Staff and Perfectionism

I've been practicing my bo shodan kata a lot recently. I really enjoy learning staff; it has always been my first weapon choice (now don't laugh at me!) while playing various video games and occasionally when practicing on my friends as a kid. There's something about keeping my opponent at a distance that really satisfies me. You don't have to touch me. Don't even come near me. If you do, you'll feel a sharp pain in your head before eating the dirt. Treat your concussion with rest and relaxation. Ice it...and leave me alone with my stick.

Anyway, this kata is starting to really bring out the perfectionist tendencies in me, which is probably a good thing. Sensei videotaped me and Zach practicing the kata and it's really easy to see where I need work. Upon seeing the video, I found myself feeling very critical, rather than particularly excited about my progress. My stances really need work. I look off-balance. My strikes aren't clean. It kind of looks like I'm just swinging a stick around. Perhaps the staff is still too heavy for me. More push-ups maybe? Also, something that I didn't think about much: I'm not looking where I'm going! My kata looks like a string of memorized movements, not an actual potential fighting sequence.

Despite all of these things, I don't feel discouraged. I know that I have a lot to improve on, but I'm confident enough in my persistence, if nothing else, to not feel worried. Maybe I'm learning the difference between perfectionism and having high expectations.

I think one of the key differences is that when you have high expectations, you actually expect yourself to perform well, hence 'expectations'. When you're a perfectionist, you need everything to be perfect and when it's not, you feel really down about yourself. Perhaps subconsciously you don't even expect yourself to truly succeed.

I think there is a point where you have to say, "it's good enough". I'm not saying that we should settle for less than what we're capable of. Only that we should know our limitations and respect them.
You never 'get there' in martial arts. You never reach perfection; you can only refine.

But that doesn't mean you can't get close!

All of life's a staff kata

It's midnight and I should really head to bed so that when I have to wake up tomorrow morning at 6:30, I'll be well-rested...but something inside of me just needs to move. I am wide awake and itching to do something, so, by default, I've decided to work my staff kata.

There are a lot of things that I need to work on; correct stances, hesitation, looking, and even posture. My balance is off on some moves and I face the wrong direction sometimes. But the most challenging thing for me is to center myself and to not over-think things. I tend to panic when I get lost or hesitate because, just like with music, the form is supposed to be smooth and flowing. Hesitation interrupts the flow of energy and momentum...and freaks me out!

It flows until I start to second-guess myself. It's almost like driving; I get behind the wheel, turn on the music, and then suddenly I'm pulling into my driveway at home! I bow to begin the kata, and then suddenly I'm stuck at the one move where my footwork gets messed up. I fix that, but by then I've stopped and it doesn't feel right to resume from there, so I start over...I bow, and then suddenly I'm stuck at the next move that I have trouble with. I adjust that and then I start over again...and the whole process repeats itself until I finish one rep without stopping in the middle to fix things.

Over-thinking. I do it so often. I want my kata to be perfect right now and I get so caught up in that mentality that I don't regularly practice the form without stopping to correct something. I realize now that it won't be smooth unless I practice being smooth, which means continuing the flow of energy, even if I'm unsure of whether the move is correct.

Life, I think, works this way, too. It has a natural flow; there are things that we do by instinct. Things like laughing. Crying. Feeling emotions. Loving people. Reacting to situations. We do all of these things without having to think too much...but it's easy to over-think all of them and to complicate the flow. I think this happens when the flow scares us; when the imperfections show and we want to constantly correct ourselves.

We often say, "Don't think this" or "Don't feel that". We often feel threatened by things that are natural and normal...because life tells us what we should be. How we should think. Social norms tell us what we should feel and how we should react...and we feel threatened when we suddenly feel the opposite of those things.

Maybe we should practice flowing more, regardless. Even when we're unsure.
Perhaps especially when we're unsure.

'Ouch' is not a Judo term

If you've studied martial arts at some point in your life, you're probably somewhat familiar with the anecdote that I've titled this entry after. I think that 'Ouch' (as I will now say in reference to the above phrase) is mostly used to try to explain part of having indomitable spirit to students; when you're knocked down, get back up as soon as you can. Martial arts hurts sometimes, and to have indomitable spirit is to push through the pain because even though it hurts, it will eventually make you stronger. I think that this is a good thing to teach, because with it come the lessons of determination, commitment, and patience, along with the perseverance of getting back up time and time again.

But if there's a student in the class like me, who tends to take things a little bit too seriously at times, bad things can happen with this phrase. Although they are usually said with humor, I must admit that I tend to take phrases like 'Ouch' a little too much to heart.

On more than one occasion, I've used 'Ouch' as an excuse to keep going when I've been injured. I suppose some people like to keep going when they're clearly hurt because it gives them an ego boost, but that's not really why I tend to want to continue as normal when it happens to me. The reason I keep going is because I don't want to quit having fun. I love martial arts. I love training. I love almost every part of it (even push-ups and straddle-splits, on occasion). Sitting out  for me is almost like being the one sibling who has to sit in timeout in the car while the rest of the family enjoys the carnival.

But today my sensei said something very wise.
I had accidentally kicked a fellow student too hard in the thigh, triggering a charlie horse, and he (wisely) took a few minutes to rest. Something similar happened to me, later on, as my foot (which I'd injured over the weekend) started to really hurt when I put weight on it. I however, unlike my wise 9-year-old friend, did not take a break.

At the end of class, I received a bit of a reprimand for not taking care of myself when my foot started hurting. Sensei said that it's usually good to keep going, but sometimes when we get injured, it's not easy to just get up like nothing happened. He said, "Sometimes it's a good idea to get the hurt out, and then get back up. I don't want you to push through it and not rest, thinking you'll be fine if you just ignore it. Get the hurt out first and really make sure that you're okay before you continue training. We don't want a little problem to turn into a big one."

Very wise words. I needed to hear them.

It's so easy to get caught up in the 'I'm-a-martial artist-and-I-have-indomitable-spirit-and-therefore-I-am-invincible' mentality. Nobody is invincible; it's really easy to get seriously injured while training. Being careful is important; more important than being the most 'advanced' student; more important than being 'tough'; more important than having fun, even. After all, if you seriously injure yourself while training, you have to stop training! That would be like an endless time-out session for me. Not desirable at all.

But my favorite thing that Sensei said was, 'Get the hurt out, first'. It sometimes seems like (in martial arts and in life) we're pressured to hide our pain; to keep fighting; to continue to 'push through' serious pain by ignoring it or pushing it away altogether. We say, "Well, maybe if I pretend it's not there, it won't be. And then I can get on with more important things like training and being happy and having fun."

That's just like ignoring a broken arm. Or a foot injury. If I 'push through it' and keep fighting without stopping to assess the damage, my small problem can quickly turn into something serious that could put me out for months, maybe. I now have to deal with a big problem that could've been avoided if I'd simply listened to and respected my body (or mind) in the first place.
Tonight was another night for learning. There seem to be a few lessons that keep popping up during my training. They are:

• Tap when it hurts (or, know when to stop before you're seriously injured)
• Don't take things too seriously
• Take care of yourself (specifically, don't ignore a problem and expect it to just go away. Acknowledge it and react appropriately)

All three are important lessons that can be applied to pretty much anything in life...like most lessons learned on the mat.
I'm gonna close out this entry a little bit differently than usual. I found a video called, "The Top 10 Worst Freak Injuries in MMA". In some of the footage shown here, the fighters continued fighting through their injuries, but all of the matches were called off as soon as a medical problem was identified.

Waterfall meditation...or not.

Today I'm writing from Bear Flats, Arizona; a quiet place which is just a few miles away from Tonto Village. If you're not familiar with the surroundings of Arizona, you're in good company, but it's about ten miles away from Payson and about two hours away from Phoenix, up in the mountains. I think my grandpa said that we're up about four-thousand feet, and believe me, I can tell. It's a hundred-thirteen degrees in Phoenix. Guess how hot it is up here? Eighty-three, maybe. Low fifties at night.

Anyway, Bear Flats is a beautiful place. It's very quiet and time seems to move slowly, here. There's a creek that runs throughout the community called Tonto Creek, which has a wonderful fishing selection of trout and other kinds of fish that I don't know the names of (I'm not a huge angler, but we're going to go fishing tonight and I'm very excited).

I've been trying to get some practice time in while I'm here, because missing class doesn't suit me well. So, after about an hour of staff work and striking practice, I decided that it might be fun to go down to Tonto Creek (which is pretty much in the backyard) and sit on the rocks for a while and meditate.
Well...that didn't go as planned.
I fell in.

It was wonderful.

What does that have to do with karate? Well, I found out that I'm not very good at meditating...nor balancing on slippery surfaces, apparently. My staff also fell in, so I had to go chasing after that. It was definitely not what I had planned on happening!

I went to the creek with the intention of clearing my mind and instead, I got excited and wet.
Sometimes things don't work out like we expect them to. But just because my original plan didn't work doesn't mean that the new plan wasn't really, really fun...and to some extent, really helpful to my mental health.

I tend to get so serious when I'm training. Before today, I might have called such a scenario a training failure. I might have said that I was unfocused and unprepared and non-productive and off-center...and I wouldn't necessarily be wrong!

But maybe just plain old having fun can be part of training, too.

Hitting the target

This is my second entry today, because I'm going to be on vacation next week and there's something that I discovered a few weeks back that I told myself I would write about in this blog. I'm worried that if I put it off any longer, I won't be able to write as effectively about it because I'll have forgotten the details. So...thus begins entry number two.

Anyone who's been studying martial arts knows that precision and control are key components to executing a technique effectively. Granted, you can't expect to land a good blow if you're focusing only on control and not putting any power behind it, but most people can agree that the hours spent striking targets and body shields in class pay off tremendously in the long run, right?

I like targets. I always (I kind of hate to admit this) want to try harder when there's something to hit. It's fun to do techniques in the air, but at some point it's good to know that you can also hit something that's in front of you. I also really like targets because they give me an idea of how I can improve my striking; what details am I missing? What can I do to make that technique more effective? But most of all, I like them because they don't change or do anything unpredictable. The body shield is always going to be right in front of you and it's not going to move or go anywhere unless you make it happen.

Besides...there's a feeling of satisfaction that I get when I know that I landed a solid strike, right in the middle of the target; right where I wanted that strike to be.

On the other hand, targets can also make things challenging; particularly when you don't land a good hit. Right before my green belt test, I was a little bit nervous about my spinning hook kick, so Zach helped me practice by holding the target for me. I already mentioned in the last entry that my left foot needs work, and since the belt test was about a month and a half ago, the spinning hook was no exception. I landed some good kicks with my right foot, but when that left foot was in the air, I missed...and missed again...and I just couldn't hit that target! We actually stopped for a minute because I was so frustrated with myself for not being able to hit it. I thought that it was nerves that were keeping me from being able to land the kick, but after a few minutes, I realized that I was focusing too hard on hitting the target.

It's hard to do anything when you're thinking too hard about it. So I started again, thinking that if I focused on not focusing on the target, I would eventually hit. Well...that didn't work either, so I got frustrated again and chambered for one more try, no longer caring whether I hit the target or not and...I hit it.

Man, that really surprised me. How was it that the one time I didn't care whether I hit or not, I actually landed a good kick? So I tried again, using the same approach, and landed another good kick. What was up with that? How was it that when I cared and I focused and I tried hard, it messed me up? Wasn't caring supposed to help me?

I think that it's possible to care too much about something and when that happens, you can actually prevent yourself from doing what you need to do to reach success. All that I was thinking about was hitting that target. That's all that I wanted. But while I was focused on precision, I wasn't focusing on technique or speed or power. I just wanted to hit the dang thing. When I let that go and just stopped worrying about it, my mind was clear and my body did what it was supposed to do.

That situation showed me how much influence your mind really has over your body. Hitting the target was really important to me; I wanted to make sure that I was kicking high and far enough to be effective...but I cared so much that I was actually holding myself back.

Having a clear mind is crucial to executing a technique well. Over-thinking doesn't help at all. Perhaps we can train ourselves to not think too much and to just do what needs to be done. Not for every situation, mind you, because many times circumstances in life call for a great deal of introspection. When it comes to martial arts, however, hitting the target is important...but it's not THAT important.

Right foot forward

Today, I realized that my left foot needs a lot of work. We were doing spinning-back-kicks and I was pretty solid on my right foot, which is the one that we began with, but as soon as we switched stance, it was almost like I didn't know what to do with my body.

Generally, in a spinning-back-kick, you place you front foot directly in front of your back foot, pivot on the balls of your feet until you're in a backwards-facing forward stance, chamber (which is what it's called when you bring your knee up in front of you, in order to generate power and give your kick 'push'), look over your shoulder, and shoot your foot out behind you, into your target, striking with your heel. It's a very powerful kick, and, as Sensei said today, it's not really a spinning-kick, so you don't need a whole lot of rotation to get a good, solid hit.

Anyway, I was doing fine when we were working the right foot, but as soon as we switched, it felt foreign and strange and I started to over-think what I was doing. Sometimes, our minds can be our worst enemy. I've found that if you don't have your mind on your side, it's very unlikely that your body will do the things that you want it to do. I had to stop and center myself before I could continue, and once I recognized that my thoughts were causing me to be unable to execute the move, I was able to fix it and get back in the swing of things.

There are a few reasons why it was so difficult for me to do the spinning-back-kick, left-footed. One of those reasons is the age-old excuse that I'm right-footed, so naturally, my left foot is my weaker side and requires more thought and work to train. I heard a saying once that says, "Train your non-dominant side twice as hard, so that you can make up for the lack of coordination." It's hard to do that, sometimes, because it's discouraging to see what your kick CAN look like, having been executed from your dominant side, and then switching to your non-dominant side and seeing how much work you really need.

It's also hard to do that because at any time that we're put into a situation where we have to react in a way that we're not used to, it's extremely uncomfortable. Not only that, but we take for granted the more familiar way of doing things and therefore often don't prepare for a situation where we might not have the luxury of doing the familiar thing. We get into a way of thinking that says, "I shouldn't ever have to use such a technique" or "I shouldn't have to worry about what it's like to not be able to use my right foot, so there's no reason to focus much on the other side".

There are any number of situations that could disable a right foot. My left foot shouldn't be something to fall back on (no pun intended). I need to train both of my feet so that either one could deliver the blow that I might need to save my life or the life of someone I love.

As for the other side of the equation...sometimes no amount of preparation can keep your mind on your side. At the point where we've become discouraged with ourselves, there begins a cycle of doubt, frustration, and general negativity. The best thing to do, I think, is to step away from the situation for a moment, recognize that you're frustrated, realize that your mind is holding you back, and try to get it to work with you. It's easy to be discouraged. It's hard to give yourself encouragement in spite of that fact.

So, at this point, I'm gonna start practicing from right-bow-stance. Put my left foot forward, instead of my right. Eventually, whichever foot is forward will be my best foot forward.

Martial arts is swiftly going to make me better by forcing me to do the hard things. I can live with that.
(And  someday, I might live because of that!)

Osu!

I found this funny video game on the internet called "Osu!". Basically, it's like Dance Dance Revolution, or Guitar Hero, but instead of using a guitar or a dance mat, you score points by clikcing your mouse. If you're not familiar with DDR or Guitar Hero, allow me to explain a little bit. 'Osu!' is a scroll-based interactive video game that incorporates music, rhythm, and mouse-clicking. Perhaps that's not a good enough explanation, but the game isn't the point, it's the TITLE that got me.

Being somewhat familiar with Japanese culture and language, I've encountered the word "osu!" many times...but for some reason, I never thought to research its meaning. Whenever 'osu!' is used, it's usually a short, loud cry that suggests something positive, kind of like the Army's 'Hooah'. I just assumed that 'osu!' was some sort of agreement...and then I said it out loud a few times and realized that it sounds a lot like sensei's "ICE!" kiai. And then I thought, "Wait a minute...'osu!' kind of IS a kiai..."

So, with interest, I typed 'the meaning of osu!' in the Google search box and, low and behold, the first webpage that I found was a page for Kyokushin karate explaining what 'osu!' means...in karate terms. Needless to say, my interest-meter went up about thirty notches. Here's what I found out.

Apparently 'osu!' is more than a kiai. Much more. The website's author first explains the practical uses of 'osu!' while in class:

["...in Kyokushin, every single question is answered with 'osu'. Every greeting is osu...when performing basics in class, every technique is often accompanied by a loud 'osu!'. When practicing free sparring and your opponent lands a good, solid technique, you say 'osu' to acknowledge their skill. As a measure of respect, knockdown fighters at a tournament bow and say 'osu' to the front, to the refferee, and to each other, before and after the fight..."]
 

So, 'osu!' is used in greeting and in parting, in reverence and encouragement, as a kiai, as a way of saying, "I understand", and in every positive demonstration of the indomitable spirit. Wow. That's a lot of meaning to place on one word!

And if that weren't enough, the writer goes on to explain the spiritual meaning of 'osu!', of which I will paraphrase in order to keep from quoting the entire webpage.

Basically, 'Osu!' is THE word to represent and explain, in very short terms, every facet of the indomitable spirit. The word itself is made up of the Japanese words 'oshi', which means 'push' and 'shinobu', which means 'endure'. According to the writer, 'osu' means, ["...patience, determination, appreciation, respect, and perseverance."].

'Osu' means pushing through the pain. It means giving everything you have, and then giving just a little bit more. It means bettering yourself by searching for the deeper meaning of martial arts; in matters of both technique and spirit. It means finding the courage to get back up after you've been thrown, and finding the courage to land a good hit in sparring instead of running away.

My sister once asked me, "Gosh, Becky! Is everything about martial arts?!" I told her that no, not everything is about martial arts...but martial arts is about everything. 'Osu' is too, I think.

If you really look hard, you will find that any lesson which can be learned, can be learned on the mat. Of course, that's a very in-your-face and straightforward way of learning, but while a good reverse-punch is thrown with strength and power, it is equally thrown with control and grace. It's powerful but gentle at the same time.

'Osu' means that the phrase, "Perhaps I will get there someday..." becomes, "I will get there in time." The words, "I can't" become "I will".

'Osu' is martial arts. It is a one-word description of everything that martial arts is.
Finding my inner "osu" will definitely be a journey.