The Shintaro Higashi Show - How to Stay Consistent

Episode Date: October 11, 2022

When you start out in Judo, or any activities for that matter, consistency is key. However, people often have trouble staying consistent. They may start an activity with great enthusiasm, but it may fizzle out a few months later to the detriment to their progress. How can we then stay consistent? In this solo episode, Peter talks about what he does to stay consistent in a more sustainable way in Judo and other activities in life. Please support us on Patreon if you can: https://www.patreon.com/shintaro_higashi_show. Any amount helps!

Hello everyone, welcome to the Shintaro Higashi show with Peter Yu. Today it's just going to be me, Peter. As you guys, many of you probably already know by now, Shintaro had a stroke a couple of weeks ago. He's doing a lot better, but he's still recovering and we're still trying to figure out how to get us back on regular schedule. So I know you guys miss Shintaro a lot, but he'll be back soon, I can promise you that.

But I apologize for just being a little inconsistent lately. But today as a solo episode, I wanted to talk about staying consistent as a beginner in Judo. It can kind of apply to any kind of activity. But I started talking about this topic lately when I started learning a new sport and then picking up sports that i used to do as a kid again so i recently learned how to do how to inline skate that was kind of my pandemic hobby and then i picked up tennis and golf again um for a variety of reasons but um and but this uh this picking up these sports again like reminded me of my time as a beginner in judo because for a long time i only stuck to sports

that i've played i've been i have've been playing for a long time. So like not necessarily, you know, sports that I'm not a beginner in, such as skiing, soccer and judo. So I kind of forgot how the, you know, the frustration as a beginner you experience. as a beginner you experience um and i know many of you guys are probably just starting out judo or just thinking about judo or grappling in general so i wanted to kind of talk about my experience and how i dealt how i've dealt with frustration um in learning these sports again so and i think the key here is consistency it's not really you know of course athletic prowess and talent helps but ultimately you know our bodies and brain are so malleable and they're amazing learning machines that you if you put enough time into it and be consistent with it you can learn a lot of things and you can be really good at a lot of things but the you know the challenge is how to be consistent.

I read this book five years ago, maybe? It's called Flow, The Psychology of Optimal Experience. It's written by a very famous psychologist. psychologist a psychologist yeah uh you know kind of he kind of compiled all the research like decade over the decades and then summarizing a very like pop science kind of easy to read fashion um i really highly recommend everyone reading that book it kind of shows how to kind of structure your life in a way that that's it's uh very sustainable and happy and like um productive way i so to speak so and i try to do this with all this uh you know a lot of aspects of my life and you can you can practice do uh you can practice doing this most effectively and easily with sports so what is flow so flow you

know but in short it's the feeling you get when you're in the zone, when you don't even know how much time has passed. You know, you're like so focused on the task at hand that you kind of lose yourself. And I remember like, what's the movie like Inside Out? I think was it inside? Oh, no, it was like one of the Disney movies with the jazz musician recently and like had a little scene about this um so it it's it's a it's a widely known phenomenon and that's when like you're both most happy as a human and you know and then you can really like start enjoying the activity you're doing and it's not just about like sports or anything you can like you can find flow

in hanging out with other people with your family or just reading a book you know every activity can be framed in a way that you can find flow. So in the book, it says that you can find flow when your skill matches the difficulty of the task. And what it means is that you need to find this virtual cycle where you're challenged just enough that you need to learn new skills or practice new skills and you need your full attention to the activity. And then at the same time, there's a quick feedback in the form of achieving goals or something. And then you feel satisfaction of that. And then you start enjoying the challenge. You learn more things and then you get better. And then you try to frame the activity a little more challenging to you and then you know you try to learn and practice your new skills and then you know

you see this virtual cycle happening and that that is flow um so essentially you're trying to gamify all the activities you could do and then and there are many ways to do it and you can find details in the book but i think this is very this uh knowing about flow has really helped me with these new activities so for example like inline skating, I knew kind of how to go forward and not fall on skates. But I couldn't really turn, especially after my surgery, my Achilles surgery in my left leg. My body was pretty unbalanced, so I couldn't really balance that well on them either so it was very very frustrating when i first picked up inline skating like a year ago a year and a half ago now so what i did was i basically reduced the challenge because it was too hard for me.

So I basically decided that I should just try to, you know, I should try to be able to balance on one skate for like three steps, basically something like that in the in the park uh empty parking lot around my neighborhood so i just did that but it was challenging enough that i need to uh i had to like learn how to like i had to strengthen my left leg and then learn to balance there are ways to and it's helped me kind of enjoy uh inline skating because i i when i was skating for like half an hour every day pretty much um i could really be in the zone i could find flow and then that would really because it's such a pleasant experience to be in the zone to be in flow like to find flow that you uh i wanted to go skate every day um and you know that

and that helped me with consistency so so i would then like once i was able to kind of go forward uh on balance uh on my one leg for like three steps whatever on my skates i could slowly increase the difficulty like i could and now i wanted to like you know skate up and down the parking lot and then I try to learn how to turn you know the step over turns and various step tech techniques and you know it's become fun and then now it's gotten to the point where I inline skate to get to places and you know when I go to my school I park my car my parking lot is a little far from my office so I would inline skate to my office and so I've been very consistent with it and I think the key was that I really was kind to myself and then reduced the challenge I wasn't trying to I didn't look at

those like professional inline skaters and kind of compare myself to them like oh I can't I'll never be that good I might as well just why why bother kind of thing I try to avoid that type of thinking and then just break the task down of task of skating down into small chunks and for example I just wanted to be able to balance on my one leg for a few like few steps like few feet and then that gave me just enough challenge difficulty for me so that I need to learn some new skills and then you know that this virtual cycle happened so and then you know I I find my I try to do that with tennis and golf. You know, I try to find weakness in my game and, you know, try to focus on that by scoping the game of tennis and golf down to these small tasks. And once you do that, you know, you can kind of focus on that task and then

start getting this virtuous cycle going and i think this should happen with judo and other things so for example in judo you can when you first start out uh i remember i didn't know about flow when i first started doing judo but i did did for some reason naturally focus on that, I guess. So when I first started out, I wanted to be able to turn, like they taught me Seoi Nage first, and I wanted to turn 180 degree in a very effortless way doing during uchikomis so i when i first learned seoi nage it was hard for me to like turn all the way 180. um but i thought uh i found it very like pleasing to look at when people uh experts were able to turn 180 like effortlessly during uchikomis doing Seionage Uchikomis so I wanted to just replicate that so I wasn't really worried about the hand position all too much I just I just

wanted to like be able to turn effortlessly like this so I would like focus on that small task and then I will do it at home and you know just doing the steps you know and then that became fun like i kind of accidentally found flow in judo and you can kind of do that with you within your journey um you know you can do the same thing as me you're trying to turn that for listly um you can just i think you can maybe try to be more smooth with your chikomis um you know and you you can basically find small aspects of the of all these different throwing techniques and gamify it to find flow and then that is and if you guys have an experience i'm sure everyone has experienced being in the zone but it is such a again it's such a pleasant

experience that you would want to uh get back into it like that's what gives you consistency you wouldn't be consistent with an activity if you don't enjoy it. You kind of have to like, you know, it's like the carrot approach instead of the stick, right? So yeah, that's what I wanted to tell you guys about. I highly recommend reading that book flow the psychology of optimal experience uh and it it really it's really been helpful to frame my life in that thinking so like i said any activity can be framed this way like i and i try to do that with my research reading research papers i mean it can be really boring but i try to like gamify a little and you know so that i can be in the zone and then

kind of you know build up that consistency um and again so just to summarize how to find flow, how to structure or frame your life, an activity this way, you just have to basically set a goal, but it has to be realistic and just difficult enough. So that means you should feel free to break them down into smaller goals. them down into smaller goals. So like I said, with inline skating I just wanted to be able to bounce on one leg, with judo I just wanted to turn effortlessly, with tennis I've been just, for example I wanted to hit the forehand 10 times against the wall kind of thing, With golf, I just wanted to basically stop slicing by adjusting my grip a little. Golf is a good sport for finding flow because there are so many different things that you can adjust. But anyway, set realistic goals and break them down if necessary. They just have to be just difficult enough. And then you have to really focus on the task. Just to try to focus on

the challenge, like you try to achieve that and then then it'll come naturally to you. naturally to you um so basically no multitasking when you are doing an activity just try to fully focus dedicate yourself give it your full attention um meaning that means you don't have to dedicate like a few hours a day for an activity it can be as short as like 10 minutes um or like you know just use some time downtime that you have that's just enough the goal is to just get in the zone without and give it fully okay give you give it your full attention, right? So for example, like with inline skating, I would just do it in the back of my apartment for 30 minutes a day.

And it's just that I wanted to make it as easy as possible for me to do it consistently. But it was easier because I knew I would get in the zone and get the flow going with judo. I guess it depends on your situation with the gym because it's hard to practice judo without without other people. So I understand the difficulty. But, you know, if you break down the task enough, like, for example, as like as I did, like, you know, just turning effortlessly. You can do that at home you know uh so you can really find you can be really creative on how to structure activities like uh to be very conducive to finding flow and and then the next step would be to find

step would be to find ways to measure progress. So basically, you need to, you need quick feedback from challenging yourself to keep yourself going, get this virtual cycle going. So that's why this is kind of, this ties back to, you know, breaking down the goal into smaller goals, because that makes it easy to measure yourself. So you can't be, so it wouldn't be realistic if you said, oh, my measurement is like, oh, I just want to be good at judo. Or like, I want to be a professional judo player. That's such a, you know, nebulous thing. But if you break them down, for example, I just want to be able to turn effortlessly.

You can kind of, that's, yeah, you can argue that it's still nebulous. But it's good enough that it's small enough that you can really feel it and see it. And with inline skating, I just say, oh, I want to be able to balance on one of my legs on the skates for a few feet, for a few steps. That's very measurable. With tennis, I'm doing like, oh, I want to hit my forehand against the wall without you know making a mistake for 10 times like that's that's very measurable so you can find ways to break the task down goal down into smaller goals and then really measure your progress so again define your goal realistic goal break them down if necessary, dedicate yourself fully, and then find ways

to measure your progress. Then once you can measure your progress, you need to keep adjusting your goals to keep your activity challenging. So now I want, you know, with inline skating, once I could do that, I find other things to do, like going up and down, you know, doing, you know, a step over turns and like, or like trying to be better at slalom, you know, and then, you know, you can find ways to break them down, break those down and then make a measurable, right? those down and then make a measurable right you can do that with judo once you're good with the turn you can maybe move on to fitting in better you know or like maybe try to reduce the steps in your uh uh uchikomi serenade uchikomis so, you need to find new ways to challenge yourself. You know, maybe that's as simple as moving on to the next goal. So that you keep this flow going, and then this will help you be consistent. And one thing

I want to tell you guys about the step of challenging yourself is that you need to be kind to yourself again like you can't make you can't make a too big a step then you you will actually end up breaking the cycle the virtual cycle and then you'll lose that flow so it's like a fine balance here you can't make it you can't stop challenging yourself then you'll lose that flow so it's like a fine balance here you can't make it you can't stop challenging yourself then you'll be out of the flow but you can't challenge yourself too much then you'll be out of the flow again because it'll be too daunting and you'll get discouraged and all that so yes i know like people in grappling are very competitive and they want to challenge yourself as much as you can but you need at the same time you need to remember to be kind to yourself and give

yourself just enough challenge. Not too easy, not too difficult. So, hopefully that's about it. The concept of flow. I hope this has helped. I highly recommend reading that book, Flow, the Psychology of Optimal Experience. I try to structure all kinds of activities in my life this way. And that's been very helpful. Like I can be really consistent with things because it is enjoyable. Because it's it's so enjoyable to do these activities that I just want to do more. So and I hope this helps with your as you take your first steps as a judo beginner or grappling beginner, or if you're already, you know, skilled and you're kind of finding yourself stagnant, you can really focus, you can kind of reflect and to see if you've lost this flow, the feeling of being in the zone.

So I apologize if I've been kind of rambling. You know, I'm not as skilled as Shintaro in public speaking, but I hope I got my point across about consistency and how to achieve that and I'll I'll be back with Shintaro as soon as I can and Shintaro is doing well again so and hopefully we'll we'll be able to hear from him soon. So thanks for listening and stay tuned for the next episode.