Trust ourselves!
I haven’t posted for so long. I guess I had a bit of a year off last year. I had a few injuries so my training was pretty limited, and the year just flew by without much happening. It’s worked out well anyway, this year I’m so keen to get back into everything. Having a break isn’t all bad.
I was speaking tonight to a coach who is training some Olympic hopefuls. He was talking about the stages athletes go through, from the initial technique gathering, to the point where they are technically good but don’t believe in themselves, and eventually getting to the stage where they have the skills, and are confident enough in themselves that they can just go out and perform at their best.
How many people ever get to that third stage? There must be lots of people who have the technical ability, but never quite develop the confidence.
It’s so easy to believe that you’re not as good as anyone else. In my one and only experience of international competition, I couldn’t believe that I’d been selected for the National team. So I didn’t take it that seriously, and expected to fail. I treated it like a paid holiday.
Stupid me. When I got to the competition I discovered that everyone else was about the same level as us. I finished mid-field. If I’d put any serious effort into training it’s very likely that I could have got a medal. But instead I just let down myself, my team, and our sponsors.
Lesson 1: There is nothing special about your opponents. They struggle with the same things you do. You have the same chance as them. The winner will probably be the one who wants it more!
A few years ago, I decided to enter a power breaking competition at our National Taekwondo competition. I’d never done power breaking before. It involves stacking up some 20mm boards with 10mm spacers between them and seeing how many you can punch through. I searched online and couldn’t find much information about how to do it, so I just went to the hardware shop and bought some wood and gave it a go.
On my very first attempt, knowing nothing about what I was doing, I broke 8 boards. So I thought I’d improve over time, and nominated 12 boards for the competition, which was three weeks later.
At the competition how many did I break? Seven. After three weeks of training, I broke one less than I’d done on my first try. Why was that? Because I was thinking too much. I’d studied and practised technique, so on the day I had all this information swirling around in my head, and ended up mucking it up.
Lesson 2: Trust yourself. The time for thinking is in practice, or at the pub talking over how things could have been better. Once you’re on the mat, don’t think! You know what you’re doing. You’ve done the practice. Don’t think any more. Just get out there and do it!
So hopefully that will be my year. Be confident in what I do, and don’t think too much!
How real are your goals?
I train at a Taekwondo club where many people are pretty driven, and intent on winning at the international competition level. Some are really good and will probably make it, others could try for years and not get there.
What I’ve noticed lately is that middle level competitors getting discouraged, and stopping competing all together, because they see that they may never get to the level they want. Or they change focus from the aspect of Taekwondo that they enjoy (like sparring), to compete in other events because they think that they are more likely to get that International medal. When you start thinking like that, I think that Taekwondo moves from being a hobby to a job. And that is fine if it’s what you want, but you probably already have a job. And doing two full-time, demanding jobs is stressful (though not impossible).
Most people when they start Taekwondo don’t think about the sport side, they are taking it up for fun or because they have an interest in martial arts, or they just want some exercise. But when you see other people going overseas and competing it’s easy to get caught up in the moment. To buy into the pushing and goal setting and training and always trying to get to that next level.
I’m not saying that chasing your goals is bad. Teaching you how to set and achieve goals is one of the things that Martial Arts does really well. But make sure that you understand what your goals really are. Is it what you really want, or are you getting caught up in someone else’s dreams?
So what are my goals? I have competed internationally. I was selected in our National team to compete in Korea one year and it was incredible, I loved every minute of it. It was completely unexpected though, and I really didn’t think that I would be competitive, so I was very unprepared and didn’t take the preparation seriously enough. And what did I find? I actually was competitive. I ended mid field, and saw that with a bit of more focussed training, I really could have been up for a medal.
So is my goal now to train harder and push for that medal? It was for a while. But then training turned into hard work, and I found myself staying later at my ‘real’ job (which I do enjoy) instead of going to training. Training wasn’t fun any more.
My real goal now is to live a life where I exercise regularly, and participate in Taekwondo because I enjoy it. I try not to focus on any particular aspect of Taekwondo, but enjoy it all. And I enter events that I like at competitions, not the ones that I think will win me medals.
If I am ever lucky enough to be selected on another team, I’m sure I’ll love it again. And I will take the preparation a lot more seriously. But I wont be there because I’ve pushed and struggled through years of hard training in search of that medal, but because through doing something that I love I’ve actually managed to get better at it! And this time I’ll know that I can be competitive, and that is a great incentive.
The inspirational thrill of not competing!
What an inspiring weekend! I have recently had an operation so couldn’t compete in the Taekwondo Nationals here. So I just got to go and watch. I hate going to competitions and not being able to compete, but it is the best thing for me as far as inspiration goes. Watching the people I train with going through their process and performing, whether winning or losing, is so inspiring for me.
Seeing people that you are sure are so tired they can hardly move, suddenly get that look in their eyes an come back from ten points down to win in the last minute of the last round can’t help but fill you with awe. Seeing people looking to each other for inspiration, whatever their respective ages, is amazing.
I guess that it’s only through shared hardships that truly amazing friendships are born.
There’s the age old question of whether sport and competition is good for martial arts. I love all sides of Taekwondo, and one of the best things is that there are so many sides of it that people can be interested in. I think that this is the secret of its success.
There are clubs around that don’t compete. And I’m sure that if I’d joined one of those I’d be adamant that competition is frivolous and unnecessary. And I’d be right, because for that me I’d be speaking the truth.
But for this me, that has experienced the stresses involved in one-on-one competition, that has seen people lift and do amazing things, or fail but stand up and use their failure as a platform to improve for next time, I’m proud that I and the people that I respect compete, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I really love Taekwondo!
Do all the things! 
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