As your body learns new patterns of movement, your mind learns new patterns of thinking. We learn that things are not always as they appear. The strong are not necessarily powerful. Opponents are not necessarily enemies. Just as our bodies can become more flexible, so can our thinking.
Regular practice can lead to greater emotional freedom as well.
Emotions are a physical response to how we read the world. If we focus only the negative, our responses are limited. When being attacked, we panic and see only the fist. Positive thinking, however, results in a much broader focus, and because we remain calm we can see our options. When we change the way we interpret events, we change the way we react to them.