An interview with Renee Joyce

(Renee Joyce has been GKR’s most successful kumite champion (male or female) boasting numerous NAS and GKR National Titles. She is also the current GKR and WASO (World All-styles Organisation) World Kumite Champion)

GKR:  Renee, can you share with us some key principles that have helped you to succeed over the years?

RJ:  People understand that top athletes (Olympians for example) devote their life to their sport.  What they eat, the hours they sleep or train, and every decision they make in life is based upon their goal. In karate, it works no differently. The more you wish to achieve then the more time, mental, physical and emotional effort must be put in.   The following are three simple principles that can make a massive difference to your karate.

1.  Having A Goal

“Goals are like magnets, they pull us in the direction of our dreams”

For a person who wishes to reach their full potential, it all begins with a clearly defined goal. A powerful goal will provide you with the discipline required to do the training, to ask the questions and to make the sacrifices. It is your goal that you can turn to in down times, when you are frustrated at your seeming lack of progress. It is your goal that will get you on your way to training when you come home and are feeling like a lazy night in. It is your goal will drive you to train beyond your comfort zone when your body is starting to slow-down during training.

2.  Having A Plan To Follow

“When we fail to plan, we are subconsciously planning to fail”

Kancho told our class once, “You can motivate an idiot, but all you get is a motivated idiot”. Once you have a clear goal, it is time to direct that enthusiasm into a specific plan.
Your plan should include:

- The days you will train karate in the dojo
- The days and times you will train karate at home. This might be as little as ten minutes of stretching each morning or an hour of kata or footwork etc.
- The days and times you will do physical training at home. This might include, weights, cardio (running, skipping, bag work etc) 
-  Your meal plans (If you do not have a plan for eating well, you are more likely to slip back into bad eating habits). 
- Your drink plan. If you plan to increase your training, water is more important than ever. If you set a goal to drink 2-3 litres of water every day, you will achieve it. Simply telling yourself to drink more water will not be enough.

3.  Mental Training Is As Important As Physical Training

“Whether you think you can or you cant, your right”

Karate is as much to do with the mind, as it is the body. By ignoring your mental development then you are ignoring half of the teachings of karate and therefore will never amount to a complete martial artist. Ask yourself, “What are the principles karate promotes and am I a reflection of these?”  Do I reflect confidence, courtesy, respect, humbleness etc?

From a tournament perspective, when in the ring you will be faced with inner demons such as self-doubt, fear etc. By training your mind, you can learn to largely ignore and even conquer these.  Until you do this, you will never perform at your best, as these inner-demons not only cloud our judgement in the ring, but they cause us to tense up, resulting in telegraphed sparring, slower movement and less conviction.