motivation Archives

Motivation, Discipline and Habits

I’ve been training for a while now.

Some evenings I really don’t want to get in the car and drive in the dark through the pouring rain and carry the kit bags to the venue. It’s cold, it’s wet, I’m tired.

Of course, I have to go. Others depend on me. Once I’m there I’m glad I went. The mental and physical challenges of training release a welcome amount of dopamine. I am motivated by the engagement and achievements of others. I know that what I’m doing is good for me and good for those training with me.

Motivation

enthusiasm for doing something
the need or reason for doing something
willingness to do something, or something that causes such willingness

Discipline

training that makes people more willing to obey or more able to control themselves, often in the form of rules, and punishments if these are broken, or the behaviour produced by this training
the ability to control yourself or other people, even in difficult situations

Habit

something you do often and regularly, sometimes without knowing you are doing it

It is often observed that motivation may get you training to begin with, but it can be difficult to sustain. We are often told that we need discipline, the self control to continue to train, even when it is not the easiest course of action.

Discipline is important, but it requires motivation to be fostered in the first place.

Motivation is driven by reward and results; enjoying the activity, feeling stronger, seeing improvements in co-ordination or flexibility or mobility, experiencing any desired (and worked for) changes in physical appearance. There are many overlapping reasons that might motivate a person to start a martial art. Our motivations may change over time.

I believe that motivation does not require discipline, whereas discipline always requires motivation both for its creation and to be sustained. Discipline will carry you on occasions that you lack short-term motivation, but it requires the longer term motives of reward or punishment to be sustained in the long term. You may lack the short-term motivation to attend one particular training session at one time, but the discipline that drives you to do it anyway comes from longer term motivation and force of habit.

The best ways to motivate yourself in training are:
1. to enjoy it, and
2. to gain rewards (physical satisfaction, mental satisfaction, social needs, goal achievements) and to recognise them.

By feeding motivation you create incentives for repetitive behaviours which become habits. The more habitual your training, the more you are likely to gain from it, especially as it will bring incremental and observable progress. The more habitual your training, the more routine it is, the less conscious willpower is required. Training becomes swimming with the current rather than against it.

Regular activities become habits. Things that you do, often without any conscious mental effort. To get to the stage of doing something habitually I either need to want to do it (I’m motivated) or I need to make myself do it even when I don’t want to (I’m disciplined). This may seem like semantics but I would suggest that once something is a habit, it is not a discipline.

So how to stay motivated?

From a coaching perspective, training needs to be a positive experience, even when it is hard. Good effort and good techniques need to be praised. Improvements noted. Students should feel welcome and valued. Feedback on lower quality performance should be focused on why and how to adjust. Effort and ability should be rewarded with activities that enable personal expression (just because something may be a game does not mean it cannot develop and refine integral attributes and skillsets) and are both challenging and enjoyable.

From a personal perspective motivation comes from enjoying the activity (which could be either the activity, the company or both) and/or seeing desired results from the activity. For the latter regularly setting SMART goals can help.

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Timely

We can set SMART goals ourselves, or in coordination with other students or coaches. It is better to have multiple concurrently running and overlapping small step SMART goals rather than a single distant goal. Regular recognised success increases the likelihood of leaning into effort which in turn increases the likelihood of future success. Too often we overreach on our targets; just choose to increase a bodyweight exercise by one rep a week, or choose to do one kata a day – after a month the change will be noticeable and you can adjust the goalposts. Small changes to routines are also easier to accommodate, leading to their becoming habitual behaviours.

In the last year I have made more progress recovering from training injuries than in previous years because I have been less ambitious in my goals and set SMARTer targets. The smaller increments have allowed more continuous forward movement than the bigger leaps that in the past have exposed me to further injury. I have strength targets for different exercises, aerobic targets for rowing and bagwork sets, flexibility targets and balancing targets. The measurable progress I have made has rewarded the effort invested and increased my motivation to keep stretching my limits.

I have always made a habit of daily training. On some days that is a fixed workout in a designated location, but once again starting small can build the habits to springboard to greater results. I do kata sporadically throughout the day. Tekki / Naihanchi and my own kata Initiative and Escape require small footwork areas to enable opportunistic practice. On some days my bodyweight workouts are spread out with sets as and when I have a moment to do them. I’ll do abdominal exercises or stretches whenever I have a free moment to lie down at home. I’ll stand on one leg while catching the weather forecast or waiting for the kettle to boil. Micro-workouts enable multiple reps and can keep the metabolic rate high throughout the day. Once you stop thinking that an exercise has to make you sweat or requires a change of clothes or at least an hour it becomes a lot easier to sustain more training away from the gym or the dojo. This form of training can either be a pathway to begin more intense set workouts or a performance enhancing supplement to them.

Identify your motivating factors. What is it you like? What is it you want? It’s okay to have ‘big’ motivations, but don’t neglect to recognise the SMART smaller ones that will keep you going.

Identify your training time opportunities. Recognise moments you can steal for training (and learning), moments you can fix for training, and maximise and enjoy moments you set aside for rest and relaxation.

Continuously set SMART goals to achieve and acknowledge those achievements.

De-escalation tactics – Part One

This four part series is designed to be a brief introduction to the field of non-violent resolution tactics.

Part One – Underpinning Principles

Part Two – Verbal Approaches

Part Three – Body Language

Part Four – Personal Psychology

PART ONE – UNDERPINNING PRINCIPLES

All aggressive and violent behaviours have underlying causes, which could be summarized under the headings of chemical factors and psychological factors. These are interrelated but for the sake of brevity are listed separately. Understanding and influencing these (through communication) is the best way to resolve conflict.

PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS

Motivating factors

These may be far more varied than the examples listed below, but can generally be categorized as immediate or primary causes and underlying or secondary causes.

Immediate causes affecting decision-making and behaviour:

Physical presence or (over-long) eye contact interpreted as a challenge, overly alpha or beta male body language, a push or stumble into a person, the spilling of food or drink, a vehicle accident, peer pressure, denial of a perceived need.

Secondary causes affecting decision-making and behaviour:

Family or work stress, suppressed anger (generally linked to the former but inhibited by potential consequence), racism or social/political beliefs, past experiences, peer pressure, the role and acceptability of violence and aggression in both upbringing and normal social environment, fatigue, past success in achieving aims through aggressive or violent behaviours.

Inhibiting factors

These could be categorized as physical and social factors.

Physical factors:

The relative sizes of parties involved, perceived strength and ability of the other party, the ‘known quantity’ of the other party, body language, perceived alertness, company (of either party), immediate consequences, likelihood of injury.

Social factors:

Peer reaction – acceptance or alienation, legal and family or work repercussions, the social acceptability of aggression and violence within the individual’s social group.

Through positioning, body language, listening and using appropriate tone and speech the underlying aim should be to attempt to reduce the individual’s motivation to continue to use aggression and possibly attempt violence, while strengthening their inhibition against such approaches.

CHEMICAL FACTORS

Drugs

Alcohol or other substances weaken inhibition and can reduce awareness and comprehension. This will affect the ability of another person to influence the individual’s motivation and inhibition.

Underlying medical conditions

Due to a pre-existing health condition the other person may not necessarily be on the same ‘operating system’ as everyone else and may not respond in the same way.

Adrenaline

Aural and visual exclusion along with other side effects of adrenaline may hinder communication and attempts to influence the individual’s motivation and inhibition.

It is unlikely that there is much that you can do once an incident has already begun that will mitigate underlying chemical factors. If spotted early enough then the effect of drugs such as alcohol can be reduced by slowing absorption into the blood stream by providing food and withdrawing further alcohol (if safe to do so), but these are factors that are largely outside your control.

It is important to be aware of the role of chemical factors as ‘tipping points’ in an individual’s behaviour patterns. Whether they are part of the primary or secondary cause of the problem they may lower the probability of a successful non-violent de-escalation.

Keep it fun!

Training in the martial arts can be a serious business.

Physical Fitness
Personal Discipline
Improved Concentration
Competition
Self Defence

Listing the most common reasons why adults and children join or study a martial art, they all appear to be serious. Despite all the rewards that they bring, training in the martial arts can be difficult, demanding, frustrating and even painful. The rewards themselves are bestowed so incrementally that they are often unnoticed by the practitioner and this can have a detrimental effect on motivation.

The crux of the matter is that if we aren’t enjoying the training then it is hard to stay motivated to continue. The destination will not be reached if the route isn’t travelled, and the act of travelling itself has to be fun. It really is the journey and not the destination that is important.

Skill development requires repetition. It’s easy for that to become routine and boring and I am sure that like many other instructors I have lost students in the past because I failed to utilise enough variety to disguise that repetition in ways that maintained the sense of excitement and fun.

We expect training to stretch us, to be demanding, to be tiring. Even when it is all those things we should also normally expect to leave training with a smile on our face, but not the smile of someone who feels pleased through the self -denial of a diet or having eaten something ‘healthy’ rather than a treat they wanted. We should leave with the smile of a person that has had fun, because no matter how worthy the ‘end goals’ it is the enjoyment of a class that will draw us back to each new lesson and ensure our progress.

There are many different approaches that can help to keep each lesson fresh and fun:

training at different speeds
trying different combinations
setting different challenges
playing stimulus games to improve tactile, visual or auditory response time
applying techniques in different ways
pairing with different people
mixing up the order of the class
identifying and reinforcing strengths.

There are many reasons why I train and teach, there are SMART goals that I have set myself and my students, but the thing that draws me to each class is that I want to enjoy myself and have fun.

The destination keeps changing, but I’m here for the fun of the journey.

Creating and delivering self defence courses for women

Every year I deliver a number of single sex and mixed sex personal safety and self defence courses or lectures. A moderator on the online forum Martial Arts Planet recently approached me to write a short article about how I approach the subject of female self defence. The subject is far too large to sum up in a single article, but what I can do is give my opinions on the starting points for creating a worthwhile course.

Planning and Preparation

Know your audience.

This is crucial for creating course content. The age group (or groups), ethnic mix and general social background will determine both content and approach. Regrettably there is a high probability that within your group you may have women that have suffered some form of violence or abuse, and while the participants will normally have opted to take part, they have not done so to get traumatised by off the cuff remarks or generalisations, nor may they wish to share any experience. The audience determines both the content and teaching style of the course.

Trainers and the elephants in the room.

(i) Experience. I believe that honesty is the best policy. A trainer should give a very short summation of their background to help put things in context. A trainer should be open about their experience (or lack of experience) and knowledge and the basis on which the course is designed.

(ii) Gender. Can a man deliver a self defence course to women, as he is not a woman? Yes. I know some exceptional self defence trainers both in the UK and abroad of both genders. Their knowledge, experience and ability to empathise and teach are far more important than their gender. Some men will only listen to men talking about self defence and some women will only pay attention to a woman (or have suffered a degree of trauma that makes a same-sex instructor a better option for participation and engagement), but that does not mean that a trainer of your own gender is always the best teacher on this subject.

Teaching style.

Teaching style is a very individual thing and I have seen a range of different styles used effectively. Although self defence is a very serious subject, humour can be used, although I would advise against poking fun at students that you barely know. A good self defence course should be driven and paced by the instructor but provide the opportunity to include the students as what you say may encourage them to share something that has been weighing on their mind and such sharing may benefit both them, the other attendees and you.

Regrettably the length of the course (and each session) is often decided by the host rather than the trainer. Most trainers still take on constrained courses on the basis that providing some training is better than no training, but in doing so there will always be compromises on both teaching style and content. As a result it is important to prioritise. The mental aspects of self defence are more important, more useful and more permanent than any form of physical training and should be prioritised.

Personal Safety and Self Defence – the mental framework

The mental side of self defence is about empowering your audience through knowledge and personal motivation. What needs to be covered will depend upon the age and social background of your group. The following list and order is flexible as in forming a course certain elements will naturally tie together and cross-pollinate.

Use of force and the law.
Accurate crime picture (including risk) based on government, police and ED data (where available).
Natural human reactions to actual or potential abuse, aggression and violence, both in anticipation of, during and after events.
Rationales and motivation for action or inaction in self defence both before, during and after events.
Avoidance strategies.
Deterrence strategies.
Awareness – common tactics and patterns in abuse, sexual crime and violent crime.
De-escalation and no contact escape strategies – body language, use of voice, phrasing.

The list above is very much tied in with your credentials as a trainer. Being a martial artist or having personal experience is not enough. There is a huge body of high quality literature available for research (too much to recommend one single text) based on the experiences of large numbers of people.

Self Defence – the physical framework

Once again what can be delivered will depend upon the age and ability of the group and the time allocated. In my opinion the mental training is the key to unlocking the maximum potential of the physical training.

There is an elephant in the room when it comes to physical training. Realistically not everything works all the time, no matter how good a technique is. Skill, motivation, adrenaline and the element of surprise give an edge but so do aggression, experience and strength. With that said it is important that what is taught is material appropriate to the context of real scenarios and relative positions, is simple to do (even under pressure) and has been shown (to the training deliverer at the very least) to be reliable under pressure.

The following elements should form the basis of the physical part of the course.

Biomechanics and weak points of the human body.
Gross motor strikes that utilise otherwise natural and everyday movements.
Impact training.
Paired or group work based on HAOV (habitual acts of violence) to build confidence.
Optional participation in scenario training.

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