mixed-martial-arts-schools For Your Reading Pleasure
Success & Martial Arts: Dealing with Emotional and Physical Pain, Part 2

What gives one person the grit to keep fighting through intense injury? What makes another give up at a broken nail? The difference is how they handle the pain. Read on to find out how you handle pain, and you can conquer some of the biggest obstacles to success in both life and martial arts.

Step two: Separate the pain from you

Note: Part One can be found at the Urban Monk website at www.urbanmonk.net.

Once you separate your pain from the injury, the next step is to separate your self from the pain, and therefore your reaction. Often your reaction is well within your control once you see it from this different standpoint.

Let?s say my opponent hits me in the liver, and it nearly folds me in half; it affects my breathing and it hurts to move. If I am identified with the pain, the reaction will be much worse. I might quit, I might run.

But if I see the pain as something that happens ? just a bodily sensation, like any other, then I have far greater control over my reaction. It is vital to see it as something that is in you, but not you. ?Pain shoots over my body? is different from ?pain shooting over me?.

So the key is to accept the injury, accept that it hurts, but know that you can control how you react to it, most of the time. (If you?re knocked out or your body is paralysed, then well, there?s nothing you can do.)

Note: If the injury is serious ? get to a hospital, don?t play macho man. I?m talking non-life threatening injuries here.

Step two for emotional pain

How about emotional pain? Going back to ?getting fired? example. Recognize that you now have to find another job. Start taking action, update your resume. Cut back on your spending until you get another source of income. You might feel sad, feel like a failure, or feel the fear of not being able to provide for your family. Recognising that is separate from you will make it much more manageable.

Now if it?s the first time it happens then it is forgivable to overreact to it. The first time I was punched in the liver, it was a whole new sensation and I didn?t know how to handle it. I lost all the fight in me ? I dropped to the canvas and struggled to breathe like beached whale. The first time I screwed up on the job in my teens I was upset by it as well.

Beyond the first couple of times, however, your reaction is just a conditioned habit ? and habits can be broken.

Observing and acknowledging it is central in various spiritual teachings ? there are a few articles in the Emotional Mastery at the Urban Monk website that deal with this.

Application

This can be hard to explain in words; my suggestion would be to keep this in mind, and then next time it happens, just know that it is not you. This can be hard, especially if it is intense, but it?s just a matter of experience.

Here?s a tip: Imagine you are playing a video game. Your character takes a massive hit; you lose half of your life bar. You acknowledge it, and decide to take a more cautious approach ? another wrong move and it?s game over. Most gamers won?t get depressed, cry, or quit playing the game simply because they?ve got half their vitality points left.

Resisting or fearing the pain makes it worse

Here?s a little tip; the more you fear it, the more it hurts. Try accepting the fear. Accept that life has its ups and downs. In combat sports, or martial arts, accept you will get hit ? even defensive masters will get hit.

If you resist the pain, you add to it. If you are afraid of the pain it hurts more. Accept the pain, and suddenly, this article will make sense ? it?s just something inside you, rather then some bad, fearful thing that happens to you.

More on fear

The more you fear something, the more you focus on it, and the more likely it is to happen. You hit what you aim for, isn?t that a universal truth? When you using a pistol for example, do you look at the tree and think ?I hope I don?t hit it??

If, after you lose your job, your thoughts are occupied with fear, and lack of money / security, what are you aiming for? If, in sparring, you are worried about losing, what are you inviting? There is much talk of the Law of Attraction / The Secret nowadays, but much it is just common sense, not mystical or mysterious.

How about pleasure?

While it might make sense to separate yourself from pain, what about pleasurable sensations? What will happen if you separate yourself from that? Contrary to logic, this practice can actually increase the pleasure.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Albert's free personal development blog has articles that will guide you to emotional mastery, self-esteem, confidence, masculinity, social and dating skills, spirituality, philosophy, finance and career, boxing, and martial arts.

For more free Personal Development articles, please visit?www.urbanmonk.net

mixed-martial-arts-schools Products we recommend
Headband - Kamikaze Headband

Headband - Kamikaze Headband
Headband - Kamikaze Headband

Elbow Guard

Elbow Guard
This elastic brace has a padded area that covers your elbow to help protect you from injury. Thick 1/2 inches padding. Tightly-woven polyester/rubber/nylon/rayon blend. Non-slip fit springs back to shape after washing. Cut and seamed at inside joint to allow for better flexibility when bending your arm.

Punch Dagger Triple Blade Push Knife

Punch Dagger Triple Blade Push Knife
Size really does NOT matter especially when you see the power this precision push dagger is packing! At 4 1/2" long the solid wood handle is rounded on the edges providing it to easily maneuver in your grip. The 3 5/8" blade is solid stainless steel with a heat anodized two-tone finish. Plus, the blade has been perfectly designed into a piercing triangular point.

The Fearless Hyena

The Fearless Hyena
The most readily available version of this early Jackie Chan flick has been distractingly dubbed with English accents and lad slang. ("You twit!" snarls a beefy young kung fu master.) This is a film of some historic interest, however, since Chan was directing himself for the first time, going way too far in his attempt to inject humor into the genre and distance himself from the grim, ferocious example of Bruce Lee. He has only himself to blame, in other words, for the over-the-top slapstick of the martial arts training sequences--like the one that has him standing on his head, balancing a bowl of scalding hot tea in his crotch. The action scenes are all-out gag-fests in which Chan does more mugging than fighting, appearing in drag in one memorable sequence. One hapless thug even gets squashed into the ground, like a steamrollered cartoon character. --David Chute

Magnificent Ruffians

The Warrior From Shaolin

Twin Warriors

Twin Warriors
Two young men--Jun-Bo (Jet Li) and Chin-Bo (Chin Siu Ho)--were taken in as boys by the monks of the Shaolin Temple, the famous school for martial arts. Jun-Bo is thoughtful and kind, but is easily swayed to misbehavior by the bullying, rebellious Chin-Bo. Their disobedient ways finally get them evicted in disgrace (after a fight with the entire school), and they wander to a nearby town, where they meet two attractive women, Miss Li (Fannie Yuen) and Siu Lin (Michelle Yeoh, a.k.a. Michelle Khan), who are part of a rebel band fighting a corrupt overlord. Chin-Bo's lust for wealth and status leads him to join forces with the overlord. Chin-Bo's treachery drives Jun-Bo insane; Jun-Bo's gradual recovery leads him to develop the discipline of tai chi, with which he ultimately topples the overlord. This plot summary of Twin Warriors doesn't do the movie justice; hardly 10 minutes go by without another spectacular fight sequence--and one of the great things about Hong Kong action movies is that women can often fight as well as the men. Early on in the movie, Siu Lin is searching for her lost husband; when she finds him, she gets into a knock-down, drag-out fight with her husband's new wife. It's unfortunate that the English language script is poor; though the characters are broad and melodramatic, they don't have to be as goofy as the dubbing makes them. Even so, it's a strong outing for Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh, two of Hong Kong's action superstars. --Bret Fetzer

Hero [UMD for PSP]

Hero [UMD for PSP]
Hero UMD Movie From Buena Vista MODEL- 29469 VENDOR- UMD MOVIES FEATURES- "Hero" PSP UMD Movie Watch movies on your PSP handheld with DVD picture quality in widescreen. This full length movie fits on a single UMD disc. Hero is two-time Academy Award nominee Zhang Yimous directorial attempt at exploring the concept of a Chinese hero. During the peak of their Warring States period, China was divided into seven kingdoms all fighting for supremacy. Most determined to dominate China was the kingdom of Qin, whose king (Chen Daoming) was wholly obsessed with becoming the first emperor of China. Though he was an assassination target for many, none of his would-be killers inspired as much fear as the legendary assassins Broken Sword (Tony Leung), Flying Snow (Maggie Cheung), and Sky (Donnie Yen). In hopes of thwarting his death, the king has promised endless wealth and power to anyone who defeats his would-be murderers. No results come until ten years later, when a man called Nameless (Jet Li) brings the weapons of the three assassins to the Qin kings palace. Nameless claims to be an expert swordsman who had defeated Sky and destroyed the famed duo of Flying Snow and Broken Sword by using their love for one another against them. Once Nameless comes face to face with the king, however, it looks as if the situation is more complicated than he had thought. Also featured in Hero is actress Zhang Ziyi (The Road Home, Crouching Tiger, Hiden Dragon) as Broken Swords devoted servant, Moon. * Starring: Jet Li, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Maggie Cheung, Chen Daoming, Zhang