#123: How to Build Courage in Martial Arts [Video Podcast]

Sensei Ando

Welcome to Episode #123 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “How to Build Courage in Martial Arts.”

Many people worry that they won’t have the courage to fight back against a real-life attacker… and that includes martial arts students!

It makes sense, really. You can build strong muscles and practice cool moves all day long, but when fear strikes, you might still find yourself curled up in a ball and frozen solid.

Don’t let that happen to you!

In this episode, I’ll share some tips to help you face your fears and build your courage… no matter what threats come your way. (Believe me—you’re not alone. I need these tips, too!)

If you’d like even more advice on overcoming fear—particularly when sparring—check out this video: How to Reduce Fear in Sparring and Fighting.

The good news is that you’re already brave… you’re already a fighter. Believe it! The big trick is simply not allowing anyone or anything to make you forget it.

Okay—let’s get started! Let me know what you think!

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Thanks for listening! Keep fighting for a happy life!

How to Build Courage in Martial Arts

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TRANSCRIPT

Hello, again! Ando here from Happy Life Martial Arts. Welcome to episode #123 of Fight for a Happy Life, the show that believes even a little martial arts makes life a whole lot better.

Great to be back on video, I’ve missed you. I’ve been busy training, been busy teaching, but I’m here now. And, if I’m going to be honest, feeling a little old. Let me tell you why.

In the mail, I got this lovely note. Yes, and what does it say? It says, Andrew, because they really know me. Andrew, make a plan that celebrates your life. And who is this from?

Why, it’s a cremation service. Yes, I’ve finally reached the age where there are officially people waiting for me to die. They can’t wait to burn my corpse. So now I’m walking outside every day, looking up, seeing if today’s the day.

Are there any vultures? How bad do I look? Have I lost weight? Anyway, I keep this on my desk. I didn’t throw it out because it reminds me that life is short and life is crazy. Live while you can, my friend.

If you have to leave the episode right now, that’s what you needed to know. So live.

What I’d like to talk about, if you’re still going to hang around though, is courage. It takes courage to live in this world, doesn’t it? It takes courage to go after your goals. And it will certainly take courage to defend your life or to defend your goals if someone tries to stop you.

I bring this up because I get this comment either through video reactions or through email quite often. Someone will write, Dear Sensei Ando, I am afraid that I won’t be brave enough to fight back if I’m ever attacked. I’m afraid that I don’t have the courage to stand up for myself.

Whoa. All right. Let me make this simple, okay? And then maybe if you want to cut the episode short and you want to take off, okay. To me, this question is just missing one thing, context.

There are incidents every day where people with no martial arts training defend themselves successfully. Could be multiple attackers, could be a weapon involved, but people who did not see trouble coming finding a way to survive, finding a way to win. And it’s not just in the world of self-defense.

There are people who have been wiped out one way or the other and rebuilt their lives. Whether it was addiction and drugs, whether it was bankruptcy and financial ruin, whether it’s disease, the pandemic, whether their town was bombed in a war or invaded.

Throughout history, human beings find ways to pull themselves back together and move forward. And if they can do it, I believe I can do it. And if I can do it, I believe you can do it.

So the context here is situations that put us in emergency mode. Code red.

When necessity is strong enough, you will fight. When desperation is high enough, you will find a way to fight back.

That’s what I believe. In those moments of extreme crisis, your strengths will be revealed. And I believe you will overcome fear. I think fear is something we can just imagine when there is no crisis. So of course, it seems like we’re going to be overwhelmed.

But you’re not giving yourself enough credit, my friend. If you were attacked by a shark, I have no training for that. You probably have no training for that. But I’ll bet you’d fight. I’ll bet you’d fight hard.

So tap into that. Believe in that.

You have an emergency mode that, if things are truly, truly bad, you have resilience, you have toughness, you will fight your fight. I’m not guaranteeing you survive. I’m not guaranteeing you win. But I guarantee you’ll fight.

So, moving on again, episode number three within one episode. The fact is most life is not emergency mode. This is where the problem comes in.

So, if we’re not put in extreme crisis, how do I have the courage to go after what I want in life? How do I do it? There are so many things that we want to do, but we don’t have to do. And therefore, we end up floating, just floating in indecision and inaction. And we don’t get what we want.

And we just float. And over time, that starts to build, I think, resentment and bitterness, self-loathing. I don’t think it’s a healthy path.

So the question here today is, how do we build courage to take action in our normal life? Again, presuming that emergencies got that covered. But what about normal life?

Let me give you my theory about courage. I think courage is rooted in safety, a feeling of safety. So, for example, this is a sliding scale, your courage and feelings of safety.

Let’s say I say, hey, I knock on your door, come out here quick, you got to fight this guy. And you look over, and the guy is a hundred pounds less than you. No weapon. Imagine that feeling.

Now, I knock on your door, pull you outside, say, hey, you got to go fight this guy. And this time, the guy is a hundred pounds bigger than you. Two hundred pounds bigger than you. And he’s got a knife.

You probably don’t feel the same. The feeling of courage is going to be different because your feeling of safety in that situation is different.

Same thing if you’re on the street, and you hear a call, like, I’m going to get you. I’m going to kill you. And you look over, and it’s just one thin guy by himself. Versus, we’re going to get you. And you look across the street, and there’s a gang of people with bats and guns.

Now, what’s interesting here to me is that in any of these situations, you are always the same person, same history, same skills, same smarts, same everything. And yet, in a moment, you can be led to feel completely differently.

You project your performance in what’s about to occur. And your prediction of failure or success immediately affects your entire organism and sets off different hormonal responses.

So, as we move through our normal life, we’re assessing threats, we’re assessing possibilities, then we assess our capability to survive that situation or to succeed in that situation, and that immediately provides us a level of courage.

So, I think that’s how this mechanism works. It’s all about the odds. If you think you’ve got great odds, then you’re going to be pretty courageous and take actions.

If you think the odds are totally against you, you might freeze up and do nothing. And that’s why we have to be careful, since my main topic is usually self-defense. This type of dynamic will get you killed.

Fear and doubt are never going to help your performance be its best.

If you allow yourself to believe that you have no chance, if you believe you’re going to die, then you shrink, right? You shrink physically.

I think you want to start curling up and hiding. You shrink psychologically.

You start thinking, I can’t do this. I can’t figure it out. I can’t solve this problem.

You add more tension. You get tunnel vision. You’re less aware. You don’t move as well.

And you hesitate. All of those things are going to get you killed.

So, the bottom line is, if, as you’re moving through life, normal life, if you believe you’re going to lose, if you believe you’re going to die, then you’ve just increased the odds that you’re going to lose or you’re going to die.

But, if you believe you have a chance to win, a good chance, if you believe you have a chance, a good chance to live, then you’ve just increased the odds that you’re going to win or live.

I think it’s that simple. I didn’t say easy, but simple.

These things go together. Your courage and your projection of how safe you are in any given context.

Now, let me immediately throw in a flag here on the topic of delusion. That is a common criticism that you’re going to find in the world of martial arts, right? Including myself.

People put up videos sharing technical tips or ideas for self-defense. Different styles showing off their training methodologies. And immediately, you’re going to see comments under those videos saying, these guys are crazy. This is a cult. They’re engaging in fantasy. None of this stuff is going to work.

Okay, fair enough. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion. But I have a question for you. Is it better to believe that you have a chance and then take action on that belief? Or is it better to not believe that you have a chance, that you’re not prepared for this situation, and not take action?

I’m talking about self-defense. When you have no choice but to engage an attacker or a threat, you couldn’t talk your way out of it. You couldn’t run. In that moment, you have this choice.

Would you rather believe that you can handle it and make a move? Or would you rather succumb to fear and doubt and freeze and shrink up?

I think the answer is pretty obvious. I personally would rather be deluded and ensure my maximal performance than to doubt myself and freeze up and do nothing.

So there is a place for delusion even, I think, in training. Now, don’t take that out of context. Don’t take this the wrong way. I’m not saying you should train for delusion or you should seek delusion. Of course not. That’s not my first choice in my training.

If you’re training, the goal should be true confidence. A true set of skills. That you are training your body and your mind and your heart, your spirit, to handle situations.

So that’s not just confidence that comes from good, honest training, that comes with feedback. It comes also with making peace with the universe or your God. You believe you have a mission, you believe that your causes are righteous, that you fight for good reasons.

This requires having your morality put together. You know what you’ll fight for, you know what you won’t fight for. So if you are pushed to fight, you know it’s for a good cause. You believe in it.

It requires that you’ve managed your ego. You’ve had enough losses in your training, and you’ve had enough victories, and you’ve had enough injuries or setbacks, that you can face all of it. You’re not afraid of any of those things, because you’ve experienced them over and over again.

So you’ve learned in short to do your best, put up your best performance, no matter what the threat is, even if it’s completely overwhelming.

So these are the choices that we are given, that we’re allowed in life. As we move forward, you have these choices…

First choice, be afraid. Be frozen. Do nothing. Hope for the best. Lay and pray.

Next level up, yeah, I’m going to upgrade to delusion. Believe that you can handle situations. Believe you’ve got those skills, because at least your physical response, your psychological response, will make you relaxed enough, aware enough, creative enough, and confident enough to make that first move and at least try something.

But that is still a far cry from the number one goal, which should be training for true confidence. Training to try no matter what. Training to go down swinging.

It’s not about winning or losing. You just are programmed to try, to fight. Win or lose, live or die.

Now, if it’s true that courage requires safety nets, then the question is how do we build them? How do we construct these safety nets? I’m glad you asked.

I have five quick tips that might help…

Tip number one, seek challenges. Create emergency mode situations in your life.

I’m not talking about being reckless here. I’m talking about seeking challenges that will push you out of your comfort zone to force you to reveal not just your strengths, but also your fears.

Like I said, there’s always goals in our heads that we don’t pursue. So set a goal for yourself, a goal maybe that you’ve been thinking about for years. And now, what is the but? I want to do this, but what?

I would like you to figure out exactly what you’re afraid of. If we can’t identify the fear, we can’t face it.

So whatever it is, you’re afraid of losing money, you’re afraid of ruining your reputation, you’re afraid of failing again, pursuing a particular goal which is just going to confirm that it’s not meant for you and you’re going to feel like a loser.

Whatever that fear is, name it so you can face it.

Tip number two, protect yourself. Now let’s start finding out a way to face that fear and build that safety net. Let me give you an example.

It’s a little embarrassing, but when I was a kid, I played little league, played for several years, pretty good at it, all star, until puberty. Over one summer, it seemed like every other dude my age hit puberty, and I didn’t.

So when we came back for the next season, everyone was taller, bigger, and had stubble. I do believe some of them had aftershave on. I didn’t even know what that was.

Now, the problem there was, when I got into the batter’s box and I’m staring down some pitches, those balls were flying past me beyond anything I’d ever seen before.

And unfortunately, a couple years earlier, I had a friend who I saw right next to me get hit in the face with a baseball, and both of her front teeth got knocked out, fell right on the ground at our feet.

So I have this image of being hit in the face with a baseball and losing my teeth. And now that everyone’s bigger, stronger, faster than I am, every time I went up to that plate, all I could imagine was getting hit in the face with that ball and losing my teeth.

So I quit. I quit. I quit baseball. Now, not a great loss for the sports world, but it hurt me because I knew I had quit out of fear. How could I have protected myself?

Sure. I mean, I guess we didn’t have enough money. If they had a helmet with one of those masks in the front, the iron gate on the front of my teeth, I would have kept playing baseball.

I may have been terrible, but at least I wouldn’t have quit out of fear. It would have been other incompetence athletically. But I didn’t. I didn’t have that equipment, so I left.

Years later, side note, I was dragging around that shame, and I did go to a batting cage, crank up that pitching machine as fast as I could, and stood there until I could stare down those balls and start making contact with some of them, so I feel like I redeemed myself.

But the bigger point here is, how can you face your fear? If you already named it, now what do you have to do? Is it a piece of equipment? Is it consulting a lawyer? Is it doing some research?

Is it saving up a little nest egg and having a little backup money? Is it taking on a partner? Someone who can take that journey with you and accomplish the goal with you?

There are many different ways to approach a problem or to achieve a goal. So get creative and figure out what kind of helmet you need to build to get through that next step.

Martial arts example again, if you were like I was and primarily a stand up martial artist when the UFC started and you saw people being taken to the ground, pinned and unable to get up, well that was frightening. I could name that fear right away.

I don’t want to get pinned on the ground and choked. So what did I do? I faced a smaller fear, sign up for a BJJ class and start learning how to grapple.

So again, figure it out. Name your fear and then build your plan to protect yourself.

Tip number three, attack. Let’s talk about martial arts again, sparring, fighting, wrestling. You don’t know what your attacker or partner, opponent is going to do. You don’t know what move they’re going to do and you don’t know when they’re going to do it, which creates anxiety. This feeds fear, the unknown.

What’s going to happen? I don’t know. When’s it going to happen? I don’t know.

So attack. Win or lose, do it on your timetable.

When’s this going to happen? Right now, I’m attacking. What’s going to happen? This is going to happen. I’m going to lead the dance.

I’m not going to wait around to see your best move when you’re ready for it. I’m going to force the issue, put pressure on you, and perhaps cause you to do something predictable.

If I throw something up at your face in an attack, there’s a good chance you’re going to raise at least one hand to try to stop that. So now you become a little more predictable. Crazy, chaotic life becomes a little more controllable, which makes me feel safer.

So I find because life is so crazy, who knows what’s going on with the economy, culture shifts, diseases, relationships, betrayals, new friends. So much is out of our control, can’t be predicted.

So don’t wait around and hope that the wind is going to blow your way, that trends are going to go your way. Just get out there and start making moves. Attack.

Get clear on what you want, get clear on what you want, and then get moving.

Tip number four. This one might be a little odd at first, but hang with me. Make some noise.

I have another video where I talk about trigger words. And I don’t mean it in the way of being hurt and victimized by something someone says. I mean talking to yourself as like a trigger to fire, to take an action.

Maybe when you’re under stress and you’re freezing up and your mind is spinning, you need to focus by just training yourself to maybe say go, go, go or fight, fight, fight.

Create a mantra for yourself. Create a code word for yourself that says, all right, I recognize that I’m slipping. I’m starting to have a performance that’s going to be subpar. So here we go…

Here’s my keyword, my trigger word to get me back in action, to back on the attack. It may just be as simple as taking a breath and exhaling. One big breath might do it for you.

It might be more guttural, more primal. You may want to grunt, caveman style. I’m all for that.

Yes, even if you’re in the middle of a business meeting and you know you have to get up and contradict the boss or whatever it is, if you have to go, cough, whatever you have to do, make some noise. I mean, think about the concept of kiai. Kiai in karate. A spirit shout.

You are building up the spirit with your voice, with your breath, to engage the rest of your body, to start some movement.

Think about battle cries in general. We are not the first generation to face stress. I would say back in the day, if you had a spear and a shield and a small village and you are being attacked by the neighboring village or some army, you are outnumbered, your family is behind you, your home is behind you, and all you have is this spear or an axe and you have to go running into that battlefield to fight, into this field of butchery.

People have done this, you know, millions. So what do they do? They bang on drums and they scream and they bring up that spirit to go fight.

So in whatever way you find appropriate, I would say, find a word, find a sound, find a mantra, shout it out, do what you got to do to get some noise out of your body. Don’t let the fear freeze you. Free up your heart, free up your muscles by making some noise.

Tip number five, practice.

You know, martial arts, I’ve watched a lot of videos, I’ve listened to a lot of teachers, been to seminars, talked to a lot of people. And almost all of the conversation, all of the content is physical. It’s technique talk, it’s style versus style talk, it’s mechanical. There’s a much smaller percentage of that material that addresses psychology and emotions.

And look, I know a lot of people who have put in the time physically, but if you go slap them in the face, it’s likely they’re going to freeze up and fall apart, as if they have no training. But that’s only because they’ve been focused on the mechanics and the muscle, and not on their mind and their heart.

So I would say it’s very important to practice your psychology of fighting. Practice the emotions, practice your courage. And it can be as simple as just closing your eyes or sitting down somewhere, and use your imagination. Play the what-if game.

Imagine the most terrifying situations you can. Shark attack is a good one. Imagine whenever you want being pulled out of your car at a red light in a mob scene, gone crazy. And just see it, visualize it.

I think even with imagination, you’ll feel your heart race a little bit, you might feel a little clammy. You can trick yourself into actually starting to get a little nervous. And in those moments, practice your trigger word. Practice taking control of your breath. Visualize how you’re going to stand. What expression is on your face. How you want to move. What you’re going to say.

It can be as extreme, of course, as an actual battlefield. Or maybe you’re preparing for a job interview that’s got you nervous. And you want to just bring up a little courage. Great, then just imagine it.

Imagine walking in. Imagine how you’re going to sit. Rehearse it.

Maybe now take your imagination and in a safe space, like a dojo or your living room or in the shower when no one’s around. Whatever you have to do, rehearse the movement.

We have kata and forms and drills for the physical parts of our martial arts, the physical parts of fighting, and we do those ad nauseum over and over and over. But where are your reps for emotional strength? Where are the reps for building courage?

It’s, I would say, not just as important, I’d say it’s more important. Because if you freeze up psychologically, if you have no spirit, doesn’t matter how big your muscles are or how many times you’ve practiced those techniques.

So, rehearse, get the reps in with your mind and your heart.

Alright, let’s wrap this up.

Don’t forget, the first point is probably the most important. In extreme crisis, there is an emergency mode that I believe you will find yourself in. It will click over and you’ll be ready to fight.

But we don’t have to wait for code red to be at our best. As these fine people at the cremation service have reminded me, life is short. Therefore, consider life to be an emergency.

We’re always in code red. Every moment could be your last.

If you treat life like an emergency, if you accept that it’s just a matter of time before you are dropped in a box or you are slid into a furnace, I think you’ll find the motivation to get out there and do your thing. And do it now.

Attack life before it attacks you.

Alright, enough said. The clock is ticking, my friend. Get out there and make your moves before the Grim Reaper makes his move on you.

Until next time, smiles up, my friend. Let that smile be your shield and your sword. Keep fighting for a happy life.

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