It all starts with one step….

After as many years as we have been in Martial Arts, we hear some funny things over the years…. One that we hear all the time is “I am not in good enough shape to take classes” or “ as soon as I am in shape, I will come in and take classes”. What these people sometimes miss is that the physical and healthy body comes from taking part in classes.

Anyone can start any time – I firmly believe that….

One of the things that we teach in the Junior Class is that a “black sash is a white sash that never gave up”. I further go on to tell them what we think a martial artist is… 

In my mind, a martial artist is someone who edifies what Sijo calls CNEI – constant, never ending improvement. As an example, if person A walks into the club and is able to do 100 pushups and then after 5 years of training, he is able to do 110 pushups and Person B walks into the club and cannot do one single push up, but after 5 years of training can do 20 pushups. who is a better martial artist?

This can be heatedly debated, but to me Person B has shown stronger mental focus and work ethic. They started out by not having any skill (in pushups) and have grown by being capable of performing twenty times more after 5 years of training. So, although Person A is able to do more pushups, my thoughts are that person B has exemplified the training because they had no skill and overcame it. Sometimes this is too hard for some people to take on.
I like to think that procrastination is your brain looking for an excuse for your body….. 

A line from a movie goes something like this: “Don’t be a why Guy…. Be a why not Guy”. Although the movie was a comedy (anyone know which one?) – I always thought that was a great saying. Don’t look for reasons not to do something (in our case it is Martial Arts, but this could apply to anything), look for reasons to do it successfully.

One of the funny things about our industry (Martial Arts) is that people love to talk about it. As recently as last month, I had someone come into the school to discuss memberships – or so I thought – what he wanted to do was to talk about his Martial Arts training. This person assured me that he was a serious Martial Arts student who trained really hard and, once committed, nothing was going to stop him.

Experience has taught me how to deal with this issue – I just changed the tone of the conversation from words to action. I said “Are you ready to start right now?” All of sudden, a change came over him…. He had to check with his wife and then look into his schedule, work was crazy right now and he wanted to make sure he could dedicate himself to the training… and he left 5 minutes later.

If I had not asked that question, he would have happily spent the next hour talking about training, but not actually training.

Sijo often tells us that a strong person is one whose actions control his thoughts. This person lets their actions, and results, speak for themselves, rather than trying to convince people how successful they will be…. It all begins with a single step – decide what you want to accomplish and then think of ways to do it successfully – don’t waste your time on negative thoughts on why you should not even bother – that is your (and mine) lazy mind, trying to give you an excuse….

NO EXCUSES – JUST RESULTS

Stay Solid,
Sifu Scott

Posted in: Personal Development