It is very easy to encourage our students with the wishful thinking that we are getting better every day over time in our martial arts training and that the sky’s the limit. This is great for children and youth as this limitless potential can actually be realized and provide them with an optimistic view which is very important..
As we are training as adults, however, this particular mindset can give us false expectations of our training. We are not always on the rise. Some days we are better than others. There will be times when we get stuck in a rut during our training. We will progress more rapidly earlier in our training than later in our training and whether we want to believe it or not, there is a ceiling, or rather a settling point for our training.
Becoming comfortable with this will lead to longevity in our training, and give us a more realistic yet positive outlook to our development as martial artists. As an engineer this is what is known as an underdamped system or underdamped second order differential equation. For those that are not math nerds the graph looks like this:
As a new student, we are constantly on the rise and training and the rapid growth that comes with it is exciting. When we get our black belt we are at the dashed line. Initially you will notice the graph will have large peaks and valleys. The height of these peaks and valleys varies based on the life challenges that we are required to face in our lives outside of the martial arts. This volatility can make training difficult. Handling the low parts can become a challenge for us.
As time goes on our line graph becomes very stable. Hopefully a 4th Dan performs at a much higher level than a 1st Dan, but here I am focusing not on level, but on the consistency of the graph. A master is very consistent in their performance. Will a master always be at their historical peak performance? No they will not. That is a fact of reality, but they will perform steadily and at a high level.
Where are you in your training? If you are at a peak, take the mental snapshot so you know what level you can return to. If you are in a valley, keep the faith, and with hard work, you can rise out of it.