The ability to focus on the right thing and filter out other stimulus is key to martial arts training.
There’s a line between the most important thing and everything else. You have to be aware of many things at once, but only one thing at a time gets your focus.
The primary focus is the thing that you are working on. It’s what you’re thinking about. There are other things in your environment being managed by you, but you maintain an awareness of those things only enough to allow you to maintain your focus on the main thing.
A kid named Angel Alvarado set a world record and solved three Rubik’s Cubes simultaneously while juggling. He had to focus not on the cameras, not on the clock, not even on juggling, but on the cubes.
He had juggled so much that he didn’t have to think about it. This is why you need to practice your martial arts – so that, when it comes to the moment you need it, you can use your martial arts skills and not be thinking about it.
Angel also had to analyze the cubes’ positions as they were in the air and make lightning fast movements to rotate them correctly. A great martial artist is able to think and react this fast as well.
If you’d like to watch Angel’s incredible feat, we’ve embedded the video below.
Since I first wrote this page, I’ve come across other examples of focusing on one thing and doing other things that have become automatic through rigorous practice.
Here are some other examples for you to check out.
