end.” perfectly put Hulbert.
Success in life is about letting it take as long as it takes. Sometimes it'll be quick and sometimes it'll be slow. The trick is to not burn yourself out.
I'm still training in Tang Soo Do – I'm currently 2 belts of being a black belt
Hey Ayo – thanks for dropping in.
Yup mental alertness is a big one too. Being alert to what's going on in your life is really important, without mistakes can be easily made.
What a clever idea for a blog post and there was me thinking it was all about boys being boys and finding a legitimate excuse for beating each other up
I was never very physical but much of what you talk about applies to playing a musical instrument. I play clarinet and sax and as you can imagine, that too requires a lot of practice. I must confess that I play for pleasure now rather than for the exams that I did whilst in school so I don't practice as much as I should but I remember driving my parents mad with my foot tapping to keep the beat. They moved me to a bedroom downstairs because it was so noisy!
I'm sure that my dedication to music was what kept me out of too much mischief as a teen too. I didn't have time to be troublesome!
Ok… I'm NOT a martial artist.. partly because if I tried some of those moves I would tear my hamstring to shreds! BUT, those are mighty powerful lessons to learn, be they from martial arts or any other undertaking in life.
Well applied they serve you well in every aspect of your life.
Hi Ben,
I've always wanted to take up a martial art, but am not a very athletic person. I wish I was. I took Tai Chi classes for several years and quite enjoyed the activity, plus it gave me a lot of what you described above. I think a lot of fitness classes can say the same thing. It's a dedication to showing up each class that results in all of the benefits you described so well.
I had not heard of Tang Soo Do, but it sounds interesting. Good for you for sticking with it.
Karen
Hey El
Yeah its not all about boys beating each others up. lol
Musical instruments take the same kind of discipline and dedication. Thanks for reminding me of my drum playing days
Hey Mick – thanks for stopping in.
Yeah I'm sure that there at lots of different things in life where you can learn these lessons rather than but pulling a muscle in Martial Arts.
Karen
There are lots of people I train with who aren't very athletic. Don't let that stop you
Glad you enjoyed the article
A drumming martial artist? The mind boggles
Ben,
This is really well written and clearly explains several of the major characteristics martial arts training provides both on the mat and in life. The areas you cover are all applicable in very practical ways outside a martial setting. The one that speaks to me the loudest for the lay person that is not experienced is control. It speaks more to the responsibility you have to yourself and others (and the art) by actively exercising it as you are entrusted with great power. The average person can also view this as self restraint but the concepts are similar. Looking forward to you progressing here both on the mat and off (and possibly with additional blog postings) to explore how these powerful self development concepts can be applied in more ways than one. Very nice job here.
Hey Marc thanks for stopping in. I'm glad you enjoyed the post.
Control is something that's really important for me. It was something I used to struggle with without martial arts in my life.
I'm planning to follow this up with more posts on this concepts. Thanks for being here
Interesting post Ben with lots of good lessons for life. I particularly liked what you said about respect and practice and patience. Treating everyone the way you would like to be treated is key IMO. Also realising that anything worthwhile takes time. Great stuff!
Respect is so important Jen isn't it? Some many people don't respect others and it really shows in the kind of relationships they have.
I'd add it teaches balance and the importance of centering yourself, both of which can be applied to the rest of your life
Hi Rob
Yeah balance and centering yourself are two really important aspects of martial arts. Both have definitely change me since taking up training full time
the task of writing has taught me a lot in life. the most important of these things is the value of practice. when I was just starting to write 4 years ago, it took me more than an hour to write a short article. but although it was hard, I tried to do this task everyday, and now I'm thankful and glad that writing short articles only takes me a few minutes. I know, nonetheless, that I still have to learn a lot, and practice will help me through it all.
I've Applied the value of practice in other tasks such as learning a new technology and improving my English skills, and it has certainly been helpful.
Hi Julius
Writing is clearly a massive part of your life. That's great. As they say practice makes perfect. It's the same with anything in life isn't it? The more you practice the easy it becomes, the more you understand and the more you can learn from the experience
Ben,
Interesting post. I like how you relate your experience in Martial Arts with personal development. It is a very enlightening exercise to relate any experience with Life, it always will provide a very interesting insight!
All the best,
Boris
Thank Boris really pleased you liked it.
You're right you can apply this exercise to anything that you regularly experience in life. I firmly believe that is one of the best parts of life, the fact you can learn so many lessons from some many different situations
I spent a couple of years learning T'ai Chi with a Chinese master. It was an awesome and humbling experience.
Your words here ring true for me in terms of that: “You’ll never be able to achieve anything worthwhile in life by just doing it once. You need to practise the skills and techniques that bring you success as well as the ones that cause you to fail.” What I found T'ai Chi really helped with was in developing “beginner's mind”. I was desperate to master it in three weeks or whatever (LOL!!) and so frustrated because I could not. If I was going to get past the beginning I had to learn the kind of patience you talk about above, but also a kind of humility that said that, even when I got very good, there was still more to learn and more practice to do.
Sadly, the classes began to clash with my work and I couldn't make them, and I've never been able to find a good replacement. These things are such big commitments that you've got to have the utmost respect for your teacher and I haven't – at least till now – found the same chemistry again.
I've always fancied trying Tai Chi. There was a class that used to run in the sports centre I used to work in but I never took action to have a go myself.
Patience is so important in life because expecting to unlock success overnight will get you no where.
Hi Ben,
Thanks for the post. I would add two activities that have taught me a lot:
1. Playing rugby. The team dynamics, roles and responsibilities taught me that together we can be a greater whole; and
2. Rock climbing. Making progress is all about making small moves and managing risks.
Like martial arts, climbing requires intense focus which I find is very meditative and relaxing.
Adrian
Hi Adrian
Thanks for stopping by.
I love how you've found such great values from climbing and rugby. Its so powerful to think that we are greater together and that life is about taking small moves while managing risks