I have had such anxiety about writing stuff on my blog. I yearn for people to get something out of it, enjoy reading it, like it, and I forgot that really it is about if I like it or not. The first real audience is me. Do I like it? And if I don’t, should I write anyway, a rough draft of sorts, just to get into the habit of writing and for practice. I know some accomplished writers make many drafts of their stuff before anyone else sees it. Well, enough with the anxiety. I am going to ride this roller coaster of life with my hands up today…
In taekwondo part of our practice is sparring. We put on full protective gear, face our opponent, bow, and then the fight is on. In sparring we are trying to score points by kicking or punching certain scoring areas on our opponents gear. The chest and the head are the two main scoring areas. In a competition the person with the most points at the end of the match wins.
So we are both trying to score points (kick or punch) and at the same time we are trying to prevent our opponent from scoring points (blocks). Sometimes we can also move out of the way fast enough to make our opponent miss (less painful than a block). And so the game goes…
What we really want to avoid is getting kicked in the head (three points). To not get kicked in the head you have to practice not getting kicked in the head, which invariably means you will get kicked in the head a few times trying not to get kicked in the head. And this is all assuming that your opponent is willing to practice kicking to the head which some people out right refuse to do (too dangerous). So to be good at blocking shots to your head you actually have to have a sparring partner who is willing to practice kicking to your head. You both have to be willing to take a risk of getting hurt and being the one to inflict the hurt. Crazy, right?
What if in life we never had someone willing to help us practice like this? The coach, the sparring partner, the husband or wife, the co-worker or boss, the friend…who would never risk hurting you and so never told you when you could do something better or differently, never gave you feedback on your performance at work, never gave you a more challenging project to do, or “stretched” you in any way, never shared their opinion or risked sharing their experience with you, never threw the hard ball, never let you try to see if you could do it?
We practice the art of taekwondo for fitness, self defense, self confidence, to be better people. We count on our classmates and teachers to make us try. If they don’t we don’t have the opportunity to stretch our limits, see what we can do, or have any opportunity to do things differently.
So why don’t we begin to live our lives the same way, helping each other reach a little higher, trusting in our partner’s ability, sharing our experiences, teaching what we know, asking new questions, helping each other block a head shot? The goal is not to hurt your opponent, it is to help them succeed, to do something they never thought they could do, to help them really live in the moment.
Okay, off to work, I feel better now. And just because I want to get better at blocking head shots (this is to my Thursday night classmates) don’t go crazy!
