in the zone!
how do u get in the zone! latley i have been suffering from problems about not being able to highten my senses and being ready for anything.just wondering what it takes for others to rise to the challenge. no sexual puns intended.

I think over training keeps you out of the zone. Pushing to fast too soon also keeps you out of the zone as it forces you into survival mode.

In the zone feelings are positive, flowing, smooth, competative, energizing (not fatiguing). Training should always be towards the zone, not away from it IMO.

Over training and pushing too much is teaching you to move away from the zone.

Fear keeps us out of the zone. Hard sparring when not ready teaches one to fear and 'breaking past' the fear is only burying it and creating means to cover it (like anger for example).

Watch the greats fight and perform and see what emotions you would attribute to them.

Train those emotions in training. Feel that place in training. When ever you are feeling the opposite in training you are teaching yourself to move away from them IMO

Training should be fun. Look at Jorden move on the court, Look at Samart..

I also think the western focus on the opponent keeps you away from this zone which is inside yourself.

We fight the other guy. I htink if we are there to do our best and not to loose to ourselves I think that zone can be more easily found.

You fight to win but letting go of the outcome allows the present to unfold. It allows your senses to be doing the now. No fear of the outcome. Not fighting to prove but to be and be doing what you will and intend.

When you focus on the other guy you cannot allow self to move with intuition IMO

We say we can only beat ourselves... If true opponents can only beat themselves. That would mean we can't beat anyone. If true why not just do what we can do and let them beat themselves.

There is no loosing if your perspective is right IMO. So let go of that fear and be in the moment the best you can. Letting go allows you to perform at a higher level IMO and will give you the best chance of winning.

Paradox-letting go of winning helps you win.

Focus on him you can not be all with yourself. Movemnt and fighting ideally are intuitive, not premeditative. If you think its too late. All you can do is be. Be present with yourself and the situation and allow yourself to move thoughtlessly I think is getting into that zone.

That zone feels like everything just flows. It just is. You just move without conscious intention and it just happens.

Overtraining will always take out out of a zone.

Just a couple of my opinions...

I think trying to 'beat' another human being will keep us out of the zone. I think doing our thing and being the best fighter we can be aloows us to slip into a zone more easily. Letting go of the out come. Letting go of the fact he isn't that good or is way better. Just being what you train to be with interuption and disruption of thoughts of future or past (winning is in the future and the fear of loosing is from your past). With the right mind set there is no loosing anyway. That is only perception.

Mental prep and training to fight. Not training to try harder and getting more and more physical and less and less creative and intuative. Balance and flow. Blending of the hard and soft...letting the body perform instead of trying to force a performance. Allowing intuition and instinct to guide training into the place you wish to be instead of being totally left brained, stressed out and angry (to cover fear) and worrying about something in the future because of your past programming.

Too out there? LOL

being humble will help too IMO

mentally prepare and train for, how you want to fight.

Do you want to close down everything except forcing your muscles on and on and on? Do you want to flow and perform? Do you want to force it out with all your might or do you want to allow it all to come togather with balanced beauty, blending the physical with the mental and emotional and essentially spiritual (depending on your interpretation). In other words allowing all of you to blend by letting go. Holding tight keeps us very left brained and physical and with out balace you can't move fluidly and you tire out fast!

im the humblest guy ever know as well as the most polite. appresiate your views mark. they are something i already know but have maybe lost along the line so me where. it was more a general thing than fight wise but the principalas are more or less the same. cheers bud maybe i will rememberto prcxtice what i preach and listen to some sound idvice. also maybe you should rhyme that shit off and get into a recording studio for the more sentimental of us you may have a hit on your hands. im not mental just dig your grove man! peace out>

LOL

You brought that out in me so thank you. We all learn from each other and essentially only from ourselves IMO&E. So thank yourself as well and I thank you for bringing that out and I thank me for learning that a bit more as well.

By the way we must be connected some way cause I am the most humble guy I know too :P

thank the lord brother

thats some good insight mark food for though I guess.

If it rings right with you consider it if you'd like. If not then please don't :)

The more stuck we are in the survival mode the less we can get in that zone, IMO&E.

Thats the thing survival mode is a natural instinct. Being in a zone takes some calmness and thought

I think its balance. Fighting will automatically put one into a fight or flight response. I think how far and how strong a response will effect how much you are acting like you are fighting for your life or how much you can perform at your peak.

In a stress response the blood goes to different areas of the brain for example.

n a combat sport you want to flow like any other sport. You want to get into the zone. You want to access your potential and not have a animalistic survival response IMO&E.

Killing yourself in training every day is training to go into that fight or flight response (yelling in the corner keeps him there and doesn't allow much recovery too IMO&E).

You certainly want a stress response when fighting, just like in most sports. But I think the more balanced the response the more one can move on intuition, can use timing and creativity. The more of a stress response the more you'll through training out the window. How many first time fighters train well andn look good but perform poorly? Why? I think because the fight or flight kicks in and takes away their ability to do what they are trained.

I think this is always a factor and I think the greats in most any sport don't go quite so deep into the fight or flight reposnse.

In a fight or flight response you don't need calmness-you need to run like hell or fight for your life. Lets not pretend fighting for your life is the same as figthing in the ring. Watch some bigginers fight, guys that are your tough guys that have survival/family stress (often very worried about making money). You'll see them zone out and look like their pissed almost and kinda brawl, no matter what they do in training.

They are stuck in a survival response big time (thats cool).

The funny thing is as fighters, many of us have issues related to family (often father issues), issues related to money (like we never feel we have enough no matter how much we make-safety/security).

If you were to poll fighters I think a very high percentage would fit that profile. Thats not good or bad its just info...

The point? How to get into less of a stress response and more into a performance response is all about balance.

(dealing with father issues and money issues etc would help IMO&E)

But not over training and training a full out stress response all the time would also help IMO&E

Mark what would you suggest to be the best way to get a balanced response when fighting? How much of the way you perform and act in the ring could be contributed to outside (of training) influences that may throw your mind off course or perhaps keep you out of a focused zone? Probably a lot I would guess.

think i may be living in the zone permanently.. maybe shou;d rename this thread get out of the zone. seem to be to laid back and unfazable at all times. somtimes i would like to fly of the handle a bit more. it quite suprising i live quite a pressurised life some would say.

jjju.g.k-I think thoughts and feelings in our body are like instrument gages on a car.

Any negative physical feeling or negative emotion or negative thinking are gages as to what is going on inside.

That may be a bit of a generalization but basically I think it is true. If one chronically feels or thinks a certain way then there are underlaying issues that have created the habit and the habit itself I think.. But basically the gages are there to be read.

Just like a headache is a signal from the body something is wrong or out of balance so is frustration in training for example.

Training can be challanging and tiring but fatigue and negative emotions are a sign of over training for sure.

Think about emotions when you are sick... it changes. Well out of balance in the body changes emotions regardless of what the imbalancing factor is IMO&E

You know your in a balanced response when you are alert, full of life, clear and strong, when you feel positively challenged.

How many people love MuayThai and training?? How many have come to hate it or sometimes hate it?? That is a very good sign that there is over training going on.

Its really just learning to listen to your body talk. Being more present and aware of self. Being more sensitive to signals coming from self.

Physical symptoms will often come much later. Your body is screaming at you to listen.

Guess what? I had denervative atrophy before i started to learn how to listen. My offering to you is the suggestion that you don't wait that long.

I mean getting pissed at a gf for something silly is likely a sign of imbalance in the body of some kind. But if you just listen and see. Be aware when you feel like shit and think about what you have been doing..

Lets say your body was fighting off something...a flu.. and you didnt even know. That would effect the ability to train. Pushing through and harder all the time when the body is saying I don't have enough for that right now, not only does damage but you shut down the signals so the body gets worse and worse and you get louder and louder signals untill one day you WILL listen or at least obey. You may not be aware but when you are bed ridden or unable to train...your body will always win.

Not enjoying training anymore is a BIG signal. Difficulty sleeping. HRV. Keep a check on your anger and frustration.

Do you get sick all the time? I went into almost every fight sick or injured. But I was of the old school, no pain no gain..

Listen to your body. Respect your body. Know YOU know best about your health, not your trainer, not a doctor. They should be there to advise you. If I havce a student that is tired I will not push them as all it does is damage.

If they are always tired and they don't change that then they simply will not fight for me. If they make the changes nessasary to have the energy to train then cool. Its up to them. I will not run people into the ground so they can be a fighter.

A headache is not an asprin defficiency. Its a signal.

fatigue is a signal.

frustration, anger, bordom, not being able to focus or concentrate, mental lathargy, lack of motivation (BIG ONE) etc etc

Imagine taking away all your sick and injury time off or the time off you take cause you just don't want to anymore.... Add that up in training and where could you be?? For many of us we would find we'd be further ahead than where we are now.

Fear makes you weak. Fear is not supportive of growth and learning. Fear is not fun. (exceptions I'm sure)

If sparring is progressed slowly then we don't teach our selves to always be afraid (often we learn to mask the fear but it doesn't mean its not there).

Fear of getting hurt, fear of failure, fear of not being good enough etc etc
From growing up we often have bits of this in us and pushing past a point triggers it (anger and frustration are common masks for fear).

Training, as serious as it can be should always have an ellement of I want to be hear cause I love it. I am enjoying this even though it is hard. If that is not there I htink we have a probelm IMO&E

I'm going to put this to the test mark and see if I can judge what my body is trying to signal to me. I've always been one to try and sweat out a cold or flu never really considered it to be harmful, but I guess when your body is already weakened exerting energy towards training probably isn't the brightest idea.

Ask yourself what is more important. Running from a liion or healing a cold?

The sympathetic stress response (fight or flight) we put ourselves in is designed to put fight or flight first over EVRYTHING else.

Dealing with that cancer is not important when a lion is chasing you. Repair is not important when a lion is chasing you.

If you are stessed at work, at home, stress yourself before bed, stressed from not sleeping, stressed from the toxic foods you eat and then go add training stress...what time do you have for recovery, repair, building???

The more recovery we have the more stress we can add.

The less stress we have over all the more exercise stress we can add.

The more money you put in the bank the more you can take out. Its that simple in concept.

So if you have a cold and you exercise you are shutting down the healing response because a lion chasing you is a bigger priority than a cold.


I'm not suggesting do nothing. But maybe some light shadow eyes closed and do visualization. Hell sit a do visualization. plenty of studies on that that show how effective it is.

One story of a woman who couldn't train (I forget if it was a car accident or what) but she visualized her race daily. This is for the olympics by the way. I think when she could finally train she had a month or something stupid... anyway she did awesome. Maybe a personal best and or won, I forget...

Point is there is plenty of training we can do that is extremely effective without running down our body even more.

Sitting and visualizing may be a powerful training tool and in our overstressed culture and lifestyle sitting and visualizing helps bring us closer into balance as it is a recovery, repair (parasympathetic) exercise.

Plenty of studies show the relative comparrison from training physically and from visualizing.

Over use it and it will break down.

Visualization helps bring you into deeper self awareness also I think and would help with the 'zone'.

feelings and emotions are huge too. Seeing myself and those around me change when coming into balance is pretty cool.

Road rage, getting angry at family or gf etc.. frustrated at work. They are all signs of imbalance (though could because of other things... but they are always signals-funny when you change someones diet and hydration how their mood changes)

Enjoy the journey and keep us posted :)