Life lessons from the dojo
Fairly beginner-level class yesterday, with lots of new students. Which means, I suppose, lots of opportunity for reflection.
#47: Many begin, few continue to mastery
Before class, someone pulled out the statistic that only 1% of karateka reach black belt. Now, I have no idea whether this is true, but certainly only a very small percentage of the people who start go all the way to black belt. Last night's class, for example, consisted of only junior belts: 1 newly-passed orange belt, 3 yellow belts, and 10 (!) white belts, many of them having started only in the last week or two. Undoubtedly many of them will leave before ever reaching yellow belt. And of the ones that stay, few will stick around for the 3-5 years required to achieve the first indicator of true competence, black belt. No doubt the same novice/master distribution exists in most fields. Sometimes the most useful thing you can do is just stick around, doing your thing, until you've been there longer than anyone else and are somehow the best at what you do.
#48: You don't always get to work with the person you want
One of the other white belts in class has some previous karate experience. He seems like a pretty serious guy, someone who I've been trying to get paired up with since I saw him practicing. On Monday, even though we were choosing our partners and changing every 30 seconds or so, circumstances somehow conspired that we never found each other in the crush of other people. Yesterday, even though the instructor tried to establish a system whereby everyone got to work with everyone else, we only worked together once out of twenty pairings. If I keep coming back to do the dojo, I'm sure I'll eventually get to work with him. In the meantime, I had to make the best of the partners I had, many of them very new and very inexperienced. Sometimes that's just how it is. You can decide in advance that you want a particular partner, but life and circumstances will often get in the way.
#49: Volunteer, be humiliated, learn
At the end of class, we did the same 10-step sparring I mentioned on Monday. And, as I mentioned on Monday, I suck at it. I enjoy it, but I'm horrible. Which is fine. I'm a white belt; I'm meant to be horrible at everything. So, at the very end of class, when the black belt instructor asked if anyone wanted to practice with him, I raised my hand. And, indeed, I was horrible. I flubbed quite a number of blocks and I think I missed at least one of my attacks. But it was fun, and it pushed me. Certainly it pushed me much more than working with the white belts. If I could, I'd work with black belts all the time because I don't think anything would push me so far, so fast. (Admittedly, they'd probably get bored, which is why it doesn't happen very much.)
#47: Many begin, few continue to mastery
Before class, someone pulled out the statistic that only 1% of karateka reach black belt. Now, I have no idea whether this is true, but certainly only a very small percentage of the people who start go all the way to black belt. Last night's class, for example, consisted of only junior belts: 1 newly-passed orange belt, 3 yellow belts, and 10 (!) white belts, many of them having started only in the last week or two. Undoubtedly many of them will leave before ever reaching yellow belt. And of the ones that stay, few will stick around for the 3-5 years required to achieve the first indicator of true competence, black belt. No doubt the same novice/master distribution exists in most fields. Sometimes the most useful thing you can do is just stick around, doing your thing, until you've been there longer than anyone else and are somehow the best at what you do.
#48: You don't always get to work with the person you want
One of the other white belts in class has some previous karate experience. He seems like a pretty serious guy, someone who I've been trying to get paired up with since I saw him practicing. On Monday, even though we were choosing our partners and changing every 30 seconds or so, circumstances somehow conspired that we never found each other in the crush of other people. Yesterday, even though the instructor tried to establish a system whereby everyone got to work with everyone else, we only worked together once out of twenty pairings. If I keep coming back to do the dojo, I'm sure I'll eventually get to work with him. In the meantime, I had to make the best of the partners I had, many of them very new and very inexperienced. Sometimes that's just how it is. You can decide in advance that you want a particular partner, but life and circumstances will often get in the way.
#49: Volunteer, be humiliated, learn
At the end of class, we did the same 10-step sparring I mentioned on Monday. And, as I mentioned on Monday, I suck at it. I enjoy it, but I'm horrible. Which is fine. I'm a white belt; I'm meant to be horrible at everything. So, at the very end of class, when the black belt instructor asked if anyone wanted to practice with him, I raised my hand. And, indeed, I was horrible. I flubbed quite a number of blocks and I think I missed at least one of my attacks. But it was fun, and it pushed me. Certainly it pushed me much more than working with the white belts. If I could, I'd work with black belts all the time because I don't think anything would push me so far, so fast. (Admittedly, they'd probably get bored, which is why it doesn't happen very much.)