The Door Way to Super Performance

Master Mikel Steenrod here with Water Mountain Martial Society.  I wanted to take a moment to thank you all for your continued subscription.  I hope you had a fulfilling Thanksgiving or at least a filling Thanksgiving.  You have my best as we all enter this holiday season.

I spend a lot of time on helping people through their performance issues.  For some, this means getting through the basic pile of excuses that blocks them from doing what they really want.  For others, that are past that initial pile of excuses, I spend a lot of time teaching them how to get a handle on their own brains, so that they can really open up the the throttle on their personal development.  Sometimes a small road block is just as effective as a major road block at keeping you from getting anywhere.

The rock-solid foundation of you being able to do any of that is as simple as becoming aware of your drives and habits.

If there is single, super door way to performance, it is coming to know why you train in martial arts or qi gong.

I’m not talking about the reason you use to justify training.  For example, you may tell others that you train in Arnis, because it is effective self-defense that can be learned in a short period of time.  Is that true?  Yes, that is a truthful description of Arnis.  You may tell others that you train in Qi Gong, because it keeps you from getting ill when everyone else is sick.  Is that true?  Yes, that is a truthful description of Qi Gong.

These are truthful descriptions of the effects that you gain from training.  They are vitally important effects.  You should tell as many people about those effects as you can, in order to benefit them.  After all, don’t you want the people around you to be safe and healthy?

However, these effects are not what you feel when you are training.  It is what you feel when you train that is the super door way to performance, because it’s what’s motivating you at the gut.

How many times have faced a task that you knew was good for you, maybe even necessary for your day to day living, that you avoided?  You avoided it even when you knew all the positive effects that that task could provide to you?

You avoided it because effects are not as motivating as feeling.

When you know what feeling is motivating your training, you can build your training to favor that feeling, both in your self-training and in the class environment.

Martial arts, taught properly, have a unique ability to trigger the flow of endorphins, keytones, and other reward hormones within the first ten minutes of a work out.  In Water Mountain, classes are deliberately designed to cause this release, because it motivates the training.  The precise combination of activities that taps this feeling varies by the person, and it’s up to the person practicing to determine what part of a training regimen is tapping that.  When a person is having difficulties with excuses or other roadblocks, it is because his or her behavior is either not triggering a release OR THERE IS A COMPETING FEELING.

Qi gong also has an almost immediate relaxation feeling, and in advanced practitioners produces an intense euphoria and sense of confidence.

Work on finding the driving feeling, and new doors will simply open to you!