My introduction to the world of keep-fit was in the early seventies. In those days, I was young and severely lacking in mental discipline.
It was a time when martial arts were being introduced to the Western world predominantly by icons such as Bruce Lee. I joined a class in a small underground Dojo in Temple Passage, just off New Street in Birmingham City Centre. It was run by a man named Master Jeremy Yau. At that time, he was thirty-five years old and wore a red sash, the highest grade attainable in the martial art of Lau Gar Kung Fu. In 1972 The British Kung Fu Association was launched with Master Yau at its head.
My first session was on a Friday evening, and it lasted for one hour. There were around twenty of us in the class, and we spent the first forty-five minutes listening to Master Yau talking to us about the philosophies and culture surrounding the art of Kung Fu, along with an in-depth lecture regarding the discipline and dedication required to be successful. Master Yau had been training back in his homeland of China since he was five years old. As it was to turn out, he was the fittest, fastest and deadliest individual I had ever, and I think, have ever met. After our first forty-five-minute lecture or introduction, he told us to form two lines in the dojo. The next fifteen minutes were a massive eye-opener for me and, I assume, everyone else there as well. I had never worked so hard in such a short period in my life, and I left the session wondering how on earth I would ever be able to maintain such a punishing routine.
Mental Discipline
It is all about mental discipline. First, you have to want to do it, and then you have to make it a personal vendetta, a target that you will not fail to achieve.
I started with two sessions a week in the beginning. Tuesdays were style and technique training, and Fridays were hard physical training, stretching, kicking, punching, cardio and whatever else you could think of. After only a few weeks, I suddenly realised that the hard training sessions had become so much easier than they were to begin with that I found myself looking at my watch in amazement when the sessions ended. I remember thinking, “Blimey, is that an hour already”.
I quickly found myself training for much longer sessions, three hours on a Friday, two of which were hard training and one for technique, plus two other sessions throughout the week, usually on a Tuesday, one for technique and one for hard training.
It is incredible how quickly you can adapt to a challenge if you put your mind to it. The main thing is that you must want to do something before you can accomplish it. Passion and mental discipline are the key components. It is no good saying that you are going to do something just because you think that it is something that you should be doing or that it’s something that everyone else is doing and you just want to fit in, or look cool, or be one of the crowd, or whatever.
You need to want to do it for your own reasons. You also need to develop mental discipline to ensure that you keep at it on a regular basis.
Next, you need to tell yourself that if you fail in your task, then you are letting no one else down other than yourself.
If I set myself a goal, whether fitness-oriented or not, I tell myself that I will achieve that goal no matter what. If, for any reason, I should quit, then I regard it as a personal level of shame and disgrace. That is a form of mental discipline.
If you can foster good mental discipline within yourself, then it is also a great idea to broadcast your intentions to your friends and peers. That way, you are setting yourself up as a kind of scapegoat for the masses. If you fail now, you are leaving yourself open to potential public ridicule and scorn.
Of course, this way of thinking can go far beyond just personal fitness. It promotes a regime of mental discipline, of self-discipline which permeates your whole life in everything you do, from punctuality to overall reliability. It makes you a more robust and reliable person in general and serves to assist in everything you do on a daily basis throughout the whole of your personal life and career.
Self-discipline is everything if you wish to succeed in life, and the basis of self-discipline is good mental discipline. One of the best ways that I know to instil that within yourself is via a hard, regular physical fitness regime.
