Understanding Confidence, Not Cockiness

In the world of martial arts, as with many other pursuits that involve a skill, people want to know the "tricks" right away. They want to know how to punch, how to block, and how to put their fist through a plate of wood. This is similar to an investor who's just starting out and simply wants to know how to "pick the right stocks." Life isn't so simple. With any pursuit or discipline, there are certain fundamentals to be achieved that fuel the "tricks" or techniques and make them work in the first place. In martial arts, one of those fundamentals is learning how to be confident and not cocky.

In Bruce Lee's "Jeet Kune Do," he strove to create a type of martial art that would incorporate the others, not striving to be flashy at all, but instead simply be the most effective as possible against an opponent. In Lee's own philosophy, he told people that they should strive to be like water, in that water is flexible, ever-flowing, but can also be focused to make a formidable force.

Understanding confidence from this perspective is important. The urge to dominate other people is not what defines martial arts - if that were the case, then you've come to the wrong place. Instead, true confidence comes from discovering the power within yourself to create a true system of self-defense that simply works.

What is that system? True self-defense would mean never fighting; living a life of peace. And many martial arts stress that the warrior is meant to be at peace, and that war is what happens when people fail to achieve it.

Can you tell the difference between confidence and cockiness in this context? A confident martial artist will have no need to show off their fighting skills; a cocky martial artist, who is not confident but instead feels the need to prove something, is actually less effective because of his or her arrogance.

Embrace the functional ideas of Jeet Kune Do; strive for what works, not what impresses other people. If you're in martial arts to become cocky, you're in the wrong discipline. If, however, you want to learn martial arts in order to gain confidence, then you're on the right path. Find a martial art that aligns with your values of true self-confidence, not something that feeds your ego's need to dominate other people. You'll learn that self-confidence was the true path all along.

Photo Credits: Igor Bespamyatnov

Originally posted 2009-12-15 03:51:26. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

This post involves:

arrogance, bruce lee, cockiness, confidence, discipline, fist, investor, martial art, martial artist, Martial Arts, opponent, peace, perspective, philosophy, stocks, true self defense, true system, urge, wro

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Attitude, Martial Arts

Posted by Martial Arts Karate Kung Fu on March 19, 2010 in Attitude, Martial Arts. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.