Make your first answer the correct one.
You may recall I brought up that old saw about us using only 20% of our brains. If this is true, in my opinion, it’s sheer laziness. The fruit falls too easily from the tree and we relax or go on auto-pilot. We can drive without thinking, work without thinking, watch TV without thinking (don’t get me started). Life is just too darned easy.
It’s time to demand more from ourselves. Yes, we should still enjoy the things in life that come easily, but we need to push our minds daily so that they won’t flatline.
Just as you train your body to respond reflexively with the right punch, block, or counter move, you can train your mind to give you the right answer the first time — every time!
Yes, you read that correctly. You are going to learn to program yourself to be right every time.
The Key:
Start by expecting that the answer your mind gives you will be the correct answer: Make the answer that comes first the one you act upon.
Exercise: You may not do this right when you first start out and you may not get the right answer the first time until you’ve made a few blunders. But trust me, eventually, by acting on answer #1 every time, you will quickly force your mind to work harder and faster. This will be a painful process as you act on wrong answers initially, but you will learn from your mistakes. Once you truly learn this form of “reflexive thinking”, the first answer will seldom be wrong.
How does this apply to martial arts? If you are sick of getting blown out in tournaments and thinking, “Wow, if I had only thrown this kick at that point...” then you would do well to get your First Answer training in high gear. If you reach Level 2 in time control, and can see in slow motion, but can’t come up with the correct attack what good is it, I ask you?
CAUTION: Do NOT think this is some metaphysical concept. It is a matter of training your mind to work faster to analyze all the available facts about your environment in a fraction of a second.
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