Limbo

The best laid schemes of mice and men…
That line came from somewhere in my childhood education. The irony of it kinda fits right now. Where I am now is not where I planned to be. Starting a major portion of my world over wasn’t even on my radar, let alone in the plans. What I thought I found to be there rest of my life and the continuation of the school that I created fell apart.

At least a major part of what I’ve learned and what I teach students is problem solving. It doesn’t matter what the emotions are within the change as in the end they don’t matter. Just as with any other life change, there is grief but that’s not where the world ends. It would be easy to ignore the changes and become overrun by the loss. That isn’t life! That is death (of a dream or goal) but it isn’t the end.

One benefit of martial arts training is developing mental toughness. It is a quiet, almost sneaky, development that can happen when students truly put effort into their training.

This is often commented on as athletes having to “dig deep” in order to overcome the challenges within their sports. An example here is the Greenway High School boys hockey team making it to the 2019 state championships here in Minnesota. The teams they had to compete against had double the number of players that Greenway could recruit. This didn’t stop them from making it to the championship game before running out of energy. How tough are these kids?

The other end of the behavior is illustrated in another common behavior. It is portrayed within the Bruce Springsteen song “Glory Days”. Acknowledged or not, the fear of moving forward can leave you stuck in the past. Add some insecurity and fear of failure, glory days creates a box big enough to create false happiness and success. It can be a very comfortable place to be.

The problem becomes when major change occurs, positive or negative, as you can’t get past the box that you’re in. Positive changes are lost as they don’t fit into the box. Negative changes make the box smaller and darker.

Without these struggles, though, you don’t find your family/tribe. Those who will be there as needed. Yes, even the quiet ones who would do anything for you if you really had to ask. It is this development of family (beyond blood) that makes the tribe grow and succeed.

So why title this limbo? This is a time of seeing solutions to problems of varying import and rejoicing in the strength of the tribe but still having to wait until pieces fall into place to actually move forward.