6 Tips For Achieving Your Goals In 2018

The end (or start) of the year is an excellent time to stop, look back, and review what you’ve accomplished before looking ahead and considering what you are planning to achieve in the next 12 months.

Given that martial arts training is a long-term activity, it's a really worthwhile and productive exercise and we’ve discussed a simple, practical approach in the past, but if you haven’t yet decided to start thinking about your goals for 2018 and beyond, here are a few quick tips:


1. Know Your Goal 

Obviously, the first priority is have a very clear idea of what you want to achieve. Know and define your end goal. While an expected answer for a Choi Kwang-Do student goal might be “become black belt”, it could also be “achieve yellow belt senior within 6 months” or “find out what’s required to become an assistant instructor by the end of the year”.


2. Create An Action Plan 

This doesn’t need to be complicated:

• Regular class attendance (where you can be supported by instructors) 
• Regular practise at home (where you can refer to your syllabus guide) 

Your actions will logically be guided by your overall goal and if the above 2 steps are on your action plan there is a high chance you are moving in the right direction. Your goal will also help to rationalise your actions too. If you’re aiming to achieve yellow belt senior in 6 months, and you are questioning yourself on whether you should allocate 10 minutes a day to practising your pattern and speed drill, the best answer is "yes".

Remember: action creates results! 

3. Set Realistic, Short-Term Goals 

One of my tasks over the Christmas break is to prepare and publish the schedule of dates of coloured and black belt gradings for the coming year. From this, students should be able to schedule realistic, short-term goals complete with the dates by which they can work to achieve them. For reference:

- Coloured belt gradings are roughly every 2 months for students taking 2 classes per week, and every 4 months for students taking 1 class per week.

- Black belt tag gradings are every 3 months for 1st degrees, and every 6 months for 2nd degrees.

- Black belt dan gradings are every 6 months.

As you will know, a sustainable way to achieve long-term goals is by breaking them up into smaller, more achievable, short-term goals. Thereby creating numerous successes and helping yourself stay motivated.

4. Keep Track Of Your Progress 

Write down your short-term goals and their dates. A simple wall calendar can be useful for this and will inspire you in a number of ways. Firstly, the physical act of writing them in some way brings the goal 'alive', and using a calendar will provide a visual reminder. You'll see the dates approaching and be inspired to work harder towards achieving them. In addition, not only does ticking them off feel good, you can also look back to see your previous achievements and acknowledge how far you have come. 

5. Reward Yourself 

Like many other martial arts, Choi Kwang-Do is fortunate to have reward system in place: belts. These serve as an indication to both you and your fellow students your level of expertise and/or duration of time training. They are also great for motivation as they prove to you what you can do with a little planning, execution and focus.  

Once you have achieved one of your short-term goals (and definitely when you achieve a long-term goal), reward yourself! This is will mean different things to different people - a new purchase perhaps (book, music, clothing), a meal with friends, etc.

Marking your achievements with something else you enjoy will give you something to look forward to and help you stay consistent.  

6. Re-evaluate Your Progress 

Every month or so, re-evaluate your short-term goals to make sure that you are still on track. How are you getting on? Great, or not so good? Was your goal realistic? Do you need to invest more time? Is your action plan working but not as you had hoped? Take time to assess what you need to do differently and adjust your plan or expectations. Feedback from an instructor can prove useful here. 

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Jason Wright is a 6th Degree Black Belt and Master Instructor in the martial art Choi Kwang-Do. For further information on Choi Kwang-Do classes for children, teens and adults in Ealing, West London visit www.TheMartialArtForLife.com 

Take Small Steps To Success In 2016

Another year rolls by and here we are in 2016. Look out for Easter Eggs in your local supermarket in the next few days...

We'll soon be bombarded with tips for making New Years Resolutions, setting goals and "making 2016 your best year yet". Making resolutions and setting goals can be challenging, and despite how clichéd it can come across at this time of the year, personally I don't think there is any harm in utilising the New Year to initiate change or refocus ourselves. However, when a goal seems too vast or too difficult to comprehend, we can often fail before we start because we never seriously get started. If we successfully make a change, sticking to it can be even harder.

The key is to take small steps. This is the same as martial arts students having a vision of achieving Black Belt (a minimum 3 1/2  year goal in Choi Kwang-Do), but working on the various Coloured Belts as the 'building blocks' to achieve that goal. Each martial arts class provides the environment and support for the student to work towards those building blocks by learning the martial arts syllabus to take gradings. Upon successful promotion following a grading the student is awarded the new belt rank. The result? A small step towards their goal and increased motivation.

Here's a quick and simple process that you can use to help you take small steps towards your own goals in 2016:

1. On a piece of paper write down today's date followed by a personal goal, but keep it really simple. Think more "eat a piece of fruit every day", rather than "go to the moon in July". Ideally you'll want to write a SMART goal. For a description of this take a few minutes to read Benefit #9 - Goal Setting from The Top 10 Benefits of Choi Kwang Do.

2. Give yourself 1 minute - and 1 minute only - to write down any actions, thoughts or ideas related to achieving that goal. Many will be obvious while others will require you to think a little harder. Either way, keep writing going for the full 60 seconds, even if the idea initially seems ridiculous or impractical. You can criticise later. For now you just want to get the ideas flowing.

3. When the minute is up go back through the list and select 2 or 3 actions and set a date for them to be completed by. Many will jump out at you to be done immediately. Avoid the temptation to take on too much at this stage.

4. Take ACTION. This is critical. As soon as possible do one of your selected actions from the list. It is vital to keep the momentum going whilst you're in a creative mood and are motivated. Once you have completed the actions, return to the list, cross through what you have done, then select 2 or 3 more actions giving them completion dates too.

5. At the end of the month, spend a few minutes reviewing your progress. I like to use the following questions as they focus your mind on what you can learn or improve, rather than what you failed at:

• What went well?
• What was challenging?
• What would you do differently?

If the goal is complete, fantastic! Reward yourself (with a chocolate egg?) If not, select 2 or 3 items from the list, assign dates and take action again. Then review your progress at the end of the next month.

Does this sound simple to you? Great...it's supposed to be!

Of course, for bigger, more complex or very important goals you would need to spend more time planning and organising actions, but for simple goals this process might be effective for you. It's designed to assist in regularly taking small but regular steps with minimal analysis.

2016 is here so if you try this or already use a different process that works well for you, feel free to share your ideas.

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Jason Wright is a 6th Degree Black Belt and Master Instructor in the martial art Choi Kwang-Do. For further information on Choi Kwang-Do classes in Ealing, West London visit www.TheMartialArtForLife.com

What Are You Trying To Achieve?

It's said that discussing subjects such as religion and politics will always result in an argument. You could probably add martial arts to that list too. Martial arts training is a personal experience that practitioners take very seriously - possibly too seriously sometimes. In the past I have seen people react to a comment about their style/system/founder with the kind of anger you'd expect to see if a member of their family had just been publicly insulted.

Comparing style with style is somewhat pointless (unless you’re talking about the genre of classic kung fu films: my snake fist versus your tiger style etc. etc.) I say this because I think it depends heavily upon:

1. What you personally are trying to achieve through your training, and
2. What's most important to you as an individual

If you're training to be able to defend against anything, you're going to need to know everything, right? Therefore, if you're training to be a well rounded fighter, your selected style would need to encompass punches, blocks, kicks, grappling, throws, chokes, joint locks etc. A single martial art style may not be enough to cover each of these disciplines sufficiently, hence we have the booming mixed martial arts scene.

So what are you trying to achieve?

Do you want to be a fighter?
Do you want to be healthier?
Do you want to be stronger?
Do you want to socialise?
Do you want to be able to defend yourself?
Do you want to have fun?

More importantly, is your training helping you to achieve the things that you want?

Some martial arts serve a niche, while others strive to be all things to all people. I believe Choi Kwang-Do's niche is health, both physical and mental: utilising martial arts training to enable practitioners to lead a more happy, healthy and more productive life. This philosophy is encapsulated in one of Grandmaster Choi’s sayings:

"You may go through life without ever having to use your martial arts skills for self defence, yet good health is important to everyone".

(Similarly, but on a personal note, I enjoy teaching and working towards the personal mastery of performance and the self discipline that requires. I take self defence as a 'by-product' of all the components of the system).

Yes, the biomechanically correct techniques in Choi Kwang-Do have power and practical application. Yes, the Defence Drills and Close Range Drills create scenarios to develop self defence skills. However, the focus on health means that when placed alongside some martial arts, Choi Kwang-Do doesn’t really compare on equal terms.



Choi Kwang-Do may not cover the wide array of combat skills as some martial arts, but it's fluid Patterns and Speed Drills will help to improve your aerobic capacity enabling you to run for the bus without passing out from exhaustion should you actually reach the bus stop in time. Choi Kwang-Do may not teach you how to disarm a knife-welding attacker, but Shield Drills will help to tone your muscles enabling you to do some gardening at the weekend without having to take the rest of the week off from work.

This focus on health is important to note as it underpins a lot of what takes place - or doesn't take place - in a Choi Kwang-Do class, and also the on-going development of the martial art as a whole.

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Jason Wright is a 5th Degree Black Belt and Master Instructor in the martial art Choi Kwang-Do. For further information on Choi Kwang-Do classes in Ealing, West London visit www.TheMartialArtForLife.com