"If you have confidence in your words, aspirations, thoughts and actions, and do your very best, you will have no need to regret the outcome of what you do. Fear and trembling are the lot of the person who, while stinting effort, hopes that everything will come out precisely as he wants."
-Mas Oyama
"I have the absolute confidence not to be number 2, but then I have enough sense to realize that there can be no number one."
-Bruce Lee
I find it oddly ironic that out of people who embody the trait of being courageous, martial artists can often be the most sensitive. Tell your teacher how great you are, and listen to their response, and you will know exactly what I mean.
Really, no matter how great a day one of us may be having, what we have just done, a single comment from one we respect can literally bring us down a lot of pegs.
Perhaps it is because we are supposed to be humble, and most of us are, or perhaps it is because we listen. Irregardless, sooner or later a martial artist, for one reason or another, will experience something in some way that takes all their confidence and throws it out the window.
Two weeks I hit a landmark in being able to do seventy-five kicks on a leg without having to stop. I sincerely believed that doing 100, which I would have said would be next to impossible, was right around the corner.
And then my hand got pulled into a meat slicer because of a mistake.
That's all it took for me to stop practicing for a few days, and then right thereafter to question myself if I could even do fifty still.
Of course I can, but it occurs to me in experiencing that doubt, many of us probably also go through it. When we strive to do our best, we want to be the best we can. And while that's a purely objective opinion, it matters to many who practice. We don't just do exercise; martial arts is about as much refining our spirit and mind as it is our technique and physical ability.
And there comes a time when all of us as martial artists are going to be humbled. Some of us take it with grace. Some of us do not. But it never has to actually stop us.
For the first few days sliding back into practice I have been starting small and working my way back to where I was. I stretch, I do 100 kicks instead of the normal 300. I began with twenty-five kicks per leg, and yesterday returned to fifty. Tonight it will be seventy-five again per leg. And maybe it'll suck, but I will get it done. Because I have two options; to stand still and be essentially dead, or to push forward, always move forward because that's what it means to be alive. And though maimed... for now, I am most certainly not dead.
After all, what does a hand injury have to do with my kicking ability? And further, why would half a week of a break, or even a week of malaise, have to have a great impact on the last four months of work?
In short nothing- but my ego has everything to do with it. It will be months before I can use the hand again normally, were I to wait until it has fully recovered it is not the hand injury that ultimately prohibited me, but myself who chose to.
And that's why our sensitive egos do matter- because when they are hurt, they are hurt as much as we let them be. In a way we are the gatekeepers to what we let affect us; we should listen always, to others, to our body's when we are hurt especially, but while respectful of what we are told and experience, it does not have to have such an impetus as to affect what we do totally.
So next time you are feeling down about your martial practice; don't worry. It will pass, and sooner or later, even if it's been years since you put it on, you will find yourself itching to don the gi, and get back to work.
"We define ourselves far too often by our past failures. That's not you. You are this person right now. You are the person who has learned from those failures. Build confidence and momentum with each good decision you make from here on out and choose to be inspired."
-Joe Rogan
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