The saturation graph of life
As we move towards a tournament crowd that is more skilled and motivated, our progress slows down, and we receive disproportionately less return on our invested efforts. This is such a common phenomenon in nature science, that it can be confidently called as the saturation graph of life.
As shown on the graph, the effort required to go from silver to gold is more than the effort required to go from 0 to silver overall. The silver plateau is the period of pushing the old training routine without any noticeable progress. The cross point is where a decision has to be made.
What’s the reason for that dynamic?
The factors that drive this dynamic are consistent across most fields. Once you reach a certain point, all become a matter of small details and seemingly unconnected, off-the-record life experiences. In order to master these details, it’s often necessary to master a new profession that wasn’t even in the initial plan.
For example, if we want to kill 90% of the aphids in our garden, we can do so easily by spraying pesticides. But if we want to completely wipe them out, we need to know their life cycles, their metabolism at different development stages, the chemicals that can target each stage, etc. Suddenly, gardening turns into biochemistry, and we have two choices:
- Settle for the 90% success.
- Put in the effort to master a new profession needed to generate 100% success.
In the context of tournament preparation, this is where the game changes from technical to mental. Getting stuck on the silver plateau is often a result of not realising the change in the nature of the game. Staying there for too long can be risky because trying without significant progress can break even the strongest motivation, leading to increased self-doubt and quitting.
On the silver plateau
One of the following paths is naturally taken by those who are stuck on the silver plateau.
- Leaving the arena of tournaments dissatisfied, believing they lack the necessary skills. Even though some of them acknowledge the mental aspect, they often lack the support needed to break through, because pop culture is filled with misinterpreted terms and advices that are ill-informed. Often, when they reach a milestone in their self-development, which brings about revelation, they start a new cycle, either in the same or different martial arts.
- Leaving the world of tournaments thinking it’s just a question of nuances, luck, confidence, and only the busyness of life that prevented them from getting there. The problem is that they never grasped the difference between training and competition, and if they continue as coaches, they keep teaching others that they just need to be confident, regardless of the fact that it didn’t work for them.
- Acknowledging that from this point forward, it’s no longer about techniques. They are aware that a new game has begun and that there will be a new learning curve. From this point on, the tournament journey begins to shift from the physical improvement to mental improvement, often beginning with support materials such as this series.
- Recognizing the new game, but not having desire to master it. This is an informed decision, and when continuing as a coach, they can support the students well, as in addition to their high technical maturity, they possess a great awareness of the additional components of winning.
Proceeding from the plateau
There are several powerful tools available to help you move off the silver plateau and prepare yourself for the new game.
#1. Revisit your motivation
If you want to win, you must be very clear about why you started competing in the first place.
Motivation (or drive) is of utmost importance. Recalling the metaphor we used in the earlier chapters, your brain can be seen as the cockpit, and your body as the engine. Your motivation acts as the fuel for the plane. If the tank is empty, the plan won’t be able to take off.
One’s natural drive is shaped by two components: past experience (what you heard about yourself and life, forming your belief system, discussed in Chapter 3) and present circumstances (what you get now from your environment, marking out your support network, discussed in Chapter 7). Both have such a strong impact on the natural drive that in most cases only the result of their interaction is observable, which is a certain level of motivation.
Having weak motivation is like having cheap fuel; it won’t allow you to go very far. Having strong motivation will assist you in working through the extra work required to master the new game. Motivation commonly manifests during training in actions like how many times you try something you don’t get, how many people you approach for help, how many extra materials you consume, and so on. Accordingly, it has a fundamental impact on both your knowledge and your combat performance.
To make sure your tank is full, revisit the question ‘Why do you want to win? ‘ Your answer should be compelling. Below a few frequently mentioned motivations were collected from fighters, sorted by strength or how well they support tournament goals.
- Weak motivations: Trying to look cool, impressing network/partner, being a member of the team, being good at anything. These motivations are so weak that they often collapse when stepping on the mat, because that’s where the intoxicating feeling of the epic brotherhood ends, and the lonely fight with one’s own fear and the opponent begins. It’s not a good place to be in.
- Medium-strength motivations: Aiming to overcome the feeling of weakness, becoming a martial artist, being the best at everything they do. These are better motivations that will assist fighters during combat quite well and are sufficient to tackle a lot of opponents.
- Strong motivations: Standing up against every bully that has tested them and/or their loved ones, paying respect to their late father, getting rid of fear in the blood, standing up for themselves like they couldn’t when they were younger. These drives are gold-achieving, ensuring access to maximum energy during fight.
The strongest drives are those that aim to change the course of life or the self. The difference in mobilized forces between someone trying to look cool and someone trying to break free from past experiences is immense.
For some, motivation bubbles up to the surface naturally and is a topic that is both freely discussed and consciously revisited. For others, it might take some work to find, and it frequently evolves along the way. If needed, sit down for a couple of days and think through what you want to gain from competing. It’s important to remember that the first answer you come across likely won’t be the same after a year, but if it support you to compete for a year, it’s sufficient. Later, it will likely be taken over by a stronger and deeper drive.
Note: If looking through your motivation brought up the need to revisit its components in more detail, you can find guidance for adjusting the belief system in Chapter 4 and for expanding the support network in Chapter 7.
#2. Review your club and training support
As mentioned above, many people enter coaching without understanding the difference between training and competition. If you’re stuck on the plateau and your coach only advises you to keep pushing, you may need to seek out additional assistance. To help you assess the support you receive, here are the three main things you need to get from a club to get far:
#2.1. In-context repetition as tailored drills
As you know by now, during combat, depending on your stress response you likely won’t be able to access your cognitive layer, which contains your strategy, creativity, and problem-solving. Your primary tool becomes your muscle memory (long-term implicit memory). Information, such as techniques and transitions, get to your implicit memory by in-context repetition. Even a 20-minute regular drill with the most relevant transitions will skyrocket your performance by making a certain response natural.
This is especially important at the beginning since, for example, the natural response to a choke is commonly completely inefficient, and the natural response to a side control usually leads to an even worse situation by exposing the back. To make your natural response advantageous, it’s necessary to practice without pressure to keep the brain calm and able to listen. As mentioned earlier, the learning centre is the first region to switch off in a stress situation. That means the level of resistance provided by the partner during training needs to be strategically controlled and gradually increased from very low to high.
More often than not, however, this part is completely missing from the class structure or is replaced with fitness movements and single drills. They have no use in building effective natural responses and memory triggers that would support the recollection of the next move during combat.
#2.2. Understanding the details of each technique and its mechanics
Getting the quintessence of the martial art chosen is essential to develop natural responses and to be able to personalize the techniques for your physique. Every martial art, dance, or sport involves moving the body within a certain framework by applying certain rules, they are all movement systems.
The club needs to construct the concept in the students’ heads step by step, starting with the rationale behind certain stances, the purpose of specific guards, the objective of an attack, and the real-life situations that can be addressed by that art. Even with guidance, it can be challenging to grasp new concepts, such as using body pressure effectively and being able to react to it. Without guidance, holes in the understanding can lead to fighters’ games collapsing during tournaments because they won’t be able to adjust it to new circumstances.
#2.3. Providing guidance and space for mental preparation
You need to be prepared for the emotional state you will be in during competition and need to know what you can expect from the current state of your technique pool in that condition. At a tournament, you’re dealing with people who have the license to go violent without the fear of being frowned upon for causing injury. Coaches with extensive combat experience usually understand the mental battles one goes through in this setup and can provide you with suitable guidance. Certain dojos or dedicated fight clubs have the ability to accurately recreate the tournament atmosphere by hosting ‘shark tank’ events. These can be useful for familiarising yourself with the changes in your condition in tournament setup.
However, a ‘shark tank’ event can only bring improvement if the experience is prepared for, processed afterwards and the learnings are embedded into the preparation strategy. As discussed in Chapter 4, exposure to injuries leads to an increased stress response and decline in performance. Ideally, your club would be prepared with adequate guidance on how to handle the situation, and offer training opportunities for your coping strategies.
It’s true that only a few dojos have all three components. In most cases, there is a need to gather one or two of them from different resources. This implies that you will have to spend more time searching for the suitable trainers and materials that can assist you. This energy is diverted from your personal or professional life and as such, run the risk of early burnout.
#3. Catch underling worries
We had a quick exercise in Chapter 4 to provide an overview of your beliefs about fighting and winning. We introduce another one here to ensure that your motivation is not hindered. The downward arrow technique (often referred to as Socratic questioning) is used to uncover recurring worries and their underlying causes.
The first step in this technique is to document your worries about the upcoming tournament. Then continues by asking a question about the consequences if that worry was to become reality, such as ‘What would it imply/What would it mean/If so, what would happen? ‘. The next step is to ask the same question again, to understand the why behind the previous answer. The question requires multiple repetitions, and will lead to the deeper reasoning of the worry. It’s common to repeat the entire practice again a few days or weeks later as the tournament date approaches, because the first answers tend to be superficial or automated ones and are not a production of actual thinking.
Example practice:
The initial thought/worry: What if I lose?
If so, then what happens? I won’t be able to progress to the national championship (answer 1).
If so, then what happens? I won’t be seen as successful by my network (answer 2).
If so, then what happens? I’ll be unloved and feel worthless (answer 3).
This illustrates how a person might put their entire self-worth into a fight, resulting in significant anxiety. The stress it creates is likely to bring about physiological inhibition, which makes the worry self-fulfilling. In these cases, there are two ways to help move forward:
- Real–Fake evaluation. The goal is to examine the likelihood of the answers and the envisioned outcome(s) objectively. Is it true that the person won’t be able to progress to the national championship (answer 1)? To answer that, the rules and regulations need to be thoroughly checked. Is it true that the person will be unloved (answer 3)? We don’t want to downplay potential trouble. The network may indeed be so harsh that losing could have severe consequences. If the envisioned outcome(s) is potentially Real, an action plan is needed. If it’s more likely to be Fake, it can be reevaluated.
- Reappraisal practice. This method is most beneficial for those with a high score on neuroticism and who find a lot of Fake among the envisioned outcome(s). As described in Chapter 2, the tagging of events or performance is a major factor in how our story falls together in our heads about our chances. Chapter 7 will provide a practice for adjusting the process of tagging events.
Note: The Real-Fake evaluation aims to bring the mind back to objectivity, to prevent it from sinking into concerns and self-doubt. The job here is to distinguish facts from fiction because facts need to be actioned on, while fiction needs to be discarded to avoid energy drain. Ignoring the possibility that things can go wrong would be toxic positivity, which is far from being helpful or objective.
summary
In this chapter, we explained the phenomenon of the silver plateau, which affects many regular competitors. With the help of the saturation graph of life, we showed how the game changes from technical to psychological from the cross point of the graph and what you can do to keep progressing toward gold. It is now not an accident whether you win or lose; you gain awareness of the competition journey and how you can upgrade your own competition routine.
In the next chapter, we will dive deeply into the topic of mental resilience, banishing the media clichés and showing a clear picture of how one can turn losing a fight into gaining personal growth. The chapter will provide you with the most impactful techniques known to build the necessary support system and cultivate mental resilience for a sustainable competition career.
Support: If you feel there’s something missing or require more explanation, or if you’re seeking recommendations for additional assistance on any of the topics discussed, please contact us.
Further reading
Literature review on the human belief system – The science of belief
The toxic support – Coaching patterns that do more harm than help
disclaimer
The information and the resources available for download are meant to help you identify the areas in your life and in your thinking that may be preventing you from achieving your goals. It is not a substitute for professional mental health care or medical advice, diagnoses, or treatment. For more details, please read the full Disclaimer.
