Our word this week is self-discipline. Self-discipline is a staple of martial arts and many activities that require you to work hard and train hard and practice hard. The question is, what does it have to do with fear? Quite a bit actually. Fear is what stops you from working hard, practicing hard, and training hard. The fear of failure, the fear of it being too difficult, the fear of someone else being better at it than you. These and many more have been the culprit of causing a lot of people to quit martial arts training in the past.
Self-discipline is the ability to make yourself do something that needs to be done, regardless of whether you actually want to in the moment or not. It is similar to getting up and brushing your teeth or washing your hands after going to the bathroom or any sort of Monday and things that we don’t usually think about. We just do them. The thing about self discipline, is it takes repetition. Think about when you first enter the training Hall, what is the first thing you usually do before you walk in the door? Usually in most classes, you are required to bow. You have discipline yourself to remember to Bow every time you enter and leave the building. You created a habit. Humans are creatures of habit, in order to train yourself and discipline yourself to continue to do something, you have to repeat it every day.
In regards to fear, you have to find a response to fear that is different from the one you normally have. Most people have one of three reactions, freeze, fly, or fight. In a combat situation, freezing is definitely not an option. We all know that hesitation kills. Flight is a perfectly valid option, if it is available to you. The fight response is the one that becomes necessary quite often. That doesn’t necessarily mean actual physical combat however. It could simply mean standing up and fighting your own inner feelings of fear and facing whatever is causing them. When you work towards the self-discipline of dealing with fear, you’ll be able to understand one very important thing. Fear does not have to control you. You can choose how you react to it, and still act as necessary, regardless of what you may feel. It is simply an emotion caused by a stimulus. What you do about it is up to you and you alone. Always remember that.
Train hard,
Head Instructor Shawn Morris