what do you do when you feel the burn going away?

[Maddwraph]

for your martial arts i mean. after you get bored, what do you do, if you get bored a tsome time? like if you dont feel as excited for it as you did when you started? im just curious what you guys think on this.

[Chaz]

In my experiance I pass through phases such as these, but I just keep going to get over those rough times. You just have to remember that time that you felt really good, and then realize that your better than that presently... Thats what I do...

[SaiFightsMS]

Sometimes a break helps. Other times learning a new weapon helps. Or exploring another aspect of what you are currently working on.

[karatekid1975]

My instructor got into a talk about that the other night. He said that there's ways to work through it (and I agree with him). Find a kata/hyung that you need to work on, a certain technique, or refining your technique over all. There is always SOMETHING that you can work on. Find what you think is "so-so" in your bag of tricks, and make it better.

If that doesn't work, usually a short break in training helps, or dabbling in another art for a bit.

[AnonymousOne]

Boredom?

If you have set realistic goals for yourself and are actively working on them, the things you need to do to achieve them become easy.

Labouring over one technique assiduously may become boring to some people, but they are losing sight of the end result. If you are result conscious rather than task conscious you wont ever get bored.

Boredom is a mental attitude and a choice to make. Laying aside boredom and concentrating on the excitement of getting better everyday will set the great aside from the mediocre.

If you have set a goal that you find exciting then the tasks you have to complete wont become boring but rather exciting.

For example for the last 20 years or so, I rise at 5.30 am and go running. One day I will run 4 miles in about 25 minutes and then next day I will do sprint training and then the next day back to my 4 mile run and so on.

It’s the same old thing day in and day out 6 days per week. Do I get bored?

Never! I awake with excitement, despite the weather, about getting out there and working to improve my abilities.

In the evenings I train in various things, depending on the night. However my schedule has me performing hundreds of repetitions of the basics I have been performing for 40 years. Do I get bored?

Never! I love the fact that I can continually improve my abilities, skills and techniques.

In fact I thrive on adversity. I am 48, and I love the fact that people my age when they are overweight and can hardly walk up a flight of stairs, that I am able to outrun 98% of people young enough to be my children and outgun to a significant degree, students who are assiduously training and entering contest fights.

Training is wonderful. If we concentrate on goals, that is, goals that are exciting and motivating then boredom should never come into play.

However your training goals must be believable. Set goals that stretch you but at the same time you have to believe you will achieve them through hard work.

If you have those two factors sorted out then training, no matter what it is, becomes exciting.

During the day at work, I will suddenly be reminded of the schedule I have for myself that night and there is a deep sense of excitement about going at it one more time.

Despite the fact that my training schedules, which are custom designed and extremely hard work, I find myself having a great deal of enthusiasm about completing the work that I have demanded of myself.

Massive repetition doesn’t bother me because I think to myself, "What will this lead to?" and then think about the end results after working this way for months and years.

You see the focus is on the goal not the task. The task would be boring if I didn’t have a clear picture of the goal in my mind.

So think about the goal, not the task

One more point. I am very grateful that I am able to train. Many many years ago I got very sick and was in hospital for 2 months. I couldn’t do any training obviously. I tried to do some light exercises but the doctors and nurses busted me!

I thought then how horrible it would be if I had some long term illness or some disability that would stop me training for the rest of my life like many people. In this time I gained a new appreciation for the fact that I can train and I counted my blessings and I am very grateful the good Lord allows me the health to be able to do what I love.

We need to count our blessings and put them into perspective. Like the old saying “You don’t know what you have got until it is gone” is so true.

[Thaegen]

AnonymousOne you made a great post!

[y2_sub]

Sometimes you just get boared . Sometimes you are so depressed from life so that affects your passion for martial arts and everything else , sometimes you don't need to do any new technique or kata , or work on another aspect , sometimes you juat need a break

[Sam]

wow, i thought i had loads to say on this, ive been through it a couple of times, but anonymousOne summed it all up, just (a) keep at it , and (b) find more than one thing to work on;

I always find something new to look at, or a new aspect, adn then cycle through the various practices and areas of training, trying to mix them as much as possible.

[The Saint]

I've tried other kinds of MA and come back to the one I originally started. Crosstraining in between ars can be useful and teach you lots of new things. Learning new styles and technics could improve your art. No one style is perfect, stick with it thou. I'd suggest finding small details within your style to polish the overall aspect of the art. An example would be possibly moving a stance to generate more power or tweeking a pattern/kata to make the form more polished. Just think of it as tearing it apart to figure out why it was craeted that way (rational behind it). I have seen people that were burnt out discover more passion within their art when making a simple change.

[boxeador]

Everyone gets bored at some time or another. What always helped me is to just think back and see how much i've improved over the last month. It's always exciting to know your better at something then you were before. Even if the change is minor be happy that you are improving.