What can martial arts teach to businesses?

I’m practising martial since I was 16, this makes me more than half my life training. First it was like a hobby or a way to practice some kind of sport, then, I don’t know when exactly, it became a need and then a lifestyle. I love martial arts and have practised several styles (Tai Chi, Aikido, Kick boxing, Ju jutsu, Kenjutsu, Kali, Seitei Iai, HEMA, …) during my life.

Now I realized that some of things you should learn in Martial Arts, they can (I prefer should… but who knows) be applied in normal life and, of course, in business. Those things are:

1- Patience. Practice martial arts requires to learn a lot of techniques, sometimes names in other languages and coordinate body and mind, hand and eye, ... this can be accomplished only after practice and repetition during some years; this continuous practice helps to prepare to long term projects. Also it should help people to don't think they already know something just for doing it once, as a quote I like to say is "Don't practice until you do it correct, practice until you don't do it incorrect".

2- Focus. Some Martial Arts training forces you to focus on the objective (defense, attack, motion, ...) and in practice, you learn to identify superfluous actions and try to change them to improve your surrounding (practice). Another quote that can be applied is to use the KISS principle: Keep It Simple [Sensei, Sir, Stupid, ... choose the one you like]. In a HEMA tournament, I won it just because I applied strategy, not only techniques; my colleagues told me I did a "cold" way of fighting, but with this, I showed that technique is important, but strategy can make the difference.

3- Learn to lose. If you practice Martial Arts, it is not strange to participate in some competitions; doing so, you see how you react to stress and in some cases, you can do it quite good, but the other can be better and beat you; in this case, you learnt that you can improve and you should keep practising. So, you learn you are in the good path and thank you your opponent for his time and practice or you learn you should practice more or, maybe, change way of training or doing things.

4- Trust others. In the everyday practice, you must be the shitachi (the one that does the technique), also called tori or the uchitachi (the one that receives the technique), also called uke. When you receive the technique, you are, normally, the attacker and you must rely that your training partner will do the technique properly, without finishing it causing you an injury. Also, when you are doing the technique, you must rely on the partner that his attack will be properly done, so he helps in your training, not creating false (and fake) sensations.

I think there are more profitable thing you can obtain from a Martial Art practice, but those are the base, and good ones!

Some companies have already seen this, you can read in the book "Inside Japanese Business. A narrative history 1960-2000" of Makota Ohtsu & Tomio Imanari. I also remember a japanese company that every member of their management team was a black belt in kendo and there was a kendo dojo at the company, for the workers to promote practice. (Teambuilding? Helping in the workers health?)

So, when will you start/retake your Martial Arts practice?

See you on the mat! ;)