Using Your Brain for a Change: The Inner Game of Martial Arts
As martial arts grow in popularity, more and more students are learning the hard way that the game played inside their heads can dramatically effect their performance during gradings or in the ring.
Tim Galway's books "The Inner Game of Tennis" and "The Inner Game of Golf" describe the fundamentals of "peak performance enhancement," which have since been applied to the worlds of business, health, and education, as well as in sports.
At the highest level of competition, the thing that separates the winners from the 'also rans' is mental preparation. Thus, the British Olympic archery and ski teams have employed a hynotherapist to make sure their competitors do their very best. Good mental preparation cannot replace physical training, but it does allow you to perform to the best of your current ability.
Just imagine how much more you would enjoy and do well in your gradings and competitions if your were mentally very positive and even looking forward to them. The aim is to achieve what the Samurai called a state of "no mind," where your physical movements flow naturally when you need them.
I have used the following techniques combined with hypnosis to help students of Tae Kwon Do get rid of nerves, do great patterns, and assist with sparring:
1) PREPARE: Sit in a comfortable position in a place free from distractions.
2) RELAX: Close your eyes, clear your mind, and focus on your breathing. Let yourself go loose, limp, and heavy or light. If you have any distracting thoughts, let them flow out of your mind as easy as they came in and come back to your breathing.
3) VISUALIZATION: Imagine being in a special place, where you can be as you want to be. This can be at the beach, swinging on a hammock on a sunny day, or something more physical like jogging.
4) ANCHORING: Rub the fingertips of your thumb and forefinger together on one hand, while saying a word or phrase to yourself that describes how you feel when in your special place, such as "focused" and "in control."
5) SELF-SUGGESTIONS: Tell yourself that from now on, whenever you rub your fingers together and say these words, it will bring back the feelings associated with being in your special place.
6) REHEARSAL: Remember doing something really well in your martial art. See this in your mind and experience the feelings in your body. Tell yourself that you're storing this memory deep in your mind and that it will flow when you need it to. Rub the same fingertips together again and think of a word or two that describes the experience of performing your martial art well. Tell yourself that whenever you rub your fingertips together and say these words, the feelings and memory will be available to you without effort. Repeat this procedure for whatever aspect of your martial art that you want to excel at.
7) SELF-AFFIRMATIONS: Tell yourself that you're learning a powerful technique to enhance your performance.
8) Return to focus on your breathing for a while.
9) Open your eyes and reorient to where you are.
This will not hypnotize you but can still be a very effective method of learning how to control yourself and bring a sense of flow into your sport. Done within a hypnotic context tends to be even more effective.
Say the trigger word(s) from #4 and rub your fingers together if you want to calm down before an event. Rub your fingers together and use the trigger word(s) in #6 to bring back the mental and physical memory of that aspect of your martial art that you want to do well.
Keep emotion out of it, don't ever berate yourself, and simply allow the changes to happen on their own. The mind has an uncanny ability of taking you where you repeatedly tell yourself you want to be.
Practice your event BOTH physically and mentally. Either on its own isn't enough. Both together will help you to achieve your hidden potential in your martial art.
I combine these techniques with hypnosis in order to help enhance the performance of athletes in any sport.
Drop me a line if you would like to learn how to do this combined with hypnosis, for even more benefit.