Self Improvement

When students first begin training, their knowledge, physical and mental ability, co-ordination, stamina, fitness and mental attitude change and improve dramatically. This improvement continues for quite some time and then suddenly they feel like they are not improving or advancing any more. Around the same time they start getting little injuries, bangs, bruises, knocked fingers, pulled muscles etc. and their attitude changes from a positive enthusiastic one to a negative, couldn’t care less, “I don’t want to train” one. This is called HITTING THE WALL, or REACHING A PLATEAU and can happen several times throughout a students time in the Martial Arts. It usually affects students around green/blue band, but can affect them at almost any grade. It also affects quite a few people within one to six months of getting a RED BAND. If you recognise the above symptoms in a student (or in yourself) it is important to explain what is happening and why.

Why it happens

When a dramatic improvement in physical and mental ability has occurred, the mind and body have to come to terms with this new level of skill and knowledge, so they stop themselves from accepting any more information until they have categorised what has already been learned. During this categorising period no improvement will be felt by the student, no matter how hard they train. In fact they may even feel that they are becoming worse at Thai Boxing rather than better.

THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST DANGEROUS TIMES IN A MARTIAL ARTIST’S CAREER, because this is when most people give up training in Thai Boxing. They think that this is as far as they can get and they stop enjoying training. They begin to make excuses for not training, begin to miss first the occasional class, then the occasional week, and then drift into not training at all.

This period can last anything from one week to a couple of months. IT IS VITALLY IMPORTANT THAT THE STUDENT CONTINUES TRAINING AND WORKS THROUGH THIS PERIOD. They must understand that once the mind and body are happy with the new level of skill and knowledge they WILL start to improve and enjoy their training again, and continue their improvement towards RED BAND and beyond. I have hit and trained through this wall many times, along with every other RED BAND or CHAMPION in the world. That’s how we got to where we are now.

NEVER GIVE UP!!!!

DEFINITION OF SUCCESS:
A man who gets up more times than he is knocked down

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