The Right Amount of Energy
I have been studying Martial Arts the last 7 years and it has been a life changing experience. I earned my First Degree Black Belt after year 4 and this Fall will be evaluating for my Second Degree Black Belt. The instruction is interesting and fun. Constantly moving and challenging my body has enhanced my life in many ways.
As I am practicing toward my upcoming evaluation, I have found that I think a lot about the energy I am using as I do a form. The concept of using “the right amount of energy for each moment” was something I learned from Shirley Dorritie, and this has revolutionized my thinking and really improved my martial arts.
I took the time to read Shirley Dorritie’s new book “Performing at the Top of Your Game: Practical Strategies for When It Really Count” this year and I found it full of information that I can use in my own performance and when working with students or educators. I was so impressed that I have had several conversations with Shirley that I hope you’ll watch and listen to on a PODCAST, WEBINAR, and ZOOM WEBINAR. You can buy the book HERE.
One of the concepts that interested me the most was the idea of using the right amount of energy at each moment. Shirley discusses this concept in Chapter 7, and specifically on page 170 she writes “Use the exact amount of energy necessary: No more, no less.” This has profound implications. When we are ready to perform any task that is important in our lives, we need to have rehearsed exactly how to do this in the very best fashion, including memorizing the amount of energy required to perform it exactly as we wish.
There is a natural tendency to “try harder” in important moments “when it really counts.” Students get to a contest performance and feel they need to try harder than in practice because so much is on the line. But this can lead to using too much energy, triggering an avalanche of problems. In the book, Shirley discusses how a student who may appear to stop caring during a performing has actually tried too hard and fallen into this state. What an eye-opening revelation!
When I spoke with Scott Chandler for the course Winning Design he discussed this concept of performing with the exact amount of energy and effort you had practiced. He explains how this was especially an issue with the group in Japan that he has worked with for so many years. They had a tendency to try harder in a big championship performance and a multitude of problems followed. He had to remind them to perform exactly as they had rehearsed, not “trying harder” (or using more energy than required.)
In my martial arts, this manifested in my first degree black belt evaluation. I was surprised by a task I did not expect early in the test and found myself exhausting myself, using too much energy to try to performing something I had not really practiced. I found myself literally sitting on the floor gasping for breath in the first 10 minutes of the evaluation. I had to leave the studio and go collect myself in the bathroom. I did return and successfully finish, but I was shaken by the experience. Now all these years later I see clearly what happened as I did NOT use the correct amount of energy.
As I prepare for my Second Degree Evaluation this November I am thinking of this helpful concept all the time. I will practice to use the correct amount of energy as I perform each form. Certainly there are times when I push myself to see if I can work harder, kick higher, or push my body. But ultimately I will memorize the amount of effort at each moment in the form and one of the true measures of success I will have for my own performance will be my ability to stick to this “when it really counts.”
Tim Hinton
June 17, 2021
