Three Ways Sparring Improves Your Confidence

Improve your confidence.

In the martial arts, one of the most frequent ways to practice your technique is to introduce real-world fighting in a controlled situation: it's called sparring. Maybe sparring isn't always fought at the same intensity that a real-world situation might occur, but sparring is one of the most direct ways that you can simulate an altercation in the real world. As such, sparring is crucial in martial arts success, and can even help you in life.

How? By improving your confidence. Is this really the case? If you don't believe me, here are three ways sparring improves your confidence in the other areas of your life:

Sparring forces you to trust yourself. When you're sparring with a partner, there's only one way you can win: through your own action. You're not going to win unless you have the self-belief that tells you that you can win. That's how sparring will improve your belief in yourself: by forcing you into a situation in which you must trust yourself, or lose. Trusting yourself is one of the most important features of confidence: when you trust yourself, you are both relaxed and alert. You believe you can win. And when you practice this kind of self-trust habitually, it leaks into your life as a whole.
Sparring simulates real-world danger. It's one thing to punch and kick at the air, but there's something different when you actually fight someone else, isn't there? The rules you've learned seem to go out the window and you wonder how you simply win this match in front of you. Sparring teaches you that there are variables you don't always count on when faced with someone else. Not only that, it gives you practice in working against someone who has his or her own interest at heart.

Let's use another sport as an example: golfing. You can read all you want to about golfing - proper grip, how to transfer your weight when swining, proper mental techniques - but they don't mean much until you actually strike that first ball. It's the same way with sparring, and you'll learn that confidence is often achieved through experience.

Sparring gets you to confront a real obstacle. Part of developing self-confidence is about striking down obstacles. This doesn't mean that you want to obliterate your opponent; it simply means that you have to take on an obstacle head-on. When you spar, there is someone standing between you and your goals: will you stand to the challenge or go back into your shell? When you find that you can stand up to challenges, your self-confidence increases.

Photo Credits: parhessiastes

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