During drills last night, a switch flipped inside me.
I realized while punching a kicking shield with flurries of jabs, right crosses, hammer fists, and elbows that I was trying to kill the pad. I was trying to blast a hole through it.
How was this different from usual? My instructors have barked the need to visualize a human opponent in these combative drills before. But finally, I noticed a switch in me. My brain and body aligned and it happened.
Sure, I’ve broken a sweat on drills before. I’ve never coasted through them. But this was different. I found that elusive flow state.
As the famous groundskeeper character played by Bill Murray in the movie "Caddy Shack" says, “So I got that going for me, which is nice.”
The Big Picture
The bigger picture though is not my own small personal victory. It’s the pay-off I realized from looking inward. By directing my aggressive quest for my own improvement, I broke out of a rut and experienced a new sense of awareness. Like many things we discuss here, the benefit extends beyond martial arts, and into other parts of life.
It’s like the long driving commute some people have to their job every day. The path of least resistance is to jump in the stream with the millions of other fish and swim in the same direction, to follow the one in front of us.
But when we experience an awakening, we see the world differently with new potential for our lives.
I don’t think this awakening, or flow state, happens by chance. We have to work toward it with the habits we build daily. So the habit of following curiosity can get us there close enough to experience that awakening. You have to get into position. Just like an ocean wave can’t wash over our feet unless we get ourselves to the beach and walk to the wet sand, we need to put ourselves in position to experience and accept our breakthroughs.
As we learn in our self-defense drills, it takes time and lots of practice until it becomes second-nature. But here’s the danger: with routine comes comfort. With routine comes comfort. Keep pushing, or get pushed. So it’s critical to find a martial arts instructor, and training partners, that keep pushing you to try new things, harder things.
Breakthroughs can multiply in the right culture. Instructors dedicated to training themselves will be best at pushing their students out of their comfort zones. Martial arts training partners who increase their resistance against you are worth their weight in gold too.
I hunt for these people. I surround myself with them. I breathe the same air as them.
These are the people that inspire me to take my quest inward, and shake off the lazy aspect of routine. I want to blast a hole in the target in front of me because I’m curious about what I'll find on the other side.
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