Close Combat Training – The Importance of Training Your Mind

Many close combat training programs will focus entirely on the physical aspect of self defense, while ignoring the mental aspects. When you think about learning self defense techniques, you probably think about all of the physical effort that you are going to have put forth. While you are right about the physical side, you must also realize you will need to undergo mental training as well. Some people argue that the mental preparation may be even more important than the physical preparation. Let’s take a quick look at why training your mind is just important as training your body.

One of the biggest reasons that you cannot ignore the mental aspects of close combat training is that if you are mentally unprepared for an encounter, no amount of training will help you. If your mind is not ready to take action, your body will not be able to react. In regards to this aspect of mental training, the most beneficial thing that you can do is to stay actively alert. Actively alert means that you not only know what is going on around you, but understand where you are in conjunction with nearby objects, people, and potential threats. The best way to do this is to try and identify 3 potential threats every time that you enter a room. By doing this, your mind will get used to assessing every environment that you enter. It may sound silly, but even went you sit down to watch television in your own home, you should be able to identify a few threats. Maybe you ceiling fan could fall down or your couch could break and collapse. This may sound a little silly, but the goal here is train your mind that it should assess potential threats in every environment.

Another reason that training your mind is so important when learning self defense techniques is that actual confrontations are unlike anything you have trained for. It doesn’t matter how long you have been in close combat training, your first altercation is a unique experience. This is because you will get a surge of adrenaline and if your mind is not sharp, it can actually dull your reaction time. The reason it does this is that your mind gets stuck trying to choose between fight or flight. This momentary hesitation could be just what your attacker needs to land the first blow.

A final reason that mental preparation is important is because your mind controls your body. Even when you react without thinking, your mind is still in control of your body. The only difference is that your subconscious mind is in control instead of your conscious mind. If your mind is not sharp, your body will not be sharp either.

As you can see, there are a number of reasons that you need to train your mind as well as your body when learning self defense techniques. Three benefits of combining close combat training and mental training are increased preparedness, reacting quickly, and gaining better control over your body.

Tags: Close Combat Training, Self Defense Techniques