By Tor Laurel.
As a martial artist who walked into a Judo club some 40 years ago, I’ve often found that it is very difficult to gauge my overall progress, and I’m sure this is something that I have in common with most of our students. We show up every week and look to see how much we have improved, and the most realistic comparison we can make is whether we are better than we were seven days ago. Unfortunately for the most part, we cannot see that we are any different. But over a period of months and sometimes years we do improve. This week, I was reminded of our inability to perceive our long term advancement, when I was lucky enough to be asked to teach two of our brown belts; who may well be grading by the end of this year for their black belts. And later one of our beginners who; at the age of sixty has decided to come to us for self defence training. He has like all beginners no preconceived idea of what’s involved, or even what he is supposed to look like, just a refreshing approach to the subject and some great questions! The lessons weren’t particularly complicated; only one pattern for the high grades repeated over and over, with corrections in between each repetition. While for the lower grade some of the important concepts of defending yourself based on defending the centre line, and less on correcting ridged techniques. I answered all his questions, and at the end of the hour I watch this beginner guarding his centre line, confronting the attack and retaliating with a strike. As an observer I saw two things; firstly the growing frustration of the two brown belts, every time they thought they’d “nailed it “ there was something else for them to work on. While secondly the beginner, with no such expectations looked confident in what he was doing, and had as much fun receiving the lesson as I had teaching it! Unlike our frustrated ‘high grades’, who couldn’t feel any improvements, only faults to improve. But I saw improvements, not just within the space of the one-hour lesson, but over the years I have taught them. I remember them both as uncoordinated and awkward beginners, and here they were performing powerful and demanding Karate moves, and then later in the evening also using effortless Aikido! So to you students who struggle (and really that should be all of you!) and who may hit a plateau, and doubt your ability, here is a message; We “your instructors” see your improvements…we see how great you have become since you were those white belts. So have compassion for yourselves while you struggle towards being the best you can be, but don’t loose the joy a beginner feels with no expectations!
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