This was copied from the Legio Draconis boards and written by Sir Tristan of the SCA.
I had an interesting discussion recently with a local fighter who is going through something that many fighters do, and wanted to discuss it here to help others who might be experiencing the same thing. It is a plateau, of sorts.
He asked me how he was doing since he's been working fairly hard on improving his footwork, range control, and timing over the past year or two. He has been fighting for about 15 years. I told him that I saw remarkable improvement in every area he was working on. Then came his response.
He said that he was very disappointed because he didn't *feel* any better than he was before. He said he still struggled in tournaments and hadn't noticed his win percentage increase. As background, he fights in some tournaments but is not a tourney hound, and favors practices. He went on to explain that the knights he fights still beat him with the same frequency and he asked if they (myself included) step up their game.
From my perspective, he is caught in a mental trap which is easy to fall into. We sometimes think that skill must have a victorious feeling attached to it. In reality, it doesn't. Even the most skilled fighters deal with failure. Failure doesn't leave you with a victorious feeling. Even the feeling of exhilaration when you overcome a bad habit or issue fades quickly when the next obstacle presents itself.
For those who are caught up in pursuing that elusive 'ass-kicker' high, it really isn't out there. Those who enjoy that do so in their own mind only. They get beat with the same regularity that everyone else does, they just choose their own fantasy world of invincibility instead of facing the reality that they make mistakes and get beaten.
If you find you are chasing the feeling, let go of that in your mind. Focus on honing your skills and remain objective about what you are doing and the progress you are making. You will be able to see your targeting, balance, control of range, etc. improve without having to use win/loss percentages to measure. If you want your W/L percentage to go up, just fight newer people. It is obvious what folly that would be.
Fighting has three stratas which a warrior must pass through to mastery:
1) The physical. Like learning the alphabet, these are the basic building blocks of fighting. They are the basic movements (shots and blocking) and elements of timing, range and balance. The physical is about you and what you are doing.
2) The mental. You move from the alphabet to the words and their meanings. When you have the basics to the point where you don't have to consciously think of them and your body does them automatically, you start exploring the mental aspect. Until that happens, the mental side can seem a mystery. The mental fight takes into account tactics, combinations, more advanced maneuvering, rhythm, positioning and perception of your opponent and his intent. The mental is about what your opponent is doing.
3) The spiritual. This plane is very difficult to cross into and few fighters do. Using the language analogy, it is complex conversation. Like the previous planes, you have to leave the previous (mental) behind to cross to the spiritual. It is where you understand all that is around both you and your opponent and act without thought, each time appropriately. By the time you arrive at this plane, you've left the details of the physical and mental behind. The spiritual is about what you and your opponent do together, how you interact and guiding that interaction.
You cannot rush forward with this progression, it must happen in it's own time. You can only train, and continue to train, and train further.
In the case of man I was talking to, I believe he is caught at the natural point of progression going from the physical to the mental. He cannot let go of his intense focus on the physical aspects of fighting which is the plateau he sits on. The solution is to change his mind. Changing how you look at something is how plateaus are overcome. Fighting isn't a physical art, it is more than that.
A young man comes to the sword master, eager to learn the way of the sword. He asks "Master, how long will it take for me to master swordsmanship?"
The master responds "Ten years."
The impatient youth asks further "What if I study hard every day, morning until night, devoting all my attention to my skills. How long would it take then?"
The master responds "Twenty years."
Why would the master respond as such?