Why You Should Train Martial Arts

The Mental Benefits of Training Mixed Styles

I train martial arts for my mental health, and I teach Mixed Martial Arts in particular for Men’s mental health. Women can benefit greatly from martial arts skills, of course. But men need to strive together for a purpose, and for men; to struggle together is to bond together. I firmly believe in the the utility of martial arts as means to bolster men’s mental health, and I hope to continue this service for a long time.

As a practitioner of Mixed Martial Arts however, I often hear MMA has no style. No heart. No philosophy. It only seeks victory. Some individuals prefer it for its pragmatism, while others deign it brutish and callous. While all martial arts develop the mind and body, the beauty of mixed styles lies in its capacity to shape the individual into a calmly thoughtful, instinctively responsive, and emotionally resilient person. An individual who is able to push themselves to progress, undaunted by the struggle along the way.

While MMA has certainly pragmatized many of the traditionalist styles, in some sense hollowing them out, it has provide an opportunity to view the arts from a meta perspective. The struggle of two persons in a competition to disable the other physically; by strength, will, or intelligence, has long been a deeply rooted element of culture in human societies all across the world. It is safe to say that warrior culture helped build societies through a refined philosophy of violence, and these philosophies deeply affected the cultural makeup of individual people groups. These created in societies “certain kinds of people.” What we are talking about here is, in some sense, a warrior spirit. So, what is the warrior spirit of the Mixed Martial Arts?

The Arts as Mental Practices

There are several mental dispositions that can be trained, each of them inherent in the Martial Arts. Whether you are a Navy SEAL or Day Care teacher, anyone can benefit from them because they are fundamentally skills that can assist us in any situation, from conflict with family or strangers to emergency situations or salary negotiations. These are:

• The Ability to Assess Systematically Under Pressure through Grappling
• The Instinct for the Decisive Moment of Violence of Action through Throws & Takedowns
• Composure Under Emotional Stress through Striking
• Resilience of Body, and thereby of Mind through the Training Process

Thinking Systematically Under Pressure

By thinking systematically I am referring to the ability to analyze a problem, recognize the possible solutions, and actively apply a system to force the solution. In the context of Jiu Jitsu, this must all be accomplished while being under direct pressure from another person who is intent on achieving the exact same result.

Jiu Jitsu is jokingly referred to as the art of folding clothes with people in them. What is often missed, however, is that for the majority of your experience as a jiu jitsu practitioner you are the clothes, not the one who folds. This is where the benefits of grappling shine. You quickly learn getting smashed in side control sucks. You must think your way through a series of positional problems to escape a bad position. In a very realistic manner, the only way out is through.

This ability, to make snap decisions in how to move one limb, reposition a hip, or change grips, requires patience and a calm mind in a stressful situation. Grappling becomes an excellent way to develop this skill in an engaging environment, with great camaraderie, and the physical demands will keep you in great shape as a bonus.

The Instinct for the Moment of Violence of Action

“Violence of Action”… That sounds scary…. What do we mean by the instinct for the moment of violence of action?

Violence of action simply refers to the ability to act quickly, decisively, and effectively in a volatile situation. Whether in the grip wars of upper body throws in Greco-Roman Wrestling and Judo or the technical speed of ankle picks and double legs in Freestyle there is always a moment when action ought to be taken as it will be most effective. This instinct, for that key moment, can be seen with the eye and perhaps the minds eye with training. Wrestling and Judo as arts, and their practitioners, are distinctly recognizable by their resilience, athleticism, and lighting-fast execution.

This ability, to see the moment of greatest advantage, is core to numerous martial arts styles. It is what Sun Tzu refers to as “emptiness and fullness” in the Art of War. What distinguishes wrestling and Judo at its high levels is the incurred cost of failure, the pain of crashing into the ground with force. There are few martial arts that train the instinct for the moment of violence of action and teach key mistakes with clear and immediate feedback. When highly developed, a practitioner sees these opportunities in split seconds and they have split seconds to execute the full force of their throw with every ounce of their Being.

The total commitment and instinct for action is a mental disposition all people will find beneficial. It is the elimination of fear, the practice of commitment, and the discipline of the mind and leads us to be more confident in ourselves and our abilities, as well as to act decisively when necessary.

Composure Under Emotional Stress

The ability to remain composed under emotional stress is difficult for anyone. There are entire philosophies, like Taoism, centered on the state of “non-ado”, a kind of composure under all of life’s ups and downs. It is a great boon to be able to speak calmly and clearly even under great emotional stress, so that you might not make a mistake or say something you cannot take back.

Truthfully any striking art that requires you to spar full contact is ideal for the development of this composure. It can be very difficult to remain composed while in pain, or keep our emotions in check when punched in the mouth. This ability might best be referred to as a kind of mental resilience unique to the martial arts. When sparring, the body is open to physical pain, and the mind is constantly assessing the likelihood of the next pattern of attack.

This composure can extend to other areas of life. As we enter volatile situations our heart rate remains steady, our mind remains attentive but calm, and we can respond with wisdom or forbearance where otherwise tempers run hot. When highly developed, the practitioner can lose with grace and win with humility, all while learning from their experiences and building relationships with their training partners in shared effort.

Building Resilience of Mind

Training martial arts builds great confidence. However, this confidence is not simply through the capacity for violence. Though this capacity is developed, true resilience is the confidence that comes with knowing ones own tolerance.

While every martial artist develops a distinct confidence in their ability to fend for themselves, this kind of confidence often succumbs to the Dunning-Krueger effect. There is an instant spike in confidence as the practitioner begins to find success in areas of their preferred skillsets. This confidence is fed by success among peers and by their own tutors under gentler styles of teaching, until suddenly they have an experience that shatters their current self-understanding of their own skillset. This initiates a dramatic ego-death in the individual practitioner and, if they are resilient in spite of the sudden roadblock, they begin the slow climb to mastery.

It is in the recognition of this over-estimation of one’s abilities where the practitioner learns their own true resilience, as they come to grips with growth by miniature deaths. Learning from small failures prevents great failures. It is also for this reason many practitioners discontinue their training after a certain period (the average adults trains for no more than 18mo.), for it is taxing on the mind to suffer defeat as a prerequisite for growth. Much easier to rest in our first world comforts and forestall pain at the cost of future resilience. In this way the most important skill martial arts imparts to the practitioner is the death of the ego, humility in victory, and confidence in one’s own resilience.

When we develop the humility to learn from errors quickly, and without ego, we unlock the most important benefit of martial arts: the ability to be unhampered by failure and discouragement. The mind no longer succumbs to those fears of public perception or lies of self-doubt. We become resilient in the best sense, that is, undaunted no matter what life throws at us.

The Warrior Spirit

In many ways the warrior spirit is a forgotten cultural icon. As atomized as we are in the West we no longer have societal ties that anchor us in our archetypes as warriors, craftsmen, or kings. We must embody these of our own accord. We must choose to craft ourselves into these designs. The Warrior Spirit is assessment, decisiveness, composure, and resilience.

To think and analyze well under unique pressures, to act quickly and decisively the moment it is needed most, to remain calm and effective despite emotional and interpersonal tensions, and to remain fluid and undaunted despite hardships. These four represent well the spirit of the martial arts, a warrior spirit we can cling to even in our broken and unmoored, postmodern culture. It is these four skills I aim to develop in my students, to make them effective not just as martial artists but as more whole and competent as individuals.

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A. Shumaker