Zen and the Art of Muay Thai Psycho Maintenance. (...that was a pun/literary allusion, which most ppl except probably the Flash will miss, hah.) You know that scene/situation from that movie Kung Pow where this one character is like, “pay no attention to Wimp Lo, we purposely trained him wrong... as a joke.” Yea, well, sometimes that’s how I feel about the muay thai school I signed up with. Like, they have a normal class, and then a separate “fight training” class for ppl who pay more. And the fight training class looks pretty legit, but in the normal class, we just drill and drill and drill all day but don’t get to use our skills very much. The closest we get to the real deal is like 20%-power sparring. And I dunno, I really feel like I’m starting to lose the edge compared to when I trained in Austin. I feel like you have to taste a little bit of “real” combat every once in awhile otherwise you start getting soft.
Part of it is just plain confidence in your own abilities- the idea of believing you can be victorious, even when you're the underdog. And it's one thing to hold this thought at the top of your mind, and quite another to truly and deeply believe it in the core of your being. Mental toughness. It gets exponentially harder with the size of the opponent, I find, hah. But one of the first steps to becoming a "warrior" (as if I'm any kinda authority on the subject, hah; same probably goes for being any kinda athlete or competitor) probably involves conquering your fear(s). Namely, I guess is the fear of your opponent and fear of losing. But fear takes many forms...
Back in high school when I first started sparring in kung fu class, I remember the biggest jump in my fighting ability (or “power level,” in DBZ terms, heh) I ever experienced was when I managed to put a mental block on the fear of pain. (I’m sure probably most fighters worth their salt have to pass through that stage, but no one ever taught me, and I felt it was quite an accomplishment to have figured it out on my own.) Like, in the samurai philosophy, to be the best swordsman you can be, you have to get over the fear of death; realize you could die at any time, but be alright with it. It’s like that perfect zen-like state that allows you to put your body on the line without concern for its well-being. Similar idea for fist-fighting I guess, minus the actual dying part, hah.
It's like, the pain still exists, and you certainly still feel it, but like you temporarily wall off the area of your brain that responds to that. (It’s like you open up a couple “lotus gates,” to drop some Naruto terminology, hah.) But I think it’s an ability that you lose without at least semi-frequent practice. And maybe a certain bit of it is physical body conditioning (i.e. beating the nerves in your limbs to death), but I haven’t been able to get into “the zone” for awhile, and it kinda concerns me. =/ I feel like maybe I’m undergoing a slow & steady process of wussification.
And you know, I think this mindset permeates to a lot of fields outside of fighting as well. Like I remember talking to Yi-Lin about long-distance running one time, and he said that being a successful long-distance runner wasn't about training to the point where it doesn't hurt anymore- it's about training to the point where you're able to run through the pain, like being able to accept it and keep going.
And there's something kiiinda like that for weightlifting. But for me at least, good weightlifting was always about getting angry. I feel like I've plateaued recently, and I think that World of Warcraft warrior catchphrase: "Not enough rage" is pretty fitting. The rage motivates you and allows you to push past the point where you would normally quit, much like the pain tolerance training. Like if I had to theorize, I'd say that anger/rage is the easiest way to open up a couple lotus gates and tap into your body's reserves of adrenaline and whatever else without any other formal training. (Or distress in the case of women lifting cars to save their babies, hah.) And I guess maybe that's where the idea of the berserker comes from- kind of the pinnacle of the idea of using rage as a power amplifier to become fearless in combat. Kind of the polar opposite of the samurai's focused control and zen, I guess. But I think in the end, they're just 2 different ways to reach the same state of mind- one where you overcome all fear of pain & injury so you can throw yourself into battle or surpass your normal bodily limits.
Lotus gates, man, it's all about the LOTUS GATES! hahah
Part of it is just plain confidence in your own abilities- the idea of believing you can be victorious, even when you're the underdog. And it's one thing to hold this thought at the top of your mind, and quite another to truly and deeply believe it in the core of your being. Mental toughness. It gets exponentially harder with the size of the opponent, I find, hah. But one of the first steps to becoming a "warrior" (as if I'm any kinda authority on the subject, hah; same probably goes for being any kinda athlete or competitor) probably involves conquering your fear(s). Namely, I guess is the fear of your opponent and fear of losing. But fear takes many forms...
Back in high school when I first started sparring in kung fu class, I remember the biggest jump in my fighting ability (or “power level,” in DBZ terms, heh) I ever experienced was when I managed to put a mental block on the fear of pain. (I’m sure probably most fighters worth their salt have to pass through that stage, but no one ever taught me, and I felt it was quite an accomplishment to have figured it out on my own.) Like, in the samurai philosophy, to be the best swordsman you can be, you have to get over the fear of death; realize you could die at any time, but be alright with it. It’s like that perfect zen-like state that allows you to put your body on the line without concern for its well-being. Similar idea for fist-fighting I guess, minus the actual dying part, hah.
It's like, the pain still exists, and you certainly still feel it, but like you temporarily wall off the area of your brain that responds to that. (It’s like you open up a couple “lotus gates,” to drop some Naruto terminology, hah.) But I think it’s an ability that you lose without at least semi-frequent practice. And maybe a certain bit of it is physical body conditioning (i.e. beating the nerves in your limbs to death), but I haven’t been able to get into “the zone” for awhile, and it kinda concerns me. =/ I feel like maybe I’m undergoing a slow & steady process of wussification.
And you know, I think this mindset permeates to a lot of fields outside of fighting as well. Like I remember talking to Yi-Lin about long-distance running one time, and he said that being a successful long-distance runner wasn't about training to the point where it doesn't hurt anymore- it's about training to the point where you're able to run through the pain, like being able to accept it and keep going.
And there's something kiiinda like that for weightlifting. But for me at least, good weightlifting was always about getting angry. I feel like I've plateaued recently, and I think that World of Warcraft warrior catchphrase: "Not enough rage" is pretty fitting. The rage motivates you and allows you to push past the point where you would normally quit, much like the pain tolerance training. Like if I had to theorize, I'd say that anger/rage is the easiest way to open up a couple lotus gates and tap into your body's reserves of adrenaline and whatever else without any other formal training. (Or distress in the case of women lifting cars to save their babies, hah.) And I guess maybe that's where the idea of the berserker comes from- kind of the pinnacle of the idea of using rage as a power amplifier to become fearless in combat. Kind of the polar opposite of the samurai's focused control and zen, I guess. But I think in the end, they're just 2 different ways to reach the same state of mind- one where you overcome all fear of pain & injury so you can throw yourself into battle or surpass your normal bodily limits.
Lotus gates, man, it's all about the LOTUS GATES! hahah
posted by Dear Daniel at 11:00 PM
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