Class was over. Inside the changing room I mused over today’s events. I chuckled to myself while thinking over what I had seen today. I had watched the successful application of techniques I had recently taught and was pleased with the intensity of my students. I laughed out loud when I recalled my older brother stepping onto the mat forty-five minutes late and eager to workout. Fortunately for him, another student stayed and they battled it out for twenty something minutes.

I had watched them intently and had shouted out directives as they sparred. Their fight had been one sided. The other guy, who I will call “Chris”, received a good old fashioned stomping. Still, I had been impressed with his tenacity and refusal to quit. Sure he had made plenty of mistakes, but he had done so many things right and better than eight months ago when he had started.

I finished putting my shirt on. Chris walked in the room and cursed. “What is wrong Chris?” I inquired. Chris’s response reinforced to me how important the mental aspect of our game is and will be the focus of my ramblings today: “I just can’t figure out what it is that I keep doing wrong. I need to figure out what I keep doing wrong so I can stop doing that. Then I will be good.”

Dissatisfied with our ensuing conversation, I decided to break down the question better and see why that attitude irks me. First, it is outward declaration of an inward negative view. Second, it shows a lack of understanding of training. Finally, removing “bad” does not leave you with “good”.

The first reason his remark bothered me is that it is stated in a negative way. He starts right away focusing on his failures and then while in this deranged state carelessly throws out the statement “Then I will be good”. Of course if you look at everything bad you do and focus solely on them, you are going to consider yourself a failure. The “Then I will be good” remark drove home the impact one’s focus, and the effect it can have on attitude and real introspection. Chris had gone from zero to decent in less than a year, but was blinded to his own progress by his alleged failures and incompentancys. In short, if you focus on the warts and moles, you will miss the beauty of your game.

The next reason why his frustrated remark rubs me the wrong way is that it shows he doesn’t know how to formulate meaningful goals to effectively gauge his progress while training. You can not make your goals only about beating someone. It is important to have a rival, but you must not let that become the ends to the means. You create your rival to push you so that you will make plans to have better stamina, strength, and technique. If you judge your progress only on how you do against your rival, you will sell yourself short, or get frustrated. If you are going to beat your rival, what will you beat him with? How many times will you practice that technique? What situations are you going to drill the move from? Are you strong and fast enough to pull off the move? What will you do to develop your athleticism to be capable? These are the goals that are not dependent on someone else’s ability. Yes you should make goals to beat people, and yes you should make goals outside of just winning. It is a balance. Everyone must find their own equilibrium between inward and externally pointing goals.

If you don’t have goals, make some. If you are frustrated with your goals, evaluate them. If you have never been frustrated with your goals, consider harder ones. Remember, goals are a means to an end. That end is making your dream into a reality.

Lastly, removing the “bad” from your game with not ensure excellence. Your game is not a block of stone. You don’t remove bad from you game like you can chip away the excess pieces of stone to form a masterpiece. There is no excellent game in us hiding from our sight like there is a Michelangelo work of art hidden in a large block of stone.

Our games are more like a piece of clay. We add to it. Mold it. Shape it. Once you have accumulated enough clay and have formed it into the desired shape, then you can start taking off pieces. Once you can do enough things right, then you can start taking out things that do not work. Imagine if you just never did any thing wrong. Would that mean you are doing everything right? It is no guarantee. Instead of shutting your game down worrying about doing something wrong, go after the guy with the techniques you know and beat him while he is worried about messing up. Just so there is no confusion, Defense is a proactive technique. Defense is not about not getting caught, but about going from an inferior to a superior position.

Focusing overly on the wrong means you are focussing where you don’t want to go. If you are riding a bike and want to dodge something, you focus on the path you want to take around the object. If you focus on the object, you will be more likely to hit it.

In summary, stay positive. Push yourself with goals. Evaluate yourself in a positive light. Focus where you want to go. Focus on what you want to be. You will get there if you use your mental game as motivation instead of frustration. Be realistic, but don’t settle. Train hard and plan for excellence. I have barely scratched the surface of attitude and the mental aspect of training. Hopefully, what I have written will spur you to introspection and self awareness. This cognizance will then give rise to a more powerful mind and ultimately a better you.

I think what you say here is true