Thursday, August 12, 2010

Knowing When to Let Go.

Once, in sparring, my partner grabbed my arms with his hands. He smiled slightly, considering his advantage. I stepped back into a horse stance pulling him off balance, then kicked him in the gut with a lead leg sidekick. It was light contact, so he squeezed tighter. I shuffle stepped towards him, hooking my lead leg behind his ankle and shifted to a bow and arrow stance. This caused him to fall backwards. Still he held on, pulling me down on top of him. Now that I was on top, I freed my right arm and punched him in the side of the head, then freed my left and punched him in the jaw on the other side.

He didn't know when to let go, and so kept getting himself into more and more of a predicament.

Often life throws challenges, hurts, injuries and insults our way. There is a time to hold tight and fight, but there is also a time to let go.

Several years ago, my mother and father paid me a visit. My then fiancee, and now wife cooked them dinner. The reason they had come was to tell me that my Mom had been diagnosed with cancer. They had a plan for how to fight the cancer, but the odds were against her. The only thing in my power to do was to support her in her battle.

As time went on, the cancer progressed, there came a point when my mother knew the battle was lost. She chose to let go of it.

I got married at her house, three months before my planned wedding. My mom passed away a week later.

Part of me still holds on to the grief and pain. Part of me is still angry at that disease that took my mother from me.

Every time I feel that way, and find myself holding on to the anger, I have to remind myself to let go of it.

Anger won't bring her back, and it won't heal me.

I let go of the negative feelings over and over again. I hold on to the love she showed me throughout my life, to the memories, to all that she gave me. I hold on to all I learned from her, and I share that with my wife and children.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Self Doubt

It's Tuesday morning, 4 days before the national tournament, and self doubt has shown its head.

"What if I don't make weight?" "What if I didn't practice enough?" "What if, what if, what if, what if. . .

So then I exercise the rational part of my brain. First I answer the questions honestly. If I don't make weight, I'll spar the big guys, if I didn't practice enough, I won't perform my best. . . All in all it is really small potatoes.

Then I remind myself that the tournament is the FAKE goal. I've already accomplished the real goals. I'm in great shape, I know what it takes to lose 20 pounds, my forms are looking better, I've gained self esteem. . .

The tournament is just icing now.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Pain and Suffering

Sometimes, as a father, I have to witness my beautiful little girl suffer. Sometimes small things, like when the "new Shrek movie" was sold out and she had her heart set on seeing it. Sometimes bigger things like when I had to pull a splinter from her foot. Eventually there will be some really big pains in her life that I can not prevent, or change for her.

Pulling the splinter from her foot was agonizing for me. She screamed, she cried, but she bravely held still while I worked on it. It was really imbedded in there. It broke my heart to be sitting there causing her so much pain as I poked and prodded and pinched and squeezed. I finally got that little sucker out of there though.

If I had left it in, it would have been worse, infection, doctor's office, antibiotics. . . I know that the best thing her daddy could do at that point was to cause some pain and get that splinter out.

We all have to go through some pain sometimes. A good workout leaves sore muscles. There is some pain when stretching muscles. There is also pain when stretching our boundaries, when stepping out of our comfortable box. It takes courage to get out and try something new. I think it is even harder to watch someone you love do the same, even if you know it is the right thing for them at that time.

Sooner or later, someone will call my daughter a dirty name, some friend of hers will hurt her feelings, some romantic interest will break her heart. As her daddy I will not like seeing her suffer, but I will let her suffer, I will be there to help her through it, but I will let her learn from her suffering. I will not take away the lesson that comes with it.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

My Personal Tournament Results

Improved my diet.
Lost 7-8 pounds.
Trained harder.
Had fun.
Reconnected with old friends.
Made new friends.
Saw the results of my hard work.
Watched my friends/students face their own challenges and come out smiling.

Good tournament.


Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Watch Out For Snakes

We went camping at Natural Bridge State Resort Park for the 4th of July weekend. The park is great, wonderful trails beautiful campsites, the place is kept very natural which is what we like.

We were camping in bear country, in fact, very near the place where a bear attack happened just a few days before our trip. So we took the first step of self defense: awareness.

We learned about how to not attract black bears, what to do if we saw a black bear, and what to do if approached by a black bear.

We didn't see any bears.

We did see what we thought at first was possibly a copperhead, right near our campsite. As it turns out that one was more likely a northern water snake.
Copperhead
Northern Water Snake

That snake, however, reminded me about awareness, we'd been so focused on bear safety, I hadn't been thinking about snakes. So I started being more careful about where I walked, and where I looked while walking, and spotted this one.

So the lesson that I was reminded of was one I preach a lot. Awareness. Wherever we are, whatever we are doing, we should try to be aware of, not paranoid about, but aware of the threats we are most likely to face. We should be aware of how to minimize those threats and protect ourselves. By the way if you didn't click on that last link, you really should, it will help you be aware of the threats we face in the USA.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Tournament Training

I've been training for the tournament. Training pretty hard too.

Once upon a time, tournament training for me was practicing my forms.

This year I'm taking it seriously. Not because I'm obsessed with winning. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm going to try to win, but winning isn't all that important to me.

I've simply discovered that by training to win, I'm really, really training. And that is a win.