Over my training years, there have been countless times when i have thought that no matter what i do, i haven't been able to improve, even sometimes i have felt that my hard acquired skills are decreasing!! The strange thing is also that my training has always been consistent. I once read a chapter in a book entitled The Karate Do Manual by Sensei Vince Morris, in which he talks about the plateau effect.
In a nutshell he says that it is a short period of time when your brain is soaking in new information and it will feel as if you can not do anything right. When sparring you will be getting hit constantly, your balance will be completely lost on striking pads and the simplest of Kata's movement's will be forgot. He also mentions not to worry, and this plateau will soon disappear. I completely agree with Sensei Morris on this one as i have had this happen to me countless numbers of times, but these plateaus always disappear and i DO feel a more better Martial Artist after them, so if you also get them don't worry, keep training hard!!
Marks
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Monday, 1 October 2007
Martial artist's Plateau Effect
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5 comments:
Oh, good to know. I doubt I've been training nearly long enough to experience the plateau effect, although there are times when I think I suck (like now) despite all the time I spent on my kata. And then I bounce back (hopefully); it's probably because I'm still inconsistent, maybe? I've definitely experienced this in piano, actually. Sometimes I'll play a piece terribly, then two days later manage something awesome.
I know this isn't real life - but this reminds me of a martial arts comic I was reading based on the life of Miyamoto Musashi; at one point, he realizes that he's been blocking his own advancement because he was thinking about life/training/the sword in the wrong way. When he'd begun training, he had instinctively known what to do, but then for some reason ended up taking the wrong path in his "spiritual" training.
Well, its happened plenty of times to me, and i used to wonder why. Then as luck would have it i read that chapter by Vince Morris, and it did answer a lot of questions. Keep up with the training, and thanks for the comment
Marks
Thank you for posting this! I am in one of those plateau moments right now and really needed this.
thats really good to know. im still kinda new to this site. just also wana say, awesome blog marks! keep up the good work!
Thank you very much Jean. As long as its got a little bit of value for you then im happy. Thanks for the comment
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