learn to deal with pain

[nova]

hey,

i just started with kyokushin a month ago. i love it and i already feel like i couldn' mis kyokushin.

i just have got one question. do you have to do anything special to learn to deal with the pain when they hit or kick you, or is this something that will come by itself with the time. i hope my english is a bit good.

OSU

[Bloke]

Nova

It just happens over time - what hurts you now wont hurt so much in a months time.

[kakatootoshi]

Dear nova,
Partly it is conditioning (you can learn about these various body conditioning exercises in Kyokushin at the "training section" of this board) but I think mentality is also important.
I remember reading Sosai Oyama's words somewhere and I would like to share it with you. He basically said something like "Do not run away from suffering, as it will run after you. But suffering will run away if you run after it." If you train hard enough and if you have a one-tracked mind to cause pain to your opponent then you tend to ignore your own pain.
But even if you do Kyokushin, you are nothing but human being. So do not feel ashamed of yourself when pain slows you down in your training/fighting. We all have our own limits and even in big tournaments I have heard people screaming for pain, and it does not mean these people are "weak" or "lazy". A measure between a champion and a wannabe is how much pain one can take.

OSU!

[helenosch]

Hi nova
Like kakatootoshi and Bloke already said, it takes time and a healthy mental approach to pain. Through conditioning your body gets acostumed to it and through the approach you get a kick out of your bruises

[Billy no mates]

Some of what you are experiencing is the shock of new as your body learns a new sensation it deals with it a lot better,when you have never experienced a liver shot before as well as the physical pain caused you have to deal with a new and shocking mental experience .

[nova]

thanks for your aswers. i will defenatly try to think of the mental approach to pain during training. and it propably will get better when my body gets used to the feeling of a new sensation.

[Martin H]

Lots of situps, to develope muscles to protect the chest. Muscles are VERY helpful in shielding you, but it will still hurt. Then you do Tanren (=conditioning) by having someone punch you in chest and stomach and kick you on the legs. Lightly at first (do not have someone puch for all that they are worth. That wont help in the long run since you wont do it that often), then harder as you start being able to stand it. And then there is kumite. Starting out pretty softly, you occasionally fight with real hard contact. Dont fight that way to often though, they you will lose technique and become a slugger. There is unfortunately no shortcuts.

[Spirit]

You as a person are conditioned to pain by how your parents dealt with you as a baby...
If your parents made a big deal hen you fell or banged yourself (no matter how small) then you learned to react to pain or basicly your parents validated you to cry over thing you should not have.

I know this will cause a reaction from the mmbers , but truth be told pain is a reactionary impulse (to the levels of pain we see in training and sparring) based on how you learned it.

That can change based on (like katatootoshi martin stated below) as well as your mind set to brush it off or not to notice at all "mushin no shin" pain no pain... lightly translated a zen saying that can mean other things but in this case it means this.

(translation taken from wikipedia): mushin no shin (無心の心}, a zen expression meaning mind of no mind. That is, a mind not fixed or occupied by thought or emotion and thus open to everything.
Mushin is achieved when a fighter feels no anger, fear or ego during combat. There is an absence of discursive thought, and so the fighter is totally free to act and react towards an opponent without hesitation. At this point, a person relies not on what they think should be the next move, but what is felt intuitively.

[szalmalang]

About taking pain in martial arts in particular I cannot say too much, but maybe it is a contribution of some value if I share my experience about taking pain in general.
I agree with those who have pointed out mentality as an important factor.
Quite a long time I was terribly afraid of any kind of pain, e.g. I hated going to the doctor when I was ill for fear of getting injections prescribed (no little child, this lasted to my mid-twenties!).
Then came the time I got pregnant (3 times), I had several blood tests (needle!!), all kinds of other discomforts, and the deliveries were of course no garden parties either
And slowly I started to look upon pains with different eyes. That change was induced by the fact that these were pains I _chose_ to have, not pains I had to have, and I saw purpose and reason in them.
I realized how much truth there is in the often cited words that things are not inherently 'good' or 'bad', it all depends on how you think about them. I thought to myself, well, why the hell am I that convinced that pain is necessarily something bad? I tried to find reasons why they could be looked upon as something "good". Step by step I taught myself to think about pains as something natural, as simply signs, sort of "help": information that my body sends me about its present state and that I can analyze, interprete and thus act accordingly.
Somewhat later I started weight training, and after 4-5 months I moved heavier weights even than women training there for 5 years. People kept wondering if I take steroids or what. Surely part of it is genetics and such, but I am convinced it is mostly because of my new attitude towards pain. When we talked about this in the gym, said ladies were baffled as I said "Of course it hurts, that's a natural consequence of working hard and no reason to stop. I only stop when the muscle itself gives up. Same thing with muscle soreness, in these 4-5 months I can't remember having more than 4 or 5 days without any, and it's no problem for me, it's just natural." They thought I'm a maniac or simply crazy.
Same way, in the few cases I could attend sparring training, I was grateful for every punch or kick, thinking "this much I can take, oh yeah, this is a proof, let's see how much more I can take, worst thing that can happen to me is that I collapse, so what?" (Maybe this is just general beginners' enthusiasm and everybody starts like this, I can't know - that is a question for the more experienced.)

So, I don't know if this story could be of any help, I just hope some of it can be translated into your practice.