How To Be a Top Martial Artist by Using Training Contract
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How To Be a Top Martial Artist by Using Training Contract

This article will help you to plan your goals as a martial artist and show you how you can achieve those goals. I titled this article ‘ How to be a top martial artist’ but what I mean by this is how to be at the top of your game!

Many people start the martial arts with a few clear goals but leave without ever achieving them. The world is full of people who have ‘grades’ in martial arts but gave up on their journey to the coveted black belt. Why would they just ‘give up’, what made them lose their way?

There is a range of reasons why people ‘just up’ and leave martial arts training, and very often you will see them floating in and out for years, trying martial art after martial art. I think we all know people like this. But how can this be changed? How can we get more students through to black belts without reducing the standards?

If you are reading this as a student of the martial arts you may also be thinking about leaving your training. So how can we stop this?

The answer is all to do with goal setting.

What is a Tangible Goal in Martial Arts?

When you start martial arts you need to understand that there are some tangible goals and also intangible ones. If you understand the difference, this will lead you to far higher success over the next three years.

A tangible goal is something like a grading result, perhaps getting to blue belt or passing your next grading. Another tangible goal is to lose weight or increase your fitness. You can see these results because they are real. You can see the achievements.

The intangible goals cannot be seen by others, they are an experiences, a feeling and even sensations you might feel. It could be the sensation of ‘being part of something’ or perhaps the feeling that you get when you went to a session without getting tapped out, or how it feels to hit the pads far harder than you used to.

So as you set off on your journey you need to keep track of your progress and these goals and to do this do not only use a training diary (as we discussed in the last article), instead you need to create a training contract.

Creating a Training Contract

You do not need to make a training contract a big deal. What I mean by this is you do not need to tell the world about your contract, your friends or even your other half. This contract is between you and your inner yourself, however, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t spend time doing this.

So here is what you need to do, go out and get a piece of paper. My personal suggestion is that you need to get a nice quality one and get a ruler and some pens.

Next step is to write down your goals and here is how you should do this:

1. Be realistic as to where you are right now
This is pretty much an honesty check. There is no point saying that you plan on winning a world title next year if you have only been to 3 sessions. You need to assess where you are, and if you aren’t sure ask your instructor for an honest opinion.

Yes, this might hurt your ego a little bit but everyone thinks they are a little better than they actually are.

2. Set SMART goals
By SMART I mean Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timebound.

Now notice that you can make all your goals fit the above, even the intangible ones. You really need to nail down your goal, and when you want to achieve it by.

3. Plan Out How You Are Going to Reach Your Goals
If you want to feel part of something, or be part of a community then you need to go to club events. Make sure you get to the club BBQ or grading or in really simple terms make sure your face is on the Facebook photos, then you will be able to show you are part of something!

If you want to last a class without getting tapped out then you will need to work on your defenses.

If you want to lose weight you will need to train harder, eat better and make sure you weigh yourself.

If you want to be a world class martial artist then you will need to surround yourself with world class martial artists!

This is your contract, and you need to plan out for yourself how you will achieve your goals.

4. Set Progress Markers
Do you want to be a National Champion in 3 years? Then you need to be winning the regional events in year 2. If you want to lose 80 pounds of fat for Christmas then you need to say what you need to weigh in September.

You don’t run 26 miles in a marathon, you run a mile 26 times!!

Set your progress markers and you will be able to stay on track.

5. Write out Your Training Contract
On a regular and boring Sunday, take out your pens and get writing. In Huge letters at the top write;

Training Contract
and then under it write your goal or goals;

“I want to be a black belt in 3 years”

Next write what you are going to do to get there:

” I will be going to every class and workshop each month and have one private lesson each month”

Then Write out your Progress Markers

” Year 1 I will be defender level, year 2 fighter, black belt year 3″

Now finally this is the part when you will have to take your time.

Write the words, ‘my commitment’:
Write out a calendar underneath so you can cross out every time you went to training, make it big enough to add a one line note underneath. Each year you will create a new calendar and stick it over this one. It is an easy to see visual record of how much work you do towards your goals,

The final act is to stick it where you will see it everyday. I used my wardrobe door for years for my training contract.

How Do I know This Works?
I can tell you this works because I have used training contracts for 20 years in every aspect of my life and rarely did I fail to hit my goals. I used them for my boxing career and my Judo training contract got me to black belt.

A training diary is a detailed look at your training, a contract is a road map to getting to your goals, no matter what those goals are.

98% of martial artists will not use a training contract because it is a way to hold yourself to something, and make yourself accountable for your failure or success.

Ultimately it is yourself that will decide if you reach your goals as a martial artist but having them written down and a plan to get to those goals will certainly help you focus and that is what will make your dreams come true- FOCUS!

Now you have a choice. You can ignore training contracts, you can just go to class each week and have fun and then in 4 years time you will look at why you aren’t really much better than you were after year 1. Or you can be serious about your hobby or sport and focus your mind and get the most out of your training.

article by UFC fighters Barry Gibson

Learn more about self defence and join our training at Institute Krav Maga Ireland.

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Why Group Attacks Are So Dangerous??

Why Group Attacks Are So Dangerous??

 

It is 9 pm, and you are on your way back from the local shop. Inside your 5 pence carrier bag are the essentials for a great night in with your other half.

Nachos and Netflix await you and as you walk home you check your Facebook feed to see what is ‘going on’ in your world.

The journey should take only 5 minutes, but suddenly everything goes dark.

You can now hear a few voices, and you are certain you are lying down in bed. Then a beeping noise catches your attention.

Suddenly you try and open your eyes, but one won’t open, the other does so slowly.

When it opens, you see your other half, your parents and a Doctor. They are speaking, but you can’t hear them, it feels like you are under water.

Then you realise what happened; it starts to come back to you. The last thing you remember is being on the floor in the street, and a size ten boot is coming at your head as if you are a football and it is match day for the pub football team.

It is at that second you realise you have been not only beaten but destroyed by a group of human beings. What is left now is broken, it will take time, possibly years to heal.

You look at your other half, and you see them crying. You know it must be bad, and then you realise that you have to be at work on Monday and you don’t get sick pay.

Fear hits you at this point, not because you are hurt, but you realise that things are only just about to become difficult. The long road to physical recovery with also come at a financial cost because if you cannot work, you cannot earn money.

It is at this moment you get a chance to look at yourself. As a Doctor shines a light in your eye, you see a reflection of your face in his spectacles. It is not okay, you have swollen lips, and your jaw looks out of alignment. Your eye is swollen shut, and you have a bandage on your head.

You lie there feeling helpless and ask yourself one question, ‘how could someone do this to me?’

‘In a life or death situation, there are no rules, do anything you can to win the battle. Your goal is to immobilize the attackers by any means available.

The above example is dramatic but do not let that take away from the reality.

Every weekend a person will find themselves like this. It is not ‘big’ enough to make the evening news, but it is still life changing for those involved.

So what happened in our story that was loosely based on fact? Our central character was attacked by a group.

But what makes them so dangerous?

Well, have you ever seen Jurassic Park? There is a section where these tiny little dinosaurs that are no bigger than a cat take down a guy 20 times their size. How? Through sheer numbers.

But that does not tell the true nature of group attacks. A lot of groups work tactically.

Diffusion of responsibility

Diffusion of responsibility is the name given to the sociopsychological phenomenon whereby a person is less likely to take responsibility for action or inaction when others are present.

What happens when a group attacks, is that they ‘feel’ less guilt for their actions because that guilt is shared by the group. Many times in an attack, a gang member might only land one strike, and they justify this as a minor role.

From experience when you have a person seriously injured following a group attack it is incredibly difficult to know who landed the ‘blow’ that caused the severe damage.

And this is the nature of group attacks.

Boxing matches have a cumulative effect where the boxer is punished over the time of the bout.

In a group attack, the strikes tend to be of a nature where one person will have inflicted a serious injury with their strike but knowing who did this is incredibly challenging for both investigators and the actual group.

 

After all, how can you tell which punch caused the brain haemorrhage?

This is how responsibility is diffused. It means the group can all land their hardest punches, one or many and still feel that they only played a minor part of the assault.

And it is for this reason that groups can destroy another human being as if they were Piranhas. Mentally they all only see themselves as doing a tiny part!

Surviving Group Attacks

Understanding the psychological reasoning of a group you stand a better chance of survival.

The first and most easy to implement counter strategy is ‘Survival Instinct’.

We are pre-programmed to want to survive, and when people attack in a group, they rarely consider what the victim can do to the group. There is almost a belief that the team is invincible.

So you need to strike with power and accuracy to such an extent that it make others in the group ‘concerned for their safety’. When you hit the group members, hit them hard!

The next strategy is to make them ‘work’.

This should be at the corner of every self-defence system, but so few realise this power.

For example, if a heavyweight UFC fighter took an issue with any of us we going to have some problems. But that would not be my goal in any self-defence situation.

If you cannot avoid the incident, all we should care about is not surviving but making them know they have been in a fight.

If they land three shots, land five! They take me down get back up!

In group, fights do not curl into a ball and hope for the best. We need an ability to defend and fight back all at the same time!

The final tactic we can use is called ‘Engage the group’.

If a group attacks you will find that some do not want to hit you, they are there just to watch and stop you escaping. Rule is simple; they are fair game!

The weak link in the chain might be standing there, and if they are not trying to stop the incident, they are in the firing line for your shots.#

By engaging the groups ‘side-line players,’ you can invoke another psychological principle which is ‘the care and protection of others’.

We are hard wired to protect others, and in any group, there will be weaker members. You do not know who these are which is why everyone is your target.

In a group attack, it is all too easy just to go at the people that have just ‘hit you’ but see them all as targets, and this will give you the edge!

Conclusion

When attacked by a group, you will face a situation that is both frightening and dangerous.

A group attack has the power to change your life, and this can happen at any time, all it takes is for you to be in the wrong place at the wrong time!

It is time you prepared yourself for this?

Thanks for reading