Posts Tagged ‘Training’

Paying Attention…

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

This article was written by a good friend and mentor Emmanuel Manolakakis…

 

Paying attention to yourself, to others and to the situations.

This topic is rather large but I will do my best to break it down in the hopes that it helps everyone takes from it something that can help them in training.

Lets start with the definition of paying attention or alertness:
“Is the state of paying close and continuous attention being watchful and prompt to meet danger or emergency, or being quick to perceive and act. It is related to psychology as well as to physiology. The word is formed from “alert”, which comes from the Italian “all’erta” (on the watch, literally, on the height)”

Paying attention to yourself

The benefits to paying attention to yourself are as follows.

• Increased body awareness
• Decreases in injuries
• Increased learning

Enough said….lets look at closer!

There are 4 gauges to keep and eye on closely if you don’t already.

• Your effort levels (10 being max – 1 being min level)
• Your efficiency levels (10 being max – 1 being min level)
• Your structure levels (10 being max – 1 being min level)
• Your attention levels (10 being max – 1 being min level)

In an ideal world you want:
• 1 for effort meaning you exert very little.
• 10 for efficiency meaning a positive result quickly.
• 10 for structure meaning you keep yours (posture/positioning)
• 10 for attention meaning you kept your focus at hand.

In the worse case you would have :
• 10 for effort meaning you exert lots of energy.
• 1 for efficiency meaning a positive result took long or not at all.
• 1 for structure meaning you lost yours (posture/positioning)
• 1 for attention meaning you lost your focus.

Over the years I’ve seen countless students frustrated to various degrees. When I look closely at them ‘working’ it comes apparent there lack of attention. When you have a positive outcome in training or life ask yourself these for questions.

How much effort did I exert?
How efficient was it?
Did I position myself in the right place or places?
Was I focused?

Now put a number to it from 10 to 1. 10 being the most positive and 1 the most negative result.

I’m sure you will notice a pattern developing. Follow the positive results you get and you will be well on your way to making life, martial arts and even fitness training a more fruitful experience.

“Your greatest talent should lie in knowing how to precisely gauge yourself so that you stop before you begin to groove poorly”

emmanuel manolakakis
Hope this helps,
EM

PS - Stay tuned for the next segment (soon)…..

”Pay attention to others’

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Flow, the Psychology of Optimal Experience,

Friday, August 21st, 2009

Flow, the Psychology of Optimal Experience, 
by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. 

“We have all experienced times when, instead of being buffeted by anonymous forces, we do feel in control of our actions, masters of our own fate. On the rare occasions that it happens, we feel a sense of exhilaration, a deep sense of enjoyment that is long cherished and that becomes a landmark in memory for what life should be like….. moments like these are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times…the best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.”

An engaging book, packed with information and new ways of thinking about life. Csikszentmihalyi has spent his professional life researching happiness, and his conclusions have led him to believe (with considerable evidence) that most people are happiest at these times when they are stretching themselves to achieve something.

The conditions for the ideal flow activities are that they provide a sense of discovery, a creative feeling of transporting the person into a new reality. They push the person into higher levels of performance, and lead to previously undreamed-of states of consciousness. They transform the self by making it more complex. In turn that means that the activity needs to continue to grow and become more complex so that it continues to provide the growth and challenge to make it meaningful. 
The book goes on to describe all the different ways in which people have achieved flow throughout the centuries, and how much of music, art, literature and religion can be viewed through a lens which suggests that they are all ways in which the human race tries to formalise ways in which flow can be achieved more easily.

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