FROM YAMABUSHI TO MODERN PSHYCHOLOGICAL TRAINING IN MARTIAL ARTS

Abstract

Yamabushi were forest spirits who lived in the regions of Japan. They did not lead their lives in urban agglomerations, and appeared around monasteries or on mountain paths. They mostly posed no danger to humans, intervening in the lives of martial arts masters, providing them with secret fighting techniques. They had a more psychological training role, which led to exceptional results for the history of martial arts. After the fall of the samurai class and the secular development of Japanese society, these spirits of the forests will be replaced by psychologists, who will try to bring superior performance to the work of martial arts athletes. Using hypnosis, manipulations of the human psyche, but also of the masses, methods of eliminating emotions, up to their annihilation, many countries resorted to high-level psychologists, whose aim was to train an athlete from a psychological point of view, without being tributary to emotions. With all the methods used, some even taken from the field of military psychology, the athletes’ results were not superior to the majority. Not all athletes managed to overcome all their obstacles, some, instead, failed completely, their lives were changed forever, being unable to adapt to the society in which they live. The studies below represent a series of research in the field of psychology of martial arts, with updated data at the time of writing the article.