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Originally Posted by Tristan  Hi elainevdw,
I agree with you that empowerment is better than anger on the whole, but that approach is somewhat clinical in nature and not foundational or realistic on the concepts of competitive combat.
I'm not entirely convinced that the "motivation or enthusiasm or positive thinking" applies in combat situations, whether for sport or real-life. Although, I lack any hard research to back it up, I'm inclined to say that it does not and here's why....
Say you are being attacked on the street. What frame of mind is most conducive towards surviving this confrontation, assuming that combat is the only means of survival in this situation? Will you repeat incantations such as,"I'm super motivated and enthusiastic to win!"? Or will getting extremely pissed off and developing a burning rage that's directed entirely at your opponent help you win a confrontation?
I think enjoyment of the activity is not part of the emotional equation as it applies to this situation because we are speaking of motivation here in essence. Enjoyment = pleasure and when we are in a state of pleasure, we are not motivated to change. But when we are placed in a situation that causes us pain, then we are very motivated to get out of that position of pain. I think applied anger gets us out of this pain.
But like Shamou said, anger must be controlled. In the example by Peleke4, Fernando Vargas....a fighter I am not afraid to say I heavily dislike because of his personality, was arrested numerous times for doing some real damage in street brawls that did not need to happen. I think for him, anger controlled him, not the other way around. |
Hi Tristan,
Positive thinking and fluffy bunnies certainly won't help you in an attack situation!
Energy is the main reason "kiyahs" as so important in martial arts. It's really easy to do a gigantic shout when you're responding to an attack -- you don't have to be angry, but it serves the dual purpose of surprising/scaring your attacker and making your attack more powerful. If I were attacked, honestly, I wouldn't get angry until well after the fact. I'd either be scared for my life or -- more likely -- I'd be feeling nothing at all; I'd be in survival mode. I'd be working from instinct -- doing the easiest and most-practiced of my martial arts moves with some yelling thrown in, all because it was hammered into my head so much during practice.
However, a life-threatening situation is very different from a sports situation. Take martial arts again as an example -- martial artists at tournaments can get fierce, but they don't necessarily get angry. They can still pat each other on the back afterwards.
I also disagree with anger motivating us to better ourselves ("to change" you said). It's easy to use anger to reach new limits -- I got into running during one of the most difficult periods of my life. However, in that case, channeling anger towards myself, though I got really fit, also caused me to injure myself. Now that I'm not so emo and I don't have excess anger to use to better my running, I use friends as motivation to succeed... and that burning desire to see myself run farther than I ever have before.