Black Belt Discipline
Do you have what it takes to become a martial arts black belt? We believe that every student has the potential to achieve this goal. But are you willing to work hard and make sacri?ces to become a black belt? Are you willing to go the "extra mile" to overcome obstacles and do whatever it takes to earn that success? If you want to achieve your black belt and any other challenging goal, you will need your inner drive pushing you to succeed. We call this your "Black Belt Determination."
Good intentions alone are not enough. This is why most people fail to achieve their resolutions from year to year. "Black belt determination" is not something that can be taught overnight or "switched on" and "switched o " whenever you consciously need it. Rather, it is something that is developed internally over a period of time and becomes an integral part of you. As with martial arts skill, it doesn't matter how strong you are physically, as your "black belt determination" is mostly a mental response and over time should become instinctual.
At our school, we develop your "black belt determination" by helping you reach and then increase your peak-point or maximum output in your martial arts training. As you continue to stretch your physical and mental martial arts peak points, it will become a habit to push yourself beyond other peak points in your life. A popular personal development speaker, Anthony Robbins, calls this type of behavior "CANI" (Constant And Never-ending Improvement).
To help you understand the peak point concept better, here's an example we can all relate to. Let's say that you can do thirty push-ups and that the last four or ?ve exhaust your physical strength. Thirty is your current peak point for push ups. To stretch your peak point, you have to squeeze out every ounce of mental energy to harness whatever physical strength you have left to do at least one more. If you are successful in doing one more push- up, you will have achieved two very important objectives. The ?rst is establishing a new peak point (thirty-one) and the second is that you will have strengthened your "black belt determination."
In the above example, both objectives are crucial to your growth as a person and martial artist. "Black belt determination" needs constant reinforcement through many successes. To have true impact on your life, the successes must be achieved while following speci?c rules, so that you don't risk building a false sense of accomplishment and growth.
The ?rst rule is that when an obstacle challenges your goal you absolutely MUST make a "give it your all" attempt to overcome it. It is better to try and fail than to fail without trying at all. At least you can learn from the experience. The second rule is to be totally honest with your e ort. If you back down, you'll always wonder if you "could have" or you'll say you "should have" when re?ecting on your past actions. The third rule is to set goals that will test your determination to achieve them.
Goals that are too easy can be taken for granted, and goals that are too hard prevent you from achieving the important successes that develop and strengthen your "black belt determination."
As martial artists, our "black belt determination" is an important personal characteristic that we want to over?ow into many areas of our lives to help us become better people.
Habits are formed when success builds upon success regardless of whether the objective is something major or minor in our lives. Here are some tips to review each day as we strive to rede?ne our martial arts peak points and make "black belt determination" part of our every day lives…
By Joseph Galea
Joseph Galea is a contributing writer for Martial Arts Monthly magazine.
http://www.learnmartialartsonline.com
http://www.martialartsteachers.com
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