Combat Training for Success: Sports, Mental Toughness, and Self-Discovery

Mental Toughness Creates Heroes

Whether in movies or real life, we’ve all witnessed these scenes: athletes making comeback victories in the final moments, entrepreneurs speaking confidently despite public skepticism, surgeons performing emergency operations in the OR. Different professions, different challenges, but these individuals all share the same traits: composure and decisiveness. We collectively call this mental toughness.

While ability and experience determine whether someone is excellent, strong mental toughness can cultivate the exceptional few among thousands. Regardless of how you define success, mental toughness is a prerequisite for successful people in most situations. There are many definitions of mental toughness, including self-discipline, confidence, stress resistance, emotional control, frustration tolerance, and overcoming fear. Here, let’s focus again and concentrate on what I believe is the most difficult part to train: overcoming fear.

Why Is Overcoming Fear So Difficult?

“Practice makes perfect” is an experiential rule that everyone can understand and accept. To play basketball well, you need to practice more; to play piano well, you need to practice more; to speak beautiful English, you need to practice more. Practice makes perfect. Not just practice, but conscious and systematic “deliberate practice.” Practice is necessary, but most practice results only reach the skill level. If what you fear isn’t the skill but the situation, is such practice still useful?

Imagine if you’re afraid of giving presentations. What you actually fear is the watchful eyes of the audience below, not the presentation skills themselves. However, the most difficult part is that you can hardly find a group of people to sit in the audience anytime, simulating the tense atmosphere of an actual presentation, with bosses or clients ready to tear you apart. The situation itself cannot be simulated.

Similarly, recall that game where you failed, that proposal you botched, the pressure that left you breathless, the trembling voice and hands you couldn’t control. You know you’re not strong enough yet, but there’s nowhere to practice. Of course, some say you’ll get used to it after experiencing it several times, but this approach is too costly—it seems destined to mess up a few times before growing. We can’t accept this; we’re used to preparing for rainy days. However, we can reach a valuable consensus here: fear is universal, an emotional response triggered by external things. This means that as long as we can simulate fear and get used to facing it, we can effectively improve mental toughness, whether you’re an office worker, doctor, or athlete.

Sports Is the Only Solution for Training Mental Toughness

In most books or articles discussing mental toughness, the methods mentioned fall into two categories: psychological adjustment and sports. Psychological adjustment usually involves internal observation—feeling, judging, then overcoming negative emotions. Using internal strength to fight internal problems has a relatively high difficulty level, like repeatedly telling yourself to be brave while still inevitably feeling afraid.

As for sports, it’s a method that most people can generally accept. By enhancing physical condition through sports and achieving training results in competitive situations, such as basketball, soccer, and other competitive team sports. However, this method isn’t very efficient. We can’t encounter a tied game with 30 seconds left and our team on offense in every match. Especially in team sports, there might be other more skilled teammates who take on the heavy responsibility of a comeback victory, while players who need training can’t quickly accumulate experience. Under such conditions, it’s difficult to equally create high-intensity psychological pressure situations for everyone.

Other individual sports, like tennis or running, also don’t seem to effectively simulate tension and crisis. Later, after searching for a long time, I finally discovered what I believe is the most suitable sport: combat sports.

Evolutionary Psychology: Approaching from Human Evolution

Although this answer of combat sports lacks rigorous theoretical foundation, it’s not entirely imaginary. After thinking it through, I believe we can approach it from the perspective of evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychology studies why certain emotions and emotional responses have persisted from the perspective of survival of the fittest. For example, the response of “fear”—in the past, some humans might have possessed the ability to fear while others didn’t. Those without fear seemed fearless but also didn’t know how to seek fortune and avoid disaster, eventually getting eaten by wild beasts.

The famous work “Thinking, Fast and Slow” mentions that humans have two thinking modes: “fast thinking” and “slow thinking.” These two modes played significant roles in human evolution—fast thinking helped humans avoid danger, while slow thinking allowed humans to develop more advanced civilizations. Here we can reach another valuable consensus by approaching from an evolutionary perspective. That is, as long as we can understand what monsters human psychological fear mechanisms exist to fight against, what we need to do next is create monsters, defeat them, and then level up.

Returning to the above example, when primitive humans encountered wild beasts, individuals with fear mechanisms would quickly react and then flee; those without fear mechanisms might try to pet the wolf and end up getting their hands eaten. Some individuals had fear mechanisms but were so terrified that their bodies froze and couldn’t move, ultimately failing to escape.

Those who knew how to fear used “fast thinking” mode to survive and “slow thinking” mode to enhance defensive capabilities, while also preserving fear mechanisms in genes until now. We don’t need to worry about suddenly appearing jackals, wolves, tigers, and leopards like our ancestors, but fear mechanisms are triggered in other ways, such as giving presentations or negotiations.

If you can accept the above reasoning process, you’ve probably guessed the method for “simulating fear and getting used to facing fear”: expose yourself to certain attack dangers, then fight. If you’re not afraid of fists, feet, sticks, and clubs, would you still be afraid of your boss?

Training Wolf Nature in Combat

Wolf nature—this term has been widely used in recent years. It refers to a personality or ambition that perseveres relentlessly in pursuing goals. In the novel “Wolf Totem” and the 2019 historical masterpiece “The Pivot: Exploring 3000 Years of History and Contemporary China”, both coincidentally mention the contrast between wolf nature and sheep nature, representing two completely different ways of life: grassland civilization and agricultural civilization.

On the grasslands, even just to meet the lowest survival needs, you must fight, win, and kill. Hunt in groups for food, fight wild beasts for safety. On the grasslands, everyone is a warrior, and even the most ordinary life must be accumulated through victories—this is the origin of wolf nature.

Compared to the kill-or-be-killed grasslands, agricultural society is obviously much more docile. Plant crops well in the fields, raise livestock well—tranquility is the ideal state of agricultural society. Because of tranquility and abundant natural resources, there are human and material resources to develop civilization, art, and technology. But excessive tranquility is the beginning of corruption. After corruption, someone will pick up the knife again, kill again, and rebuild civilization. Grassland civilization excels at conquest, agricultural civilization excels at management. That’s why the Yuan Empire, representing the former, collapsed in less than a century, and why the Qing Dynasty gradually became sinicized after entering the pass, with the Eight Banners declining because they began to enjoy comfort and stopped killing.

In modern legal society, we certainly don’t encourage fighting and killing at every turn, but I believe modern wolf nature is essentially about conquest—whether conquering inertia, fear, career, personal ideals, or old systems. We don’t need to live as long, single-attribute civilizations. We can try to make grassland civilization and agricultural civilization coexist as parts of our personality, letting the wildness of conquest and the wisdom of management coexist, combining warrior and scholar bloodlines in one body.

Combat sports are the best option for restoring wild fighting, and they’re legal.

Which Type of Combat Should You Choose?

After reaching this conclusion about combat sports, I began thinking about which type of combat or martial arts would be suitable for me. Initially, I evaluated kendo, but later learned that kendo, taekwondo, and Western fencing have all become sportified martial arts. Because they’re sportified, they have clear rules and restrictions, like not being able to hit the head or other vital points. I believe this reduces simulation authenticity. Finally, considering my personal physical condition, I chose Filipino stick fighting, also known as Kali.

Filipino stick fighting is a very cool sport that can use single or double sticks. Similar techniques can also be replaced with knives or empty hands. For daily self-defense, you can use easily obtainable items like umbrellas, scarves, or pens. Nunchucks also evolved from this!

Filipino Stick Fighting Kali Learning Experience

Developing Understanding of Martial Arts Styles and Fighting Principles

If you think learning combat sports doesn’t require thinking and just involves repetitive practice, using muscle memory for all techniques until they become reflexes, you’re wrong. Kali is a type of combat that requires significant understanding. Only when you understand can you know why a movement should be done this way, and only then can you know how to avoid injury during practice.

For example, I once asked the instructor, “Why does Kali’s double stick ready position place the sticks on the shoulders instead of just hanging them down relaxed? Or would that look too much like a thug?” as shown below.

The instructor said, “Have you seen boxing’s ready position? Don’t both hands go in front of the chin?” After saying this, he took the two sticks from my hands, “Isn’t it like this?” Because the principles are interconnected, Kali can also be replaced with empty-hand techniques.

The instructor said, “Have you seen boxing’s ready position? Don’t both hands go in front of the chin so they can defend when not attacking?” After saying this, he took the two sticks from my hands, “When you remove the sticks, isn’t it just like boxing?” Because the principles are interconnected, Kali can also be replaced with empty-hand techniques.

The instructor later explained further that in martial arts, stances are usually called “fighting stances,” which are divided into “left foot forward” and “right foot forward” depending on the martial arts system. In Western boxing, the left hand is forward as the jab hand, and the right hand is back as the power hand. To increase the power of the right punch, they adopt a left-foot-forward stance. Kali requires equal flexibility in both hands, and since stick fighting has greater destructive power than empty hands, there’s no need to specifically define the right hand as the power hand like in boxing. Overall, Kali has no distinction between lead and rear hands. When holding double sticks, the stance is usually with both feet parallel; when holding a single stick in the right hand, the right foot is forward.

Additionally, Jeet Kune Do, to shorten the distance between oneself and the opponent, usually has the right hand forward as the power hand and the left hand back as the jab hand, with the right foot forward stance.

Going further, there’s Wing Chun, which became popular due to the “Ip Man” movie series. Wing Chun was originally created by a woman, and since women generally have inferior physical conditions compared to men, Wing Chun doesn’t engage in hard-on-hard confrontations with opponents but uses other techniques to win, such as the “sticking” principle. Unlike boxing movements that retract to defense after attacking, “sticking” means keeping limbs close to the opponent, pressuring their movement space, even causing their hands and feet to tangle so they can’t fully display their skills. If you can control the opponent’s two hands with one hand, it’s like having an extra hand to attack, which is why Wing Chun is also called “three hands.”

Comparing Wing Chun and Kali, the former, though created by a woman, evolved to be more like a gentleman’s martial art. Gentlemen always wear long robes, so there are kicking movements, but mostly low kicks, and not many squatting movements because the robe would get dirty. Conversely, Kali is a warrior’s combat technique, so squatting and rolling are all part of it. From a historical perspective, since the Philippines was colonized by Spain, Kali retains some Western fencing movements and terminology, as can be glimpsed in the two videos below.

Besides understanding the origins and evolution of martial arts to further comprehend styles and strengths/weaknesses, I believe understanding fighting principles is absolutely helpful when learning combat sports. It’s like in history class, where many history teachers tell you not to memorize by rote but to think and reason, like famous cram school teacher Lu Jie explaining the political ecology of the late Eastern Han Dynasty: because emperors died young, child emperors ascended the throne; because child emperors were young and ignorant, empress dowagers interfered in politics; because empress dowagers had no political groups of their own, they relied heavily on maternal relatives; when child emperors came of age, unwilling to remain puppet emperors, they allied with their closest companions—eunuchs—to plot for power. These power grabs usually ended in failure, with emperors dying young again.

The same logical reasoning can be applied to combat sports—thinking about why to attack this way, why to dodge from this direction, what would happen if you missed a certain movement. Like scenes that appear in many movies, whether Sherlock Holmes series or Eastern martial arts films, masters simulate in their minds before making moves, seeking to quickly defeat enemies. Also, when learning combat sports, you’ll definitely start with basic routines. Some complex routines might connect multiple movements. If you accidentally forget the middle links, as long as you remember the core and context of the movements, you might be able to reconstruct the complete movement in your mind.

Sports Coaches Can Spot Your Problems Better Than Knowledge Coaches

If you don’t know the concept of “focus,” you might never discover your lack of focus; if you haven’t heard the term “associative thinking,” you might not consciously require yourself to learn broadly and try combining cross-disciplinary knowledge. For “unknown unknowns,” we can’t self-improve. This is the purpose of coaches or teachers: helping us transform “unknown unknowns” into “known unknowns,” then into “known,” making knowledge an important tool for self-exploration.

Many people take many knowledge courses but always feel something’s off, not knowing how to apply them. But this “off” feeling happens in your brain, where no one can observe from the side. To break through bottlenecks, you must verbalize and articulate your problems, then you might be able to ask the right questions and get answers. But the verbalization process is very prone to distortion. Conversely, combat sports and sports themselves are physical actions. Physical actions easily expose your inadequacies in understanding, psychology, and physical fitness—coaches can see with their eyes and give feedback without needing to diagnose.

For example, some people aren’t observant enough or have low self-awareness. During practice, they don’t notice their movements differ from others, or they watch the coach demonstrate many times but still do it wrong. Others are impatient by nature, seeking speed before mastering and positioning movements properly. At this point, coaches tell you to slow down, don’t rush, because doing movements wrong is one thing, but you might accidentally hurt yourself or others if you’re not careful. In such teaching situations, coaches can easily see what type of student you are and guide and explain through appropriate methods.

Once, when my partner and I were practicing, the coach said to him, “Your personality is just too impatient. You rush to do later movements before completing and positioning the current ones properly, sometimes forgetting to control your strength. So my advice to you has always been to slow down.” Right after saying this, the coach immediately turned to me and said, “Your situation is the opposite. I know you can do all the movements I teach, but sometimes you seem scared, like you’re afraid of hurting your partner. You should apply pressure while staying safe, so my advice to you is to be more aggressive.”

After building basic foundations, the coach also started letting us spar with him using real sticks—real sticks that would bruise if you accidentally hit hard. One of the most common feedback from the coach is, “Don’t get nervous and tense up your whole body as soon as you see me attack. When you tense up, your speed slows down. If you get thrown, you get thrown—after getting thrown enough, you’ll know how to fall safely. You need to observe, relax, and flow, just like Bruce Lee said, ‘Be Water, My Friend.'”

There are also situations where we’ve learned many techniques, including long, medium, and close-range strikes, stick disarming, and throws. But like being afraid of hurting classmates, we often can’t execute movements properly during sparring. As the coach said, “You can’t just lightly touch—you need to apply some force, to cause a little pain when hitting your opponent without causing injury. Whether for the attacker or defender, this is part of the practice.”

This is our daily class routine, which also echoes what was mentioned earlier about how to stay calm when facing fear, even remaining composed when sticks are coming at you, being able to defend, and being able to attack like a wolf while staying safe. Training martial arts also trains the mind—this sounds like empty talk, but if you accept the above reasoning, this statement becomes extremely concrete.

Opening the Path of Self-Discovery

The master leads you to the door; cultivation depends on the individual. After the coach teaches you the basics, the rest is up to you.

In my case, I know my comprehension and associative abilities are good—I can often come up with good ideas and ask good questions, but my reaction speed isn’t fast enough. So I can collect lots of materials and slowly develop them into fairly substantial articles, but when truly facing urgent, unexpected situations, I might not be able to handle them properly. Therefore, I hope to train my reaction speed through combat sports, making myself calmer, more decisive, and capable of better responses.

On the path of self-discovery, the physical nature of combat sports and sports is equally helpful. Imagine when a teacher is teaching calculus—the top students understand immediately, while you still only half-understand after hearing it many times. Unfortunately, you can’t dive into the top students’ brains to observe their understanding and thinking methods. But sports are much more concrete—you can observe what the top students initially couldn’t do, what movements they deliberately practiced, whether they gesture movements even without sticks in hand, constantly executing virtual training. The more thorough your self-discovery, the better you can understand yourself and avoid making wrong decisions in different contexts like life and work.

Finally, I’d like to share a video from the School of Saberfighting. The School of Saberfighting is one of the world’s earliest teams to publicly perform Star Wars-inspired dueling and provides fencing training courses. Remember? Kali also has fencing elements, so some principles are interconnected.