The training of our minds is generally considered to be just as much a part of the martial arts as the training of our bodies. There can be no doubt that the mind needs to be correctly conditioned if the martial artist is to perform at their peak. So how do we go about training our mind in the most effective and efficient way?

To train the mind we have many methods available to us. We have the older methods such as meditation and the modern methods coming from sports science; all of which can be very beneficial. Personally through, I feel that our mind training works best when it is a fully integrated part of training. Mind training is not something separate or additional to the physical aspects of the martial arts; mind training should always be an integral part of training.

Hironori Otsuka – the founder of Wado-Ryu Karate – said that there are three kinds of strength: physical strength, technical strength and mental strength. He went on to say that if any type of strength is deficient it would be “the downfall of the individual”. Good martial arts training should therefore develop us physically, technically and mentally. It is the mental aspect of training that we will be focussing on in this article.

Live combat is extremely stressful and therefore our training needs to ensure that we develop the mental fortitude to deal with that stress. Quietly meditating can be good for our health and a great antidote to the stresses and strains of everyday life; however, it will do little to prepare us for combat. Our martial training should be as close to real combat as safety and skill level permit. And that means training needs to be stressful.

We need at least two sessions a week that take us to our limits. The training should be fear inducing and intense. If you find yourself dreading these stressful high-intensity sessions then you can be sure that your training is headed in the right direction and that these sessions will mentally strengthen you.

Whether sparring, drilling techniques or working out on the bag, we need to be constantly mindful of the quality of our techniques so that our training develops us technically. We should also train with intensity and to the point of exhaustion in order to develop ourselves physically. Intense and technically precise training is very demanding and the temptation to take it easy, reduce our standards or quit before we reach our limits is always present. It is when we do not succumb to these temptations and keep pushing forward through the discomfort and distress that we will develop the mental strength, resolve and fortitude so central to the martial arts.

To develop our physical strength, we need to attempt activities that are currently outside our capabilities. To get stronger, we attempt to lift more weight that we can comfortably manage. To increase our aerobic and anaerobic capacities we try to do more than we can currently do in a given time. Through attempting to accomplish that which currently lies beyond our reach, our bodies will adapt, our physical fitness will be advanced and the task becomes easier to accomplish. Things are very similar when it comes to developing ourselves mentally.

Any training that induces fear, a desire to quit or a yearning to take it easy has the potential to make us mentally stronger. A good training session should be technically, physically and mentally demanding. To develop, we need to be reaching beyond that which we are currently capable and that which we currently find comfortable.

When our training is stressful and mentally demanding, our minds will adapt to this stress and ensure that we are able to deal with the stress of combat and therefore function when it counts. It’s not just a matter of throwing ourselves in at the deep end though. Just like all other aspects of training, the increase in intensity needs structured and relevant to our current level.

If our training consists of what we can already achieve then it will not be physically or mentally demanding enough to stimulate growth. We need to be outside our comfort zone in order to progress. However, if we are too far outside our comfort zone we may find ourselves overwhelmed and this will again ensure we don’t progress. The key, therefore, is for our training to push us outside our comfort zone by just the right amount. In my mental strength book and DVD I call this being in “the zone of development”.

A useful analogy is weight lifting. Too little weight and we remain in the comfort zone and therefore we don’t stimulate growth. Too much weight and we overstress ourselves, we may suffer injury, and again we don’t grow. To strengthen our bodies we need to lift the right amount of weight. Things work in a very similar way when it comes to strengthening our minds.

We use physical resistances (weights) to stimulate an increase in physical strength. We use exposure to fear, discomfort and distress to stimulate an increase in mental strength. The collective term I use for the feelings and thoughts that we can use to develop mental strength is “mental resistance”. If our training is to develop mental strength then it needs to include the right amount fear, discomfort and distress (enough mental resistance to move us into the zone of development). This is true martial mind training. Training that involves working through mental resistance has far more value and effect from a martial perspective than any amount of sitting cross-legged and counting your breaths.

For many years I’ve made use of numerous forms of mind training and they all have value. However, when it comes to making us better martial artists there is no getting away from the fact that exposure and adaptation to fear, discomfort and distress is the most vital and most effective form of mind training.

Of course martial arts are not only about combat. True martial arts training should not only make us formidable warriors, it should also develop our characters. Some feel that the martial arts are either completely combat based (jutsu) or solely about character development (do). I’ve never felt that these two aspects of the martial arts are in any way mutually exclusive. Indeed, I feel that there can be no character development in the martial arts without intense and pragmatic combat training.

In Karate-Do Nyumon, Gichin Funakoshi (founder of Shotokan Karate) wrote, “Do not think of karate as belonging only to the dojo … the sprit of karate practise and the elements of training are applicable to each and every aspect of our daily lives.”  He goes on to say, “One whose spirit and mental strength have been strengthened by sparring with a never-say-die attitude should find no challenge too great to handle. One who has undergone long years of physical pain and mental agony to learn one punch, one kick should be able to face any task, no matter how difficult, and carry it through to the end. A person like this can truly be said to have learnt karate.”

It is the severity of our martial training that makes us mentally stronger and this strength will inevitability spill over into our daily lives. Is it a coincidence that the toughest, hardest training, most potent martial artists I know are also warm, gentle and successful people?

Leading martial realist Geoff Thompson is an inspirational man to be around who has taken the qualities gained from his intense martial training to become a BAFTA winning screenwriter. Peter Consterdine must be the most fearsome martial artist I’ve ever trained under yet he’s an absolute gentleman who has been very successful in business. As anyone who has attended Peter’s Thursday morning “training day” sessions can tell you, these sessions induce plenty of fear, discomfort and distress. They are therefore perfect for developing mental strength. Through training in this way everything else, both inside and outside the dojo, seems easy by comparison; just as Funakoshi states it should in Karate-Do Nyumon.

Intense martial training develops our mental strength and makes us capable of living our lives as we would wish to. Through our martial training, we not only get mentally stronger, we also get accustomed to reaching beyond ourselves. We are therefore more capable of reaching beyond ourselves in other areas of our lives. Our martial training gets us used to discomfort and helps us to understand that such discomfort leads to growth. If our training is easy, we don’t improve our martial skills. Likewise, if our lives are ‘plain sailing’, we are also not developing ourselves or our situation.

It is through attempting difficult tasks that we develop the ability to accomplish them. The key thing is to ensure that we are consistently pushing ourselves and spending time in “the zone of development”. As we attempt to reach beyond ourselves we will face obstacles that will develop the skills and strengths we need to achieve our goals.

Both in the dojo and in life, being in the “zone of development” will be very uncomfortable at first; however, it is that very discomfort that will develop your abilities and ensure that you eventually succeed. For example, if you take on a new job, it certainly won’t be as easy as the old familiar job, but any difficulty experienced will strengthen you and develop your capabilities. As your talents grow, there will come a point where the new job will become ‘easy’ and hence you have developed the capability to reach yet further.

To achieve great things we need great abilities, and the only way to develop great abilities is through great struggle. Once we understand that ‘resistance’ is a vital part of the process, we actually start to desire that resistance and the associated struggle. If our martial training is not challenging, we don’t improve. If our lives aren’t challenging, we will never achieve that which we are truly capable of achieving.

Our training gets us used to reaching beyond ourselves and helps us to understand the process of resistance and advancement. Our intense combat training (Jutsu) should lead to us applying the lessons learnt and the attributes gained to our daily lives (Do). We train in a way that takes us beyond our current limits, so that we can expand those limits. In life, we should also constantly reach beyond our current limits so we can develop our capabilities and lead the lives we want to lead.

I hope you enjoyed this discussion on mind training. I also hope it has got you thinking about how your training should include a mental element and how the attributes developed from doing so have applications beyond combat and beyond the martial arts. If you’d like to further your study of mental strength please get hold of a copy of my Mental Strength book or DVD. Thanks for taking the time to read this article. I sincerely hope you found it useful.

Lyoto “The Dragon” Machida is one of the most technically gifted martial artists to ever grace the octagon of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.  The seeds for his successful career were sown long ago in his native land of Brazil, growing up in Belém as the son of highly ranked Shotokan karate master, Yoshizo Machida. “I started training karate when I was three or four years old,” he explained. I would watch my father training, he was a grand master in Shotokan karate and we lived on top of the gym so it was only natural that I would hang around the dojo. Every once in a while I would go in and play around just for fun.”

Competition for Lyoto came early and he quickly wanted to test himself against others from a young age. But it was someone closer to home that was his biggest challenge, someone that set him on a path to success. “I started competing around the age of five or six years old and really enjoyed it,” he said. “But then around the age of eight I started losing a lot of competitions to my older brother, Chinzo, motivating me to train even harder so I could beat my brother.”

Lyoto would dedicate himself to the discipline of karate for the next ten years, training under the watchful eye of his father, and it wasn’t long before this student of the arts began seeing advantages in sport not often associated with South America. “I got my black belt at age thirteen and I started taking training very seriously”, he revealed. “I began competing throughout Brazil in many different states and many different competitions until I was sixteen when I started getting into sumo just to see what it was like. I began getting very into it and started competing in a competition held for all the Japanese descendants in Brazil and realised I could do well in sumo too.”

The sport of Vale Tudo had been popular for many years in Brazil and for an ever-developing Machida the question was always how he could use the very traditional martial arts style of karate to defeat some of the toughest fighters on the planet. “I would train with a lot of Vale Tudo guys in Brazil, so that’s when I really started to appreciate my love for karate and that I could use Karate in Vale Tudo,” he explained. “Then I opened my eyes to mixed martial arts (MMA) when I was around thirteen or fourteen, watching the first UFC’s and seeing that it was a competition that involved a lot of different disciplines. I thought that this is what I want for myself and I was already training karate, sumo and judo so I started training jiu-jitsu to prepare myself for those situations and I knew that I wanted to be an international fighter. MMA was very new when I started watching it but it was always very important to me and my family that our karate had a lot of effectiveness, so when we started watching MMA we started noticing we could be effective and I started training with a lot of jiu-jitsu guys and a lot of Muay Thai guys and started seeing that I could adapt my karate to combat their styles.”

Lyoto also had some advice for budding martial artists of a young age, hoping to follow in his footsteps, and the parents that can be either very helpful or very damaging to the development at this early age. “It’s good to start training in your youth,” he began. “Anywhere between twelve to fifteen years old is a good age to start, not even when you’re a little kid when I started. But if you start training when you’re around the age of thirteen, by the time your twenty two you will be a very technical guy. I started training at an early age but that was my choice, there was no pressure from my parents to say that I had to go out and become a champion, I need to train hard, etc. I would compete because that is what I liked to do; I liked to train to go into competition. I see that a lot these days. Parents tell their kids that they have to be the champion, they need to train harder and that is not good motivation for a child.”

Despite varied opinions from the press and general public worldwide, Lyoto maintains that mixed martial arts is one of the most respectful sports in the world, with many fighters priding themselves on winning a fight without inflicting any serious injury upon their opponent. This is something he puts down to their backgrounds in foundation martial arts such as karate and jiu-jitsu. “Many of the fighters in MMA come from a martial arts background and respect is a very important part of that and we try to keep the respect with each other,” he said. “Today you see a lot of professional fighters that respect each other’s skills because they know that anyone can get knockout and anyone can knock someone out. We all train hard in many different arts.”

May 23^rd will represent the coming of age for Lyoto, a culmination of everything he has worked hard for over the past 27 years. Despite being the challenger, he goes into UFC 98 as the favourite to emerge as champion, with his ability to hit and not be hit as the main reason. His last opponent, fellow Brazilian Thiago Silva, fell foul of his own over aggressive strategy, finding himself continually thrown to the ground by the stronger Machida and floored by his lightning fast strikes. Now he is ready like never before, ready to claim his prize and step into the spotlight. “I have been training my whole life for this moment and I know that its one step in my life that I have to climb up,” he said. “After this fight there is going to be another step and another fight. Every fight I must train hard for. Technically it’s just another fight but on the emotional side of things, this is THE fight.”

His opponent for the bout, Rashad Evans, is known for his counter striking as well, goading his adversaries into over committing before connecting with devastating power and precision. This is something that Machida has paid close attention to in the build up to the fight, studying his opponents every move and formulating a plan of attack no matter where the fight takes them. “I have been watching a lot of Rashad’s fight footage and studying very hard,” he explained. “I have a lot of tricks up my sleeve that people haven’t seen yet, a lot of striking, a lot of different things that will make my opponent strike at me. So even though Rashad is a counter striker as well, I still think it’s going to be a great fight because Rashad is the champion and Rashad does like to go at it and engage at times. In the end, it’s going to be a great fight.”

As you might expect, Machida is a man of action, not words, something that can’t always be said of his opponent who has already tried to get under his skin by saying he will frustrate him on the night into making a mistake. “Every time I go into a fight I hear my opponent say they are going to do this and going to do that to counter me, but when that cage door closes, then we’ll see what’s going to happen,” he explained. “People can say whatever they want to say but we will have to wait until that moment.”

For the pure martial artists amongst you who are looking to watch a true technician in action inside the sometimes chaotic world of the UFC’s octagon, you need look no further than Lyoto Machida. His effortless style, speed and accuracy as well as his ability to finish the fight wherever it goes makes him quite possibly the most dangerous and difficult to work out light heavyweight in the world. In ancient mythology, a dragon is known as a legendary creature that strikes fear into the hearts of all that stand before it, leaving a string of victims in its wake and ruling over its surroundings. In the UFC, “The Dragon” has already felled six opponents since his 2007 debut, is perfectly placed to capture the title and reign over the division for many years to come.

By Michael Pepper.

MMABay.co.uk Editor.

The Shi Kon training system is mnemonic.  At each grade the ‘form’ is mnemonic for the basics and applications to be practised for the next grade.  The system is progressive from grade to grade. It works from kicking and boxing to close quarter fighting, to power striking and on to the study of the 16 gates of the human body, to the 13 remaining hands of the system, taking those ideas into curves, circles and spirals to the internal system, the method of employing it into the 5 animals, the methods of emitting power and energy and all these ‘minor mnemonic’ forms are eventually rolled up into one mnemonic ‘Taiki’ (for Karate) or ‘Shi Kon Tai Chi’ (for Kung Fu) form that intensifies and compounds all the previous training.

The underlying principles of the system are brought mnemonically into 8 words.  Each word is the doorway to a world of exploration and learning.  This way you can never forget all the most important components of the Shi Kon training system, when working on your own you only have to pick a word and start exploring, never forgetting that the Shi Lon logo is a mnemonic for the entire system and is depicted as a Buddhist dharma wheel, giving the philosophy as well as the practical aspects and reminding you that even though you are concentrating on one mnemonic, you can’t forget the other 7!

The Shi Kon coaches have the perfect method of teaching and assessing the progress of the students. All they have to do is to work their way around the wheel in a cyclic fashion at each grade focusing on the one that is particular for that grade to ensure that everything gets covered and then take each mnemonic to a deeper level at each stage.

Whoever thought it all up was a genius!

Click here to see all the the forms from the Shi Kon syllabus.