I want to share a very important principle of trading. I learned this principle when I worked my way up to becoming a Black Belt Karate Instructor. That is: you need to drill for skill. Repetition is the key to mastery.
Let me tell you about Front Kick. It is one of the basic techniques that you learn as a beginning karate student. You can learn everything you need about how to do a proper front kick in less than 10 minutes. It really is that simple.
All you need to know is:
- How to stand properly
- How to pick up your knee,
- How to extend out your leg, (hold your foot properly for impact),
- How withdraw your foot quickly so the opponent can’t grab it,
- What to do if your opponent blocks your kick
- and how bring your foot back to the ground with balance.
I can teach you all that in just a few minutes, but as you may know, it takes much longer than that to learn how to DO a front kick properly so it would be effective in a self defense situation.
Here’s why; and it’s important to underline this:
In times of stress we revert to habit!
As you can imagine – if you were in a real self defense situation, it would be of time of stress wouldn’t it?
…And at that moment in time, you will revert to habit.
You don’t have time to review the karate class on front kick to find out what to do… No, your whole life could depend on your ability, with split-second recall, to make effective impact with the target and retain your balance for quick escape from the danger!
And it’s the same in trading.
You need complete preparation and repetition of you preparation,
practice and drill for skill to be prepared for the dangers of trading.
Instead of taking just five or ten minutes to teach you how to do front kick, a good karate instructor will have their student practice front kick hundreds of times over months and YEARS of training to drill for skill, over and over again – those same few motor skills required for front kick.
Then – you can wake up out of a dead sleep at 2 o’clock in the morning, and know exactly what to do… almost as a reflexive action.
And it’s the exact same thing in trading stocks, commodities, or bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
When we put on a new trade and it does something unexpected,
it’s a time of stress for us, isn’t it?
And at that moment in time the fight or flight reflex kicks in, adrenaline is released and the neocortex of the brain puts our strongest habit into action.
And if we have not learned trading rules and risk control rules and then practice over and over again, if we do not ‘drill for skill’ by repeating and repeating these strategies until they become a belief that becomes a habit, we’re not going to use our trading rules. We will still be acting on beliefs and habits about money that we had before we started trading.
We are going to look back after our trade is closed, and will say
‘oh, if only I had done that, what a difference it would have made…’
You see, in trading, it’s not what you know that counts, it’s what you believe and do as a habit. Often it is of no value to you, just to know about trading patterns, indicators and risk control strategies. Your key to success in trading, is to follow your trading rules spontaneously – as a habit – when you are managing your positions.
* The way you can give this course that extra power and that extra value, is to take the time right now to get a notebook and start your trading journal as your personal way to Drill For Skill – so you can personally master these trading methods and risk control strategies, and use them as a habit when trading.