Mann's Martial Arts

If you want success in a striking art, which means acquiring or maintaining some amount of impressive speed, adopt the mindset rent for that is due every day. The part of that quote some may not understand, when applying it to a striking art, is that you never own your highest level of speed, you're renting it. You are in one of three daily states with regard to speed, you're either acquiring it, maintaining it, or losing it. Once a certain number of days have passed without doing any punches and kicks, you're losing speed. Are you paying the rent or is it past due?

Football is back, and there's numerous quotes by coaches and players that can be applied to martial arts, and for this one, martial arts instructors. Think about it, the value of a coach/instructor isn't how much they know, or what they can do, it's in how much they can get their students to do (especially at home), which for a punching and kicking art, should ultimately translate into students having impressive speed and ability. The reason this quote hits home for me, is because the second half of the quote is what I always want to instill in my students, specifically, them doing more reps at home than they do in the dojo. I think an interesting goal for instructors to give their students, is 10,000 reps of all the main punches and kicks on each limb, done at home, and pushing them to arrive at that as soon as possible. However many schools make black belt the goal. The belt shouldn't be the goal, it should be the work it takes to get that belt, which ultimately leads to them having black belt speed and ability. Focus on the work, not the belt, make 10,000 your goal, and work towards doing 100+ reps per day of everything. Read the articles on the schools website to see how to piece all that together.

If we always choose what's easy, all we'll ever have is what's easy. If you want something of greater value, you'll have to go "against the wind" to get it. 4-5 years of martial arts training to become a black belt, is literally going against the wind, and the fallout numbers attest to that. 97% of all martial arts students quit before black belt. There are many reasons why, some I've addressed elsewhere, such as not seeing any speed improvement in weeks or months. One of the others that's never really addressed in most schools, is converting curious students into serious students. Even worse, most instructors don't have a clue as to which students are curious and which are serious. Converting the curious into the serious, and keeping them serious to blackbelt and beyond, is an overlooked area by many instructors. Fortunately there are many ways to address that, but first an instructor needs to care enough to know each student, but most don't, and second, don't know the different ways to convert the curious into the serious. You have to convert that curiousity into desire, passion, or obsession for the martial arts, do that correctly, and a student won't even realize they're going "against the wind" for 4-5 years.

Our biggest competition isn't others, it's ourselves, specifically our thoughts. Positive thoughts propel us, negative thoughts restrain us. Which are you giving power too? "Whether you think you can, or think you can't, you're right - Henry Ford".

So on a Sunday afternoon, I stopped by to see GM Becerra. He has to be one of the hardest working instructors I've ever met. I've never known anyone to teach classes 7 days a week, every week. I don't think GM Becerra considers it work, I think it's his passion.

Bad habits are easy, good ones require effort. Are your habits or routines helping you, hurting you, or keeping you where you're at? "You'll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine. - John Maxwell"

Some schools only do 10 jabs per limb, per class, but I've never had a driving range hand me a bucket of only 10 balls. Bucket sizes range from small (30–50 balls), medium (50-80 balls), and large (80-150 balls). Why shouldn't daily repetitions of each strike be similar? The key to more speed, and arriving at it sooner, is more daily reps.

Don't wish it were easier, don't just wish you were better, make yourself better. Don't leave it up to your instructor to decide when you get better/faster. Most instructors have a very slow path designed for your speed. You have to take charge of that and force it to happen sooner. Some of our website articles may help.

There are valid excuses and those that aren't. Our minds can trick us and convince us all of ours are valid. Sometimes it takes others, or honestly questioning our excuses, to uncover their validity.

No matter the type of student the formula is rather simple, "A black belt is a white belt that never quit - Edward Sell". What keeps students from achieving it is themselves, specifically their own negative thoughts and excuses. You have to either control them or want it so bad they don't matter.