As difficult as it is, we are allowed to see the good in ourselves as martial artists.
As a teenage martial artist, I always heard about the importance of staying humble. We all hear about the importance of not thinking we are the greatest. We are told not to be arrogant and not to be cocky about our abilities. For a teenage student these concepts are very important, but I definitely over compensated here to a fault. I took not thinking I am the greatest to mean thinking I am not good. I took not being arrogant to mean never speaking up about my competencies or selling myself short. I did not see an issue with this after all I thought that this is what humility means! This definitely played a negative role in my confidence and my ability to make healthy risks to reach my goals, however.
I then ran into a quote from C.S. Lewis that completely changed my perspective on humility and in turn helped me in my martial arts life. He says, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.” As difficult as it is, we are allowed to see the good in ourselves as martial artists. After all, seeing the positive sides of ourselves is crucial in the process of self evaluation. We are allowed to assert our strengths in order to speak up about making improvements in our martial arts schools or organizations.
Thinking truthfully and positively of ourselves is crucial but to make anything out of it we need to think of others! We need to think of ourselves less as CS Lewis puts it. How do we think less of ourselves? We become more empathetic and present partners in class. We understand our partners skills and limitations, and we provide them with good concrete feedback for them to improve themselves. We think less of ourselves when we pay it forward and teach in class. We need to focus on improving the students not worrying about developing our businesses or our own skills in class. We need to follow the platinum rule and provide our students what THEY want. I remember teaching my college students early on and running class to give myself a good workout. Needless to say, the beginning students got very lost! Not good.
We also need to understand, that as instructors and students, that there is an inherent capitalism to this altruistic virtue of humility! When you are a good and empathetic partner, your partner will be more empathetic towards you. When you think of the student first in class, you will get more students and happier students at that! Everything in life is a two way street.
At the end of the day, your students or training partners will not care how much you know until they know how much you care.
Teddy Roosevelt
Have a good empathetic and humble day!
