The human brain is modular in function. That is, as a general rule, different components or modules control bodily functions. For example, motor skills are mostly a concern of your frontal lobe. Visual activity is governed by the occipital lobe at the back of your head. On the other hand, some complex activities appear to be controlled by a circuit of interacting modules. Integrating inputs from various senses is one such activity.
What about motivation? What makes you and me get up and go, so to speak? And how does age affect this process?
Neuroscientists will tell you that, from a chemical and physical perspective, motivation is driven by neurotransmitting chemicals in the mid brain, specifically the substantia negra (SA) and the ventral tegmental area (VTA). The release of dopamine by these modules is directly tied to our reward responses and motivation. That’s why most psychotropic medications involve increasing or inhibiting one or more neurotransmitters: serotonin, dopamine, glutamate, acetylcholine and norepinephrine, to name the major players. It’s the levels and interplay of these components that execute our behaviors in response to the motivations they underlie. Much of the entire sports and fitness industry/profession is focused on how to optimize the right timing and output of these chemicals to support our training and fitness routines.
There are several principles connected with or dependent on these channels that influence our success at aikido or any other long term training regimen. Here are a few:
- Capacity to defer gratification: Good evidence from neuropsychology indicates that an ability to defer gratification determines from an early age the potential for goal achievement. We learn in aikido practice that competency comes from thousands of repetitions.
- The value of intrinsic rewards: There’s a saying in business that people work for either “love or money”. In aikido, we strive to work for the intrinsic value of the art itself. This type of motivation comes, in my view, from years of life experience.
- Focus: How does a practitioner stay on a training routine when improvement is incremental and the ultimate reward is intrinsic to the practice itself? In this regard, success or failure often, perhaps usually, comes down to habit. Can we create and sustain behavior long enough for our bodies and nervous systems to accept the arduous practice as routine?
- Social component: Humans biologically have always been social animals. We do things more consistently when we have company—fellow travelers in the art and practice of aikido. That’s why group practice will always beat out watching a video for training gains.
As we age, our bodies naturally become less flexible, more injury-prone and physically weaker. Yes, of course, we can and must work as possible to offset these changes and adapt our practice to what is physically possible. But age also can produce wisdom from experience. We practice physically, but we also practice to develop our emotional and psychological capabilities: patience, focus, appreciation for intrinsic reward. The physical drivers of motivation may wane somewhat, but the mental and spiritual drivers can complement and offset any physical decline.