Over the past few years I have taken an interest in martial arts. Being a lifelong baseball player I noticed differences in philosophy and culture in the martial arts community. Many adages that are common place in martial arts could also be applied to baseball. I believe baseball can learn from martial arts in a lot of ways.
Most martial arts emphasize the importance of technique. Technique is emphasized in baseball, but not on the same level. For example, lets take a 12 year old baseball player who hit puberty early and is bigger, faster, stronger than the other kids. Even though his swing has bat drag and he is not rotating his hips fully, the more mature player’s speed and strength allow him to dominate his local little league hitting .500 with 15 home runs. Most coaches would not attempt to change his hitting technique. “Don’t mess with success” is what most coaches would say, and they would let the player continue to play with flawed mechanics.
In Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, this kind of thinking is frowned upon. Learning technique is non negotiable. If your technique is flawed, you must improve it. BJJ does not want you to get by on physical attributes alone. That may work most of the time, but when you face someone who has similar attributes to you one day, you must be prepared with technique.
BJJ is founded on the concept that a smaller, weaker person can successfully defend themselves against a bigger, stronger, heavier opponent. This concept can be applied to baseball in several ways. In a previous post about height in hitting (can be found HERE), I discuss how with good mechanics / technique shorter hitters can hit just as good or better than taller hitters.
Helio Gracie’s quote from above can also be applied to how you practice in baseball. Your opponent is the pitcher, and you should always practice like you are facing an elite pitcher that throws very hard with good off speed pitches. Even during soft toss practice or off of a tee (where you could get away with flawed technique) you must do your best to have good technique. This will keep you prepared for game-time against good pitching, when good technique is required to perform optimally.
Traditionally, martial arts have a core value of self improvement. In baseball, players often compare themselves to other players. This leads to feelings of complacency or inadequacy depending on who they are comparing themselves to. In martial arts, the only person you should compare yourself to, is yourself. You must be striving to be better than the previous version of yourself.
Even though it may seem counter-intuitive, days, months and years of constant self improvement will lead you to being the best, even if it wasn’t your daily goal. At the very least, you will be the best YOU, and that all is you can ask for. One day when you are done playing, you will have the piece of mind knowing you reached YOUR potential.
One last thing that I noticed martial arts excel at, is the actual teaching of technique. You may be familiar with the Kata, which is the series of movements Karate, and other martial artists perform. They do these to slow down the movements and improve technique. Slowing down the movements is a great way to feel the differences in technique and to achieve the necessary repetitions to make changes. At full speed, whether its baseball or karate your body does what it is used to doing. If you want to make changes you must first slow down the movements, practice doing them correctly and then gradually increase the speed. Many types of karate, don’t allow the student to increase the speed until their technique is perfect. Then, tens of thousands of repetitions increasing the speed, help make karate practitioners to be some of the quickest punchers and kickers in the world.
Many players in the baseball and softball community don’t want to put in the tens of thousands of necessary repetitions to improve. They want to make quick fixes, and think that they can improve their swings with only 10’s and 100’s of swings. The martial arts community knows it does not work like that.
My goal as a coach is to learn as much as I can about athletic development and teach it to my players. Sometimes lessons can be learned from other sports or disciplines (like martial arts). I would encourage younger players to play other sports and see what they can learn from them as well. Even if they ultimately plan to focus on baseball, other activities can provide benefits.