#125: How to Train Your Killer Instinct [Video Podcast] cover art

#125: How to Train Your Killer Instinct [Video Podcast]

#125: How to Train Your Killer Instinct [Video Podcast]

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 Welcome to Episode #125 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “Killer Instinct.” Speed, power, and flexibility are all important, yes… but here’s the truth– They’re not enough! When it comes to surviving a real-life attack (or even just winning a tournament), you need killer instinct! You need to release your full fighting spirit! But here’s the problem… Most of us are “too nice”. Even though the essence of martial arts is a study of death, most of us would rather not train in such an extreme mindset. Unfortunately, that is exactly what makes good people vulnerable! So, let’s take a stroll back into the jungle and see if we can rekindle some of our primal power… before we get eaten alive! To LISTEN to “Killer Instinct,” just hit play below. Play the audio podcast below… or download to your device.Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher or Google Podcasts or Spotify. To WATCH the video version or READ the transcript, scroll down below. If you’d like to support this show, share the link with a friend or leave a quick review over on iTunes. Thank you! Oh—and don’t forget to sign up for free email updates so you can get new shows sent to your inbox the minute they’re released. Thanks for listening! Keep fighting for a happy life! How to Train Your Killer Instinct Here’s a video of the podcast. If the player doesn’t work, you can click this direct link. As always, if you’d like to keep the conversation going, feel free to leave a comment here or through my Contact Page. TRANSCRIPT Howdy! Ando here from Happy Life Martial Arts. Welcome to episode #125 of Fight for a Happy Life, the show that believes even a little martial arts makes life a whole lot better. Yes, I’m back. After a six-month hiatus–I didn’t plan it, it just happened– I’m back. But I’m even more thrilled that you stopped by to say hello. So welcome back to you too. Let’s go! What’s that? Oh, the sweater. Do you like that? I’ll explain that in a minute. But let’s start off today’s show talking about frustration. My frustration. Years and years of frustration. Why? Because I kept getting beat. No matter how hard I trained, no matter how much I studied, I feel that I was losing to people who trained far less than I did. People who took it far less seriously than I did. And I would go to my teachers after class in the dark shadows. And I would confess this. I would say, Listen, I’m working really hard here, but I’m getting beat. Everybody’s beating me. New people are beating me. Something’s wrong. And they were always very supportive. They’d say, No, no, you’re doing great. You’re a good student. But maybe you’re just being too nice. Too nice. I would argue with them. I would say, No, no, you don’t understand. In my head, I’m not being nice at all. Of course, I’m a nice person, so I’m training with safety and respect. But I really am trying to win a lot of the time. I have an ego. I have a temper. I have a competitive spirit. So I’m not giving anybody anything once the action starts. So, I would come back to the conclusion that I just need to practice harder. And practicing harder meant focusing on technical attributes. And it still wouldn’t be enough. Another six months would go by. Another year would go by. I would come back to my teacher and say, I’m still getting beat. Something’s wrong. And again, they would say, Maybe you’re just being too nice. I would say, No, I’m not being nice. And the cycle would continue over and over, for lo, these many years. So what really is the issue? What has been the problem for me, personally, which perhaps you can relate to? I believe it all came down to one thing. Killer instinct. I have figured out– maybe it took way too long– that developing a killer instinct is a skill of its own. You can focus all you want on speed and power, flexibility and mobility, pain tolerance, sensitivity. You can study as many books as you want, talk to as many teachers as you want to. Flow like water. None of it matters if you don’t have killer instinct to back it up. If you can’t finish a fight, then you’re finished. This is what I figured out. Now, that brings us to the sweater. Check out this sweater. This is getting me in the spirit of killer instinct. What do we got here? It’s a big cat, a panther, a predator, a meat eater. In the wild, clearly, you must have a killer instinct. Either you eat or you die. And that’s whether you eat a plant, kill a plant, or kill a fellow animal. It’s eat or be eaten. Now, in the last podcast, #124, the topic was to stop pulling your punches. And I argued six months ago that we need to push ourselves in training, to go to 100%. And I’m saying that wasn’t even deep enough. The language there wasn’t deep enough. In the last six months, I’ve only come to a doubling down on this theme. We must release our fighting spirit in its most primal execution, most primal expression. ...
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