As adults or parents, we face an unlimited amount of choices for our hobbies, extra-curricular activities or exercise programs – and they are all fighting over our most precious asset – time.
CrossFit, the gym, yoga, body-sculpting classes, dance lessons, art lessons, gymnastics, hockey, soccer, football, baseball, lacrosse, wrestling, even pole dancing classes – whatever THOSE are – the list is endless…
With so many choices, so little time, and the understanding that we simply must get the biggest payoff for our investment of time, how do you choose which program is the best for yourself or your family?
I know I would want one that was fun, kept me interested by always varying the activity, that always pushed me to get better, easy for me to see my progress or growth and – most importantly, helped me to strengthen my “inner health” – my mental and emotional muscles – as well as my “outer health” – what the doctor can measure or I can see in the mirror.
Martial arts training delivers on all of these aspects, especially in strengthening your “inner health”.
A great martial arts program will teach you to protect yourself, but – more importantly – it will show you how to take the principles of the martial arts and apply them to every aspect of your life, allowing you to be a “Black Belt” as a person, not just someone that rolls around or punches and kicks barefoot in a pair of pajamas.
There’s a saying, “You can only be as good on the outside as you are on the inside.” A good martial arts program, using martial arts training, teaches you how to work on your self-image and how you feel and think about yourself.
For example, let’s say you are a busy professional in an international finance company and you have been recently promoted to National Finance Director. Your areas of responsibility are behind quota, you are over budget, your predecessor was dumped unceremoniously and left you no information how anything got into this condition.
And you have to make a presentation to the Board of Directors about how you are going to fix it. Tomorrow.
Now you may be saying to yourself, “Self, what does this have to do with karate, kung fu or jiu jitsu?”
Everything!
Before you were training, you probably would have gotten intimidated and anxious, trying to figure out just how you were going to pull this off without puking on the Board of Directors. But since you have been training in the martial arts, things have changed.
What’s changed? Because of your training in a good school, you have been challenged and held to a higher standard than you thought you could achieve.
Your Instructor has pushed you to be your best every single day he saw you. He’s helped you set goals and kept you accountable, on time and with no excuses. He’s called you when you missed your class and hounded you until you showed up to work out.
You have been challenged to always perform at your best, and proven to yourself that you can. If you are this executive, you know you are going to hit a home run with the Board of Directors.
I personally remember working with a young woman who probably weighed 98 lbs. soaking wet with her shoes on. She had been in an abusive relationship and after getting out of it, she joined our school to gain confidence.
What I remember most about her was her being in classes telling me, “I can’t do this many push-ups” or “I’m not strong enough to do this”. Mentally and emotionally, she was still “stuck” in the bad relationship; she didn’t believe she was good enough or strong enough. I knew otherwise.
During her training sessions, every time she said she couldn’t do something I stood there with my arms crossed, smiling, and I told her, “Don’t tell me what you can and can’t do; I KNOW what you are capable of doing and I’m not letting you do any less.”
She sucked it up – and she did it.
It was a pleasure to watch her grow and get stronger physically and mentally. She learned that she was much stronger and much more capable of doing things than she thought.
With a martial arts program, you will be pushed to be better, stronger and faster than you think you can be. You will be taught how to perform under pressure. You will learn that it is your mental fitness that is you best weapon in self defense.
After training in the martial arts, you are going to feel better about yourself and confident that you can handle yourself physically and emotionally. Martial arts instruction is going to teach you that true self defense starts on the inside; control over one’s emotions and self image.
Martial arts instruction is THE #1 activity you can do to strengthen yourself from the inside out. No other activity even comes close.
To find out for yourself just how powerful martial arts instruction can be, click the link below to try our new students 3 day trial martial arts course – GET A FREE T-shirt and break a board for fun if you register online today.
