“Martial arts is about self-improvement and self-growth…”
As we grow in our martial arts, we begin to learn more and more about our physical bodies. We begin to learn how flexible we are, how fast we can punch and kick, how to hold our balance more, etc. Not only do we begin to understand our bodies more, but we also learn to better train them. When we want to be faster or stronger, we know which exercises and training regime we ought to do. We also begin to learn our weaknesses and strengths and adjust our training to compensate as necessary.
Though, we may find that we aren’t the most flexible in the dojo or have the fastest punches. We continue to train to maximize the potential we do have. We look to others as inspiration as we train and reach the new levels in our art. One thing I have noticed is that a lot of the time we have difficulty translating this mentality to our everyday lives. The mentality of regardless of the skills others have we will continue to improve ourselves and be the best we can. In our everyday lives I notice we tend to get caught up in comparing ourselves to others. These comparisons lead to frustrations, as we question ourselves why can’t we be like someone else. They can do it, why can’t we?
On the mat, we can accept we may not be the best grappler; but we continue working harder anyways to get better, and the people who are better than us we use as positive inspirations to grow. However, in other areas that doesn’t always seem to be the case. Like singing for example, we may want to be better singers and we go learn to sing and find someone better us. And instead of practicing to get better, we may get caught up in jealousy. We become so jealous of the other person, we may start practicing to try to hit a note they can over and over and over again that we physically just can’t hit, and ultimately discourage ourselves from continuing. When in reality, we should have been focusing on the skills that we do have and working on improving them. We can accept that we can’t kick as high as someone else in the Karate, Taekwondo, or Tang Soo Do class but continue with our training and not get discouraged. Yet, we may not be able to accept that the person next to us can hit a note we can’t. Though you may not be trying to be a better singer, you may have found yourself in a similar situation. Whether it is comparing yourself to someone else’s problem-solving skill, degrees they have obtained, writing ability, etc. Instead of finding inspiration in the person, you find yourself being filled with jealousy.
I believe the problem stems from believing that in order to be on the same level as someone we must have the exact same skills as them, which is just not true at all. We all can reach the same levels as the people around us without being an exact copy of them. This is very clear in martial arts, there are plenty of experts and black belts whose skills may be different than their peers but considered to be on the same level. Some can kick higher, some have more power, some have more aggression, some have faster punches, and the list continues. Yet, they are all black belts or experts in their art, and no one would say they don’t belong on the same level as the others just because they don’t have the exact same abilities as their peers. We need to understand that we can grow and reach new levels in other areas of our lives without being copies of the people who are already at the level we inspire to be.
When we compare ourselves with others around us and have the intention to be an exact copy of them, we will always fail. We will never have 100% of their history, 100% of their struggles, 100% of their loses, 100% of their wins, 100% of their thoughts that made them the way they are today. However, they can still be an inspiration to us. We can watch how they train and see if something that worked for them can be adapted to meet our needs. We can watch how they study and see if we can adapt it for ourselves as well. We can learn their life story and see if we have any common problems as them and see if a solution that worked for them could work for us, but we must remember, we can never be them (and we shouldn’t try to be). What worked for them may not work for us at all, and that’s fine. Martial arts is about self-improvement and self-growth, not assimilating into being a replica of someone else. A good martial arts instructor doesn’t teach you to be like them, but teaches you to be a better version of yourself. This mentality should be the same in other areas of our lives as well. We must not get caught up in the frustrations and jealousy of trying to be like someone else when we could just be ourselves.
To conclude this series, the martial arts mentality is knowing how to achieve our goals so that we can experience a growth that would allow us to be better versions of ourselves without being a copy of someone else. It is about growing in understanding both, our physical and mental selves, more each and every day. It is about training as hard as we can to improve in all areas of our lives, knowing that we will get uncomfortable. But in that uncomfortableness, we will experience growth. As martial artists, we are people who set goals, understand the reason for our goals, know what is needed to reach the goals, reaching those goals, and building better versions of ourselves.
Remember no one starts off as an expert or a black belt but they train to get to where they are today and they continue to train and adjust their training as they learn new things about themselves. We, martial artists, are a people that are ever-evolving, everchanging, and ever- growing. We are always better today than we were yesterday and working to be better tomorrow than we are today. We are not just martial artists on the mat, in the dojo, or in the dojang, we are martial artists everywhere we go. Kiyap!
