ZEN AND THE ART OF MMA

Here's an out-of-context, edited excerpt from my journal...

I need to look at my strengths for what they are – things I’m already good at that, as good as they are, won’t necessarily propel me to develop the strengths I don’t have yet. It’s like thinking the levels of taekwondo and my kung fu I’ve reached can and should help me become a better stick fighter, kickboxer, & grappler.

So, perhaps for the first time since the day I began my martial arts training, I've found something transferable from the dojo to my everyday life.

Sure, people always tout the discipline of training or the endurance of pain or the perseverance that comes with maintaining progress as something you can transfer into real life. I'm sure all that is true for some people, but not for someone like me. I've had similar discussions like this with other people who share my right-brainedness and all the resultant chaos and disorganization that come with daily living.

People like us can, despite outward appearances, be very disciplined -- but only in the things we want to be disciplined in. For me, it doesn't take much in the way of any special discipline to keep up with martial arts training. It always holds my interest, and plateaus aside my progress has only gone upward.

Life, of course, is not like that. Henry Ward Beecher once said:

Any man can work when every stroke of his hands brings down the fruit rattling from the tree...

That pretty much sums up how difficult it's been for me to find those lessons in training that I can use IRL, at least until now. How do I develop myself personally? I'm still working on that. But I know that the lessons of discipline, endurance and persevarance are going to have to come from other places. In fact, they already do come from other places -- I just need to pay attention to the lessons they teach.

Damn, how's that for profundity?