Martial arts training doesn’t usually come with many ways to instantly boost your performance. ‘Repetition’ is the common response many will get when asking how they can improve. Recently, I’ve been reflecting about my own performance and journey. Doing so, I’ve thought about the advice I’ve given to other practitioners when teaching. I noticed that there were some tips that I often repeated over the years. What’s more, when practitioners applied these during the session, there was an instant boost to their martial arts performance. Therefore, in this first vlog post, I’ll be sharing 3 of these top tips that you could apply instantly too.
In a nutshell, the top 3 tips covered in this vlog are:
- Accuracy: pay attention to the target.
- Posture: it communicates a good visual image, increases confidence, and avoids the risk of leaving you vulnerable to your opponent.
- Eye sight: look where you are going and watch your opponent. Eyes can signal what your opponent might do before they actually do it.
Arguably, posture and eye sight are related to confidence. Even if you don’t feel very confident, the more you apply these tips, the more natural they will become. In my view, this is a good example of how martial arts contributes to confidence-building for practitioners. In other words: it’s not just confidence-building to know one has the skills to defend themselves. It’s also about encouraging subtle behaviours that boost internal confidence and the external perception of confidence too.