Mar 13, 2006 21:56
I've been thinking. It's one of the drawbacks of driving that you actually have time to do some thinking whilst cruising down the ol' country roads.
I was driving back from training this evening (BTW, I recently passed another grading, so I'm now 2nd Kyu, or Brown Belt with White Tags. Next grading will be 1st Kyu (Brown with black) and then Shodan, which is Black Belt. Exciting huh?), and I thought about martial arts in general, and me, as an individual.
I'm really pleased with how my Tai Jitsu is coming along. My Tai Jitsu is basically body techniques. How you flow, how your body deals with attacks, defence etc. Today, we were starting from one attack, and then almost making up the rest as we went along. I was happy with the way that my body managed to find new ways of performing old techniques (and inventing new techniques as well!) whilst training. Some of the stuff, I had no idea about! Sandy (one of the guys I train with), but a wrist lock on me. I rolled into the lock (as planned), but somehow, I ended up free of the lock, but on my back near him, with him standing over me. Not a good defensive position. Without even thinking, I stretched up with my legs, wrapped them round his neck, and pulled him over me. A nice way in which my training has equipped me with tools to cope with non-normal situations.
Of course, that was nothing compared to Brian. He's the Sensei, and he can make anyone (although tonight it was mainly me) into a human pretzel. Honestly, there is SERIOUS pain when being the uke (demonstrator) for Bri.
So, as I was saying before I got myself on a tangent, I was thinking about my skills, and various stuff. A lesson like tonight just shows that although I'm OK at this sort of stuff, there are people SO much better than me. I mean, modesty aside, I'm pretty handy with myself nowadays, but compared to Bri (and some higher ranks), I'm an amateur.
I was starting to get myself a little down with the whole 'I'll never be the best' thinking, then I changed my track. There might be people who are better at me than unarmed combat, but can they run an investigation as well as I can? And if so, can they write fiction as well as I can? And if so, can they sing as OK as I can? And if so, can they charm as well as I can?
Basically, the way I figure it, I'm the best person there is with my set of skills. No-one can do EXACTLY what I can, and that's OK.