When is being too hard on yourself actually being too hard on yourself?

[Ironbear24]

My friends say I am too hard on myself when it comes to my training, they say things like oh that was good. If I feel it wasn't good I'll say " no it was ****." And I will literally stay there doing whatever strike or technique over and over again until I feel satisfied .

Sometimes that can be like an hour or more, I also suffer from OCD so I mind if can't help it either, there are good days and bad days.

Today was pretty bad, I still can't this spinning side kick right which is annoying, I have done it so many times before but now it is just terrible.

Anyway will this attitude benefit me or will it just make things more difficult?

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

I do the same. I won't do it for hours though, and I wait until after class than go back to it.
As for benefitting you or not, it depends.

If it's part of your OCD, there's a solid chance that you are doing it correctly, and just imagining your not. If so, its not helping you, but its not necessarily hurting you as long as practicing it isn't causing you to ignore other things you actually need to work on. It might hurt your confidence/self-esteem/happiness which could be an issue, but if you acknowledge the cause it shouldn't hurt you as a martial artist.

If you actually are doing it incorrectly to a point, then I don't really see it hurting you. My advice would be to do what I do;make a mental notice of it, and go back to it after class (assuming your sifu allows you to do this. My sensei's don't care, which works well for me).But once again make sure it's not hurting your confidence as a martial artist that you aren't able to do a kick exactly like you want to, and acknowledge to yourself that you are having a bad day with it, and practicing it will help, because if you let it damage your confidence that could seriously hurt you both in training and in sparring.

 

[Transk53]

My friends say I am too hard on myself when it comes to my training, they say things like oh that was good. If I feel it wasn't good I'll say " no it was ****." And I will literally stay there doing whatever strike or technique over and over again until I feel satisfied .

Sometimes that can be like an hour or more, I also suffer from OCD so I mind if can't help it either, there are good days and bad days.

Today was pretty bad, I still can't this spinning side kick right which is annoying, I have done it so many times before but now it is just terrible.

Anyway will this attitude benefit me or will it just make things more difficult?

OCD myself. Eventually you kind of get used to it, or at least it becomes normal as you age. Good days and bad days become less stressy if you will

 

[Tony Dismukes]

It's being too hard on yourself when it negatively impacts your quality of life.

Not being satisfied with your technique is a good thing. It's what drives us to train and get better. It's important for your growth to realize that there is always room to improve.

Where it could be a problem is if you allow that knowledge of inevitable imperfection to discourage you and take away the joy of training. If you have OCD, then it possibly could be a problem if you get stuck at training a technique when you need to be doing other things in life or if you damage your body by failing to recognize when you need to take a break or even if you just stress yourself out because you can't reach perfection.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I'm sorry you have the issue. I can't really offer any advice, because for me, that problem just doesn't exist. If I feel I am not doing a technique well or correctly, I just shrug it off - it will come in time, or it won't. I keep training and it never bothers me.

Not trying to brag - perhaps I lack the drive to succeed that others have, and that holds me back. I don't know. All I know is that I am patient with myself, perhaps too much so.

Best of luck with your situation, I know it must be difficult.

 

[Flying Crane]

I would rather see people be extra critical of themselves vs. being too willing to believe they are awesome.

That being said, it is possible to become so focused on training that it is the only thing in your life. You should not become a slave to your training. Hours and hours a day, if it isn't your career, then it's probably not healthy either physically or mentally and emotionally. Your training should serve you and enrich your life. You should not serve your training. Life should have more in it than that.

 

[Ironbear24]

It has been troubling my real life. This occurs with the gym as well. I am sometimes "stuck" doing the same lift for awhile even when I can't physically do it again. I often skip out on time being with friends and family because I have to get something right.

I feel discouraged often because I feel like I should be performing better. It is especially annoying when I know I can do better because I have done better before. I am on medication for my OCD but it isn't perfect and sometimes symptoms still happen. I probably have to talk to a professional about it but I still thankful for all the replies.

They have been helpful.

 

[JP3]

What Tony said. If you get into an over-training cycle which is negatively impacting body or mind, or causing you to just "feel bad" about training in particular, then yes, that's bad. Otherwise, relatively normal for any of us driven types. I think everyone who has done MA for any length of time, involving the self-improvement quest, gets a bit obsessive from time to time, and that's a good thing, not a bad one.

 

[jks9199]

The drive to work until something is not merely 'good enough" but truly right is what separates average from great. But it must be tempered with the ability to recognize stages on growth or development, so that you know when you reach the point of diminishing returns. To use a weight lifting example, if your goal is to bench 400 lbs, you can't just stay there on the bench , pressing again and again until you hit 400. You'll never get there unless you allow your body time to recover. In MA, it's much the same. Sometimes, you just need to stop, and let your body and mind catch up.

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[JowGaWolf]

With OCD you may be able to adjust it if you change your perspective of what you do. In Martial arts there is no such thing as Perfect and because of that being correct is not an absolute. There are various degrees of being correct. A lot of things in Martial arts have techniques that are correct based on your individual body. If you do a spinning side kick and it lands solid the majority of the times then it's correct. Things like your body build, flexibility, and clothing may affect how you do a spinning side kick versus how you imagine what a "Perfect" spinning side kick looks like.

If your spinning side kick doesn't have power then the issue is less about the kick and more about learning how to connect power. In other words you can practice the kick until you are 100 and you'll never get the power that you want, because you focused on the kick more than learning how to connect power.

When it comes to lifting weights, you should set your reps to something that you can do. When it gets easy add 1 more. I used to be able to do 60 push ups with no problem. Now I can only do 25 without gassing out 30 is usually my limit. If I want to increase that limit then all I'll need to do is focus on easily doing 26 until it gets easy. When 26 reps get easy then I'll do 27 until 27 gets easy. What will happen is that soon I'll be able to add more than 1 when things get easy. My first attempt at doing 60 push ups was after 40 push ups with no problem, so I tried 20 more and that was just as easy.

My point is that you have to pace yourself and not rush your training. The other day the class was able to stand in a horse stance for 1 minute 25 seconds. The most time that we spend in a horse stance before that day was 30 seconds. We were able to stand in the horse stance for that long because we often stay in that stance for 30 seconds.

You should take a similar approach with your training. Worry less about it being correct and more about just doing it. My spinning side kicks are perfect but because I know how to connect the power from the spinning, I still can generate enough power with the kick to break a rib. It may not look pretty, but in reality fighting with real martial arts isn't pretty at all, and none of it looks like a perfect or correct form of what we practice.

 

[Langenschwert]

OK, first of all, being too hard on yourself is going to set back your progress.

Everything in your mind with regards to your training should be positive. Rather than think "my side kick sucks" think "Imagine how good my side kick is going to be if I keep practicing". Then set about making that kick as good as it can be, keeping in mind that it's only going to get better.

Saying something is "hard" rather than "unfamiliar" changes how your brain learns and absorbs information. It's as damaging as a bad repetition of a technique, if not more so.

The best teachers are positive. You learn best with carrots, not sticks, 90% of the time.

 

[KenpoDave]

When training is no longer fun and you quit.