Guest article: Why do you train?

This is the first guest article in my blog. It’s all thanks to Dan Cosgrove from Martial Media. I hope you will enjoy his article as much as I did! If you liked it, please feel free to say so in the comments section and visit his blog or follow him on twitter!

If you like to submit a guest article as well, please contact me on twitter or mail me .

Spark recently wrote an article about the martial arts used by Sherlock Holmes, and it got me thinking about the intentions behind people’s training.

Intention in Martial Arts

Sherlock’s a smart guy, and his intention is to end the fight so he can continue his work. So he focuses on efficiently expoiting his opponent’s weaknesses. He doesn’t waste movement, and doesn’t care about how it all looks (even though it still looks awesome).

Other examples of training specifically:

  • If you work in policing or security, you’re going to practice techniques for disarming and subduing an opponent over crippling or knocking them out
  • If your goal is pure self-defense, you’ll be learning brutal techniques that don’t necessarily look good
  • If you’re looking to get into movie stunts, you’ll practice ‚flashy‘ martial arts that look good on camera, such as Kung Fu and Capoeira.

No Intention means No Direction

Most martial artists don’t train with proper intention. Being fit and having a skill are great, but knowing you’re reason for training can make motivation, goal-setting and practice that much easier.

If you have no intention, you’ll get scatter-brained, practicing every technique you can think of, without really having a theme, a synergy that makes practice flow together and have purpose.

Determine your Martial Arts Goals

Intentions don’t have to be complicated. Some simply goals include:

  • Improving your fitness
  • Learning self-defense
  • Becoming more flexible
  • Meeting people

So, today’s homework is to ask yourself: Why do you train?

Martial arts shouldn’t be complicated. Check out more of Dan’s articles at MartialMedia.ca.

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