Keep on Dancing

"Move with the rhythm of any situation and adapt spontaneously". Movement, rhythm, and the ability to adapt; the essence of impact distilled into this concise phrase from Miyamoto Musashi's The Book of Five Rings.

I got some great advice once from a truly talented martial artist, a world-class European Shihan. He watched me spar for a while, then came over, stopping us to say "don't stay waiting to hit him, you have to keep on moving, constantly flowing to hit, then just continue the movement to strike when there's an opportunity. You don't have to think when to go - it will just happen". This simple advice vastly improved my ability to fight and win, realizing that even if the movement is imperceptible, continual motion allows natural speed and flow, adapting spontaneously to the situation.

It's good advice off the mat too, creating an impact by:

• Keeping light on your feet: staying happy and aware, waiting for the moment
• Continual movement: learning, trying different things, different ways of solving a problem, finding new perspectives
• Generating an awareness of the rhythm of situations: how to influence, control and adapt to this rhythm
• Relaxation to seize opportunity without effort

The great Muhammad Ali demonstrates this perfectly in this short clip of his 1966 fight against Cleveland Williams:

Win before you get on the mat

Engaging effectively to win requires, amongst other qualities, supreme confidence. As Robert Greene states in his book co-written with 50 Cent "The 50th Law": "A bold act requires a high degree of confidence. People who are the targets of an audacious act, or who witness it, cannot help but believe that such confidence is real and justified. They respond instinctively by backing up, by getting out of the way, or by following the confident person. A bold act can put people on their heels and eliminate obstacles. In this way it creates its own favorable circumstances".

Karate tournaments are a good practice ground for developing confidence as a means of success. To win a bout requires unwavering conviction that you can win. If you get on the mat with this certitude, there's a good chance that victory will be yours. Conversely, the slightest doubt represents a gap, a weakness for your opponent to exploit, and almost certain defeat.

In engaging with projects and people, confidence is paramount to effectiveness. It doesn't mean that we stubbornly persist in imposing our ideas at any price, but rather that we remain calm, confident in our abilities, ready to seize opportunity or find the creative solution under any circumstances.

Tension and Release

Making an impact requires understanding the simple concept of tension and release. Building and holding tension as a component of success has been illustrated several times, not least by Walter Mischel's famous Stanford experiment on delayed gratification. In this study kids were sequestered with a marshmallow and told that if they did not eat the treat straight away--if they were capable of self control and could handle the discomfort of waiting with the tasty 'mallow tempting them--they would eventually get two marshmallows. Mischel followed-up several years later and found that the 30% of children who succeeded were significantly more successful than those that those who succumbed. The study illustrates that the ability to hold tension, not to give into the temptation of comfort, is a psychological determinant of the ability to make an impact.

The same concept is used in music and sport. Tension in music is built by placing notes over a steady rhythmic foundation. How the melody is placed over the rhythm can build an enjoyable tension - think of the moments before Phil Collins' famous drum roll in "In the air tonight" or the build to your favorite chorus, or the drop in dub step for those as hip as me :)

In sport, my earlier post on Tiger Woods illustrates how he builds tension between hips and shoulders, allowing this to accelerate the club toward the ball. This effortless acceleration is what we get from building and holding tension. It's the ability to seize an opportunity quickly after waiting for the right moment, having built knowledge and understanding. It's quality - making sure that we don't release the product before we have built the process, or the ability to generate relaxed tension through setting strategy and objectives. Ultimately tension can be powerful and pleasurable, the delicious pain of waiting, capable of making people across the world play the air drums as the chorus kicks in.

Who better to hit this one home than Mike Tyson: