New Year Struggles

The past several months have been a struggle.Too many things happening in all aspects of life taking up too much time to get much of anything accomplished. All the things going on also make for a distraction that saps creativity (i.e. no ideas for blogs). I’m too old for this but such is life.

During these struggles, I’ve had someone comment regularly “everything is about the school”. The answer, I guess in the end, is yes. The reason being that it provides me stability and challenge. This doesn’t deny the 30 years of effort put into it.

The school provides a stability to maintain discipline. If you go by some of the things from my youth, you’d see that challenges attracted me and I put a lot of effort into solving them. My team sports, save curling, were really for the fun of the game being played with friends. They were also the stuff I wasn’t built for. I was only ever mediocre in skills.

Curling, though a team sport, had enough individual play to truly challenge everyone. I had found a place to push my skills and develop further. It isn’t really surprising that martial arts became a thing in my life.Yes, I was influenced by the cool TV shows of the time too. You can’t really deny Batman, The Green Hornet, Star Trek, and Kung Fu as powerful role models during the 1960’s and 1970’s. Yes, I’m THAT old. Those who started training after me could relate to Ninja Turtles and such.

Back to the point about stability, though. During the curling season, it wasn’t unusual that I’d be at the club for high school team practice, go home for homework and dinner, then return to see if anyone needed an extra player or if there was an empty sheet to throw rocks on. I’d finally head home when they pushed me out the door. It got to the point that, during college, a winter activities course included curling and, when asked who had experience, I ended up teaching the class. Note: the actual professor hadn’t ever played before as he was the basketball coach.

It was college that created the focus switch to martial arts. There were so many really good students in the organization PLUS it was year-round. The physical challenges brought up mental challenges and the training became the tool to develop as a whole, not just in certain things. Now, I’m still only mediocre in physical skills but the principles and concepts underlying the training run much deeper and allow for use outside the school. Teaching has helped develop understanding of others and truly getting deeper into the martial art.

These principles and concepts have also become overused as marketing taglines. The understanding of them, though, truly allows the student to become more successful outside of the school. This is important because much of your life will not need physical skills but, rather, intellectual.

Which brings this back to the current struggles. The time that it takes to work through a struggle can be frustrating. Things seem to happen too fast or too slow. The battles to be fought need to be chosen and knowing when to stop fighting is important. This is why the school is important.

The school provides the stability and extended family that are necessary to support and succeed. It is a place outside of personal situations that doesn’t – shouldn’t – get affected by those situations. My question becomes “Why wouldn’t everyone have a school?” It probably is that the label used for mine is confusing. Many others may call it a “bar” or “gaming night” or “church” or many others. So, make sure that you have your place.