What the Beatles can teach you about success in Martial Arts?
Unless you’ve been living on another planet you’ll probably have a pretty good idea who the Beatles are.
The Beatles are arguably the most successful British band ever. Without doubt they had a significant impact on modern music.
Among their many achievements it’s estimated they have sold over a billion records and hold the record for most number-one hits on the Billboard Hot 100, with twenty.
But the Beatles path to super-stardom was not a smooth path.
For many years prior to their explosion on world music stage, they struggled to achieve any sort of success.
On their route to fame and fortune they ended up doing several tours of Hamburg between 1960-63.
Unfortunately, it was not glitz and glamour you are imagining. They played 8 – 12 hours per day for month’s on end in some of Hamburg’s seedier clubs.
Due to playing many hours a day for seven days a week, it’s estimated they played for nearly 10’000 hours during their time in Hamburg.
Many people, such as Malcolm Gladwell, also believe this is the reason behind their success.
Let me explain further. As you can imagine playing the same songs for over and over becomes very monotonous. To alleviate the boredom the Beatles started to explore other genre’s of music.
Thousands of hours, playing multiple genre’s of music had a dramatic impact on their musical skill, and gave them a completely unique sound.
Now I’m not saying that simply by playing for thousands of hours you can become the new Beatles. You still need the creative genius to go with it, but I can guarantee you’ll be a damn fine musician.
So how does all this relate to Martial Arts success?
Whether you’re trying to become a success in Music, Martial Arts, or anything else the key ingredient’s remain the same.
Practice, Consistency, Hard Work, and Patience.
Let’s look at each of these in a little greater depth.
Practice
While practice is important. How you practice is equally important and can have a big impact on your level of success.
While the Beatles were playing for countless hours in Hamburg, they weren’t just going through the motions.
They were performing and those performances had to be perfect. After all their jobs depended on it.
When you’re practicing your martial arts don’t just practice, focus on what you are doing and make it perfect.
Your goal should be to internalise the movements so they become natural and instinctive.
Consistency
Consistency is a key to ingredients success in anything.
Perfect practice will train you teach what to do and how to do it. Consistent practice will make it part of you.
The Beatles were forces into consistent practice by a contract and the need to eat.
A good martial art instructor you will provide you with structured sessions to train in, and should also hold you accountable for attending them.
However, it’s also up to you to make sure you attend them.
Hard Work
Playing for hours on end is hard work.
The body will fatigue. The mind will tire. And an element of boredom will set in no matter how much you love what you’re doing.
To be successful you need to embrace the hard work and stay focused on your goal.
You should relish the challenge of pushing your body to new levels and reaching seemingly impossible goals.
Just like the Beatles sang “It’s been a hard day’s night, and I’d been working like a dog…”
Embrace the highs and lows of your martial arts training, but make your goal to give 100% in every class you attend.
Patience
There is no fast track to achieving success. Anyone that says otherwise is lying to you.
Achieving success takes time. It might be a year or two or five in the case of the Beatles but with consistent perfect practice and hard work you will get there.
There will be plenty of times you’ll think of quitting as I’m sure the Beatles did, but stay the course and you can achieve the impossible.
Often when I’m feeling low I remind myself of a quotes by Jerry Rice, one of the NFL’s most successful players. He said “Today I will do what others won’t, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can’t”
These are four of key ingredients to achieving success. There are other factors that are important such as team work, enthusiasm, the importance of the a coach, but these four will set you on the right path to success.
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