Martial Arts - The Ultimate Exercise in Personal Development

Lets get one thing straight right from the get go. I am no Bruce Lee. Far from it. The closest I get at the moment is being a big fan of his movies. What I have done, however, is recently joined a tae kwon do class that Ive now been attending for a couple of months.

Simply put: I absolutely love it. It encompasses so many facets of personal development and growth all at the same time in an interconnected practice. It also has the added bonus of a chance at pummeling and getting pummeled by a sparring partner. This, lest we forget that we are all human animals and need to feel the fight or flight adrenaline surging through our arteries from time to time. It reminds one of what it feels like to be alive.

Martial arts training is long understood to be holistic in its benefits: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Approached as such, it is a workout for your entire being. To clarify, I am speaking here of traditional martial arts rather than more modern, strictly self-defense or street fighting-type classes.

In this post I want to take the briefest of looks at just how martial arts training can simultaneously benefit all of the different areas of self. Specifically, I want to frame it in the context of personal development and illustrate that martial arts is one of the ultimate exercises in personal development. It strengthens the body, sharpens the mind and tempers the spirit. On to the benefits

Physical

Lets start with the body. This one should be self-evident. Training in a martial will almost certainly help you on the road to getting in shape if youre not. Most moves in any kind of martial art are considerably more taxing if you happen to be 30lbs overweight. In the interest of self-preservation if nothing else most committed students will end up shaping up, at least a little.

I say help get in shape because it is by no means an entire fitness program. At least it wont be if you are only dedicating several hours a week to it like most of us who still have full-time work, study, family, etc. obligations. Still I dont think there are any classes where you dont do at least some conditioning and its quite likely that therell be jogging, pushups and crunches aplenty. You will be using muscles you didnt know you had and you will most certainly improve your flexibility. Ive already noted a significant increase in my own flexibility in just a couple months of training.

Mental

Practicing tae kwon do with any diligence, or any martial art form for that matter, requires a significant amount of focus and concentration. If particular moves, patterns and stances are going to be executed with power and precision every time you do them, and especially under distraction and duress, then that is going to require an immense amount of presence and focus. I noticed very early on in my lessons that my mind, which can have a real propensity for tangential thinking, emptied very readily. Just doing something as simple as standing correctly in a stance on a consistent basis requires real focus. Consistent training in focusing leads to increased ability to focus. Can you think of some ways this might benefit you?

Doing a martial art well is not something that promotes sloppiness or carelessness. In at least equal measure to physical discipline, martial arts training will require of its practitioner an intense amount of focus, attention and presence.

Emotional

It might be counterintuitive but engaging in the practice of a combat or self-defense-oriented art in a focused manner can be a very calming exercise. It requires centering oneself and is not a place easily inhabited by anxiety or stress.

It can also do wonders for self-esteem for those who need a boost in this area. Practice studios or dojos can be environments endowed with a genuine mutual respect for your mentor instructors and fellow students. It likewise teaches self-respect with a very healthy dose of the attitude that, Youre tougher than you think.

Social Youll almost certainly be taking a class with other people. Generally classes will be mixed in some respect in which case youll get to rub shoulders with people that are likely outside your normal circle of acquaintances. You may be practicing between a boy of 8 with ADHD and a retiree in her sixties. Many classes run the gamut when it comes to age. As many of us lead lives where we dont often socialize with non age-similar peers, something I think to be a real detriment in our culture, getting the chance to broaden our social contact here can be extremely fun and rewarding.

More importantly, you will also be meeting other individuals (the adults at least) that have voluntarily decided to engage in a self-developmental practice and sport. If youre experiencing social drag this could be an excellent way for you to branch out and connect with others who share goals for a lifestyle similar to yourself.

Spiritual

The ultimate goal of martial arts training is development of the whole self. Consequently, traditional martial art training often incorporates some notion of embracing a spiritual way or path, sometimes referred to as do in Japanese or tao in Chinese.

There are plenty of people who engage in martial arts training for very practical, tangible reasons and indeed it offers many of these kinds of benefits. Yet the idea of elevation of the body, mind and spirit is inextricable from true practice.

The commitment to train in a martial art will undoubtedly prove to be an empowering exercise in personal development. It can be a lifelong path that you choose to embark on and stand to benefit from in countless ways.

Matt Cameron is an intensely personal growth and development-oriented writer and blogger. He maintains a blog at EverydayChange.com where he writes on a variety of topics related to personal development, creativity, motivation, health and more.

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