Your State of Mind Matters (and Matters Most) - - Chief Instructor's Blog May 2011

While technique is very important to be effective, your state of mind matters more. If you unsure of yourself, not confident or not fully focused on the task at hand, you will not be effective.

Think about when you are practicing and how effective are you when you are thinking of other things (work, home, weekend plans) or when you are thinking how bad the technique is? You are not effective at all. When practicing you should focus on practicing and while we all need to improve, you should focus on what is going well, not just what is wrong.

Think about when you are sparring and how effective you are when all you are thinking about is not getting hit or kicked? You probably constantly get hit or kicked. When you are sparring you should focus on your ability and be confident you will strike and kick your opponent.

Think about when you are breaking boards and how effective you are when you think you can not do it? You probably can not break it. When breaking boards, you should be thinking they are already broken even before you start.

In Gichin Funakoshi’s, The Twenty Guiding Principles of Karate [1], his fifth principle is “Mentality over Technique”.

Funakoshi states, “….in martial arts mental faculties are more important than technique. The former must rise above the latter.”

You state of mind and being positive in all your actions while practicing, sparring, breaking boards, etc is critical. Perfect technique will almost never make up for a positive, confident state of mind. When you are positive and focused on the task at hand and are confident in what you are capable of, it can make up for many inefficiencies in your technique.

Regards,
Kelly

"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win." ~ Sun Tzu (6th Century BC), Chinese General, military strategist, and author of The Art of War

Reference
1. The Twenty Guiding Principles of Karate: The Spiritual Legacy of the Master by Gichin Funakoshi