As a martial artist, the key to elevating yourself in your thinking, character and actions is having a great amount of passion. The word passion can be defined as a strong liking or enthusiasm for a subject or activity. In reality, passion is easy to develop when you understand the four key components: dream, love, commit, and intensify.

First, every great achievement begins with a dream. Your dreams inspire and give direction for how you will proceed in your actions. For example, when you see a great master perform flawless self-defense applications against multiple opponents, you get inspiration for your own dream of becoming a master. This is the initial step to creating a powerful passion that will enable you to achieve what you conceive.

Next, you must develop a love for the dream you wish to make a reality. By thinking more about what you want to become and planning the steps for how to get there, you’ll begin to develop an increasing amount of love for the dream. When meditating, be sure to start by thinking about the level you are currently at in your training and end the session by mentally projecting the level of mastery in self-defense onto yourself. In other words, spend time seeing yourself having success against multiple opponents.

Thirdly, having an ever increasing commitment to your dream will fuel your passion even more. Take more classes to improve your skill. When you are outside of class you should also find time to work on the self-defense techniques you learned in class. Make some commitments with classmates to meet outside of class to work together at improving self-defense skill because you can’t do it by yourself. Combining your love and commitment to the dream of becoming a master is what gives your passion the perseverance to reach the goal.

Finally, passion grows from having a greater degree of intensity in your training. While in class have one hundred percent focus and give the same percentage of effort. Ask questions from higher ranking classmates and instructors on tips on further developing your self-defense techniques. When you are the “uke”, be sure to take it seriously because you can learn a lot from having techniques applied on you. When you intensify your practice, the power of your passion for your dream grows in its power and effect.