Discipline is our ultimate weapon in the daily war on wasted time and aimless effort. For most successful people, it’s habitual — and it can be for anyone who’s willing. Learned through decades of martial arts practice and Special Forces soldiering, these three tips to master self-discipline could help provide your will with a way.
If you think discipline is restrictive and routine is dull, you’re missing out. Those who’ve mastered self-discipline know that it’s the key to freedom, because you can achieve and experience much more in life with it than you can without it.
Lots of people set themselves goals, but if you really want to instil the mindset required for success, try going on a mission instead. And before you start, pay close attention to the three key elements of mission planning.
You’re a generally calm, sociable human being…so how do you learn to mentally ‘flick the switch’ and become an instrument of violence when your life is under threat? Try this oldie-but-goody: the Stimulus/Conditioned Response Training Principle.
In military and self-protection training, we often talk about mindset and about posture. But rarely do we recognise how the two are related, and the effect our posture can have on the mindset of others. That’s what makes the ‘hunting posture’ so important for soldiers in close-quarter combat.
The Australian Army Combatives Program heralds a new approach to close-combat within the defence force Down Under. Instituted in 2017, it gives Aussie soldiers greater capability to defend themselves against the terrorist threat.
The power of mindset — and the effect our training has on its development — may only become clear when tested under extreme circumstances.
Knowing how soldiers apply their CQC skills on the battlefield can teach us a lot about self-defence. A report by the US Army suggests that those martial arts that best train balance — such as grappling systems — are the key to surviving in close combat.
To be scientific in our approach to combat, we must first set fear, and dogma, aside. If we can control fear, we’re also more likely to spot the charlatans who seek to exploit it.
The key to self-defence is not some secret, deadly martial arts technique — it’s threat awareness. So if your training is only focused on the punching, kicking and grappling, it had better prepare you for dealing with a surprise attack…
