Thinking makes it so: Resiliency in HEMA practice
Jordan Hinckley
When focusing on resiliency there are 3 aspects that we must take into consideration. The first is how do we mentally prepare for the stress of competition? The second is how do we keep our focus in the midst of that stress? The last is simply how do we assess our performance afterward in a way to keep moving forward? All three of these are connected as one feeds into the next in a circular fashion. We can think of these three as the Future, Present and Past.
In this class we will look at all 3 aspects and look at some ways in which we can control the things within our control and as a whole connect these 3 parts in our regular training and practice.
Future: Why do I compete?
You are in the middle of a match, those stupid judges didn’t see the last three hits you landed on your opponent, your pulse is high, you can’t focus, “I can win this,” you think, but you cannot let go of the fact that last exchange you hit them 3 times and not one of those was counted by those dumb judges. Are the judges blind? What is wrong with them? Why didn’t the other guy acknowledge it? The director calls resume and physically you are present but can’t let the last 3 exchanges go mentally. You can’t let go of the idea that they are up by several points and you know you only have a few exchanges left if you want to win and time is running out. Your will to push harder is all but gone. Another point is called for your opponent, and with it, the last exchange. You walk away from the ring frustrated and mad at the judges, mad at yourself, and mad at the person who just beat you.
Let’s face it, the reality of competition is that it can be a potentially stressful situation, so why do we do it? To win shiny things? To win accolades from friends, family, and those in the community whom we respect? Or is it something deeper like to trying out a technique we have been working on in class in a stress testing situation to see if we can make it work when the opportunity presents itself. Maybe we do it for fun, and love of the challenge of it all.
What is within your control?
Unpacking the reasons why we compete or why we practice, we must define what is within our control and what is not.
We cannot control if we win a medal or not, we cannot control what the judges see, we cannot control who our opponent is, and we cannot directly control their actions.
If succeeding at a tournament is a question of if you won a medal or not, in a field of 64 fighters, at best, only 4 will go home with a medal hanging on their necks from winning that tournament. Effectively what that means is that 7 or 8 percent of fighters will “succeed” and the other 92%-93% will by that same metric, fail.
We cannot control what the judges see. I always tell my students to assume that the judges are biased against you, because if you set out to make every exchange clean, regardless of the points scored, for or against you, you are fencing safely, and this must be our primary objective.
We cannot control who is in our pool, if we make it to eliminations, or what bracket we will be fighting in. We cannot control who is in our class and wants to spar with us but what we can control is how we personally face everyone whom we interact with.
We cannot control the perceptions of others, even if we win big, there may be people who give us little or no respect for it. Alternatively, there may be people who believe that they were robbed because in their minds they can beat us, and as such they are more deserving of a medal or a big win than we are.
We cannot control anyone else, but what we can control are our personal actions and how we present ourselves regardless of how it is viewed by others.
The only thing within our control is what is inside us. How we are mentally and physically prepared, if we are giving our best, and are we fully present in the moment during this match. We owe it to ourselves to give the best we have in this moment. That is not to say the best we may ever have, or the best we can do tomorrow, it means flaws and all, we are compassionate to where we are today. We may be tired, have a headache, or just not feeling at the top of our game and that is ok. Doing our best today means despite this, we are giving it the best we can at this moment. It may not mean we will win but we can be comforted in knowing that we have given the best we are capable at the moment.
We can control our actions in a given situation. If we have been working hard on a technique for a while and the opportunity presents itself to use it, do we have the presence of mind to see it and to act on it?
When I have students who are setting goals for competition one thing that we focus on is realistic goals that are achievable. In a field of 10 of the top fighters in the world, I am not likely to win 1st place, but I can give them my best, fight as hard as I can, with all I have, and make it so that they had to work to win the match.
Writing Prompt:
Why do you compete/practice? What you are doing or plan to do?
What factors of your why are always within your control?
How do you measure success or failure to that metric?
Present: How do I bring myself back to my goal?
It is the middle of a match, you are not sure what the score is, but you feel like you are on the top of your game today. You just hit your opponent, which the judges didn’t see, and your opponent shortly after scored a point which they did. You are on the edge of the ring, you come back to focus, the director resumes the match and in a moment of calm you walk back into the ring ready to give it your best.
If we begin with why we compete, the next thing we can ask is how do we bring ourselves back to that purpose when tension is high, adrenaline is pumping, and we feel like we are doing our best just to keep it all together. The simplest thing is a short mantra to bring us back to focus. This doesn’t need to be a paragraph; the reality is the simpler we can make it the better, because we can think it and remember it easily. Even something as easy as “I’ve got this”, “This is the way”, “Keep doing my best”, “Be here now” or in the case when things went in a direction you had not expected, “So what?”
In the middle of the match, we do not have time to think long drawn-out mantras to become present, we do not have time to assess everything that is going on in depth, but what we do have time for is to come back to our goal and focus.
Unfortunately, many of us take the same time to get discouraged by mental scorekeeping, or being mad at the judges for failing to see something we feel we did well. In the short pauses between exchanges there are 2 things we can do easily. The first is to come back to our focus, the second is to get clear about what is happening and what we need to do in order to keep moving forward. Maybe everything is going well, you are meeting their way of fighting with your own and it is working. Awesome, come back to the present, keep your cool, and keep going. This is also a time when a corner coach can help you keep that focus or remind you of your goal.
Another way we can deal with stressful situations is to go back to our breathing, this may as simple as a few deep breaths in and out, or as complicated as box breathing which consists of breathing in to a count of 5, holding for a count of 5, breathing out for a count of 5, then staying empty for a count of 5. The number of counts does not matter as long as they are the same, but the idea is to breathe in, hold it, breathe out, and hold that before beginning again. The idea of focusing on the breath is one that is used in many places but it is a way of becoming present to this moment and back to right now where you can focus on what is at hand in front of you.
One thing I like to use is the idea of “So What” because it allows me to have the power to decide how I want to move forward. The question of “So What” can be helpful because all we are asking is what meaning a particular thing has. What does it matter if they hit me in the last exchange? What does it matter if the judges did or did not see something I am doing? Am I trying to impress them? Can I impress anyone else since they are out of my control? Am I giving things the best I have today?
Writing prompt:
In the middle of the match what is something you can think that will bring you back to your goal?
What is something that you can think of or recite in the moment to bring you back to the present?
Past: Assessment of how things went, how to move forward.
In reviewing how a match, or tournament went it is easy enough if you do not feel like you did as well as you had wanted to get stuck in the mindset of “I failed, I am no good at this, maybe I should give up” While this can be a natural effect of things going in a way that you had not hoped or expected, I would suggest a different path. In looking at your performance ask yourself “Did I control the things within my control? Was I able to focus on the task at hand when it happened? Was I flexible enough with changing circumstances to adapt when I needed to? Lastly, and most importantly, did I succeed in accomplishing my objectives whatever they were?
Maybe your why was in pressure testing a technique. Was this something you had an opportunity to do and did so? If your why was just to have some fun sparring with some people you do not get to spar regularly, or make new friends, were you able to do that? What did you do well and you want to continue? What did you do less than you wanted and would like to improve on? In the assessment phase it is easy enough to throw out the baby with the bathwater. I once had an experience when I did not do as well as I had wanted in a tournament and I told my wife I was going to build a completely new training regimen. She asked me what I felt had gone well.
Instead of building a whole new training program from scratch, the better solution was to ask myself what was I currently doing to make the things that had gone well work, and what did I need to add to it in order to improve in other areas. What I had wrong was the idea that I needed to tear everything apart and build it all over from scratch. Sure, some things needed work but some things were in fact working and I needed to acknowledge those things and if possible, keep up with those as they were working well. Did I need to supplement things? Absolutely, but supplementation is not a wholesale replacement for no other reason than being discouraged at a single factor of my performance.
The assessment phase is where we can look at how we did in retrospect, and decide the way forward. Did your mantras keep you present in the fight? If not, do they need to be modified? Were you able to see things clearly? Did your focus stay on the present when the match was going on? Were you able to remember your why and keep it at the forefront of your mind as you faced your challenges?
Writing prompt:
What about your tournament performance do you feel good about?
What about your performance do you feel could use improvement?
Does this change your Why?
What is your plan to move forward and work on the things that need to be improved on?
Conclusion
Scenario
You are in the middle of a match; your mind is calm and focused. You are fully present right where you are. Win or lose you are having a great time fighting someone who is giving you a challenge. If pressed, you can think of exchanges that were really cool, but most of all, you are having fun being here doing something you enjoy doing. Sure, the judges did not see that cool thing that you just did, but they are people doing the best they can so you cut them some slack and intend to make the next exchange cleaner so they can see it more plainly. You do not know the score, but for you, right now, it doesn’t matter, this is fun, and you are having the time of your life. The table calls match and you go to shake the hand of your new friend. Win or lose, it does not matter, because you have had an opportunity to fence with someone to whom you gave your best because they, and you, deserve nothing less.
Resiliency is not about the other person, it is not about forcing the judges to see something, it is not about medals or accolades. What it is about, is controlling the things in your power to control and doing your best today, right now, in this moment. We can lose a match and still be undefeated as a person. The things in our control are how we respond to the things that happen around us, and therein lies our true power.
