Motivation and Deadlines

Today in my weekly WISE class, we spoke about motivation and deadlines. The class was given an article to read which went into great detail about motivation and deadlines and how to keep up with them. After reading it, I reflected on how I have procrastinated throughout the entirety of my life. I never really learned how to manage my time because no matter how large of an assignment I was given, I always managed to complete it by the due date at the cost of a night's worth of sleep. For Karate training, this is the worst possible thing to do.

The training in and of itself is something that is continuous and cumulative. Similar to how one learns to play a difficult piece of music, they constantly have to practice, polish, and progress, adding new parts or working on dynamics and preparing themselves for a performance. If they stop for awhile, then they run the risk of regressing and losing all the progress that they have gained. Just finding the time to practice can be a challenge and difficult, but at the end of the day being able to play the piece and performing it provides satisfaction and is its own reward.

As the deadline of my final WISE presentation approaches I realize that my training will not be anywhere near complete. Martial arts training lasts a lifetime and is always a challenge, whether it be a physical or mental one, and it is an invaluable, difficult experience.

Stuck

Admittedly, I have been in a rut of sorts when it comes to my project. I barely have the time or energy to train and do the research like I had originally planned, but I have been reading more of Kaicho Nakamura's lectures hoping to find an answer to my problem. I recently read one of his lectures, Yukizumari (Getting Stuck).

Kaicho specifically describes how everyone eventually gets stuck. He specifically mentions how people often tire of practicing the basics over and over and over again, and they eventually start considering changing their martial art thinking that that would make them much more engaged and enthusiastic. Recently I have caught myself wondering whether or not I chose the right type of project for me. It's a "little" too late for me to change everything so I do not really have the option, but it's rather demotivating nonetheless. But basically Kaicho describes that we have to "break through the barrier" and  after we do that, we will eventually enjoy what we do. He also mentions that at times we do need to step back and do something else to approach our problems. Specifically for my project, I will start heavily incorporating meditation and philosophy in my training to rekindle my enthusiasm.

Seven Times Down, Eight Times Up

There is an old saying which embodies the non-quitting spirit of Seido Karate. It is "Seven times down, eight times up." The basic meaning of this phrase is no matter how many times you fall down, fail, or something bad happens, you have to get up and try again. This idea is very applicable to my training in several ways. Recently I injured both of my legs and knees which makes any sort of training that involves kicks or movements or even practicing my kata impossible until they're healed. In many instances this sort of injury makes people stop training altogether until the injury goes away, but I have not stopped. Instead of moving around or really working on my stances and kicks, I still continue to train my hand techniques such as my blocks or strikes. Another way I apply this idea to my training is to not quit even though I am not so successful during my sparring sessions. I often get tagged but I never stop just because I am unsuccessful.

I have read about situations like mine, when a person is injured, several times in Kaicho Nakamura's books. He writes that if you injure your arms then you work your legs and stances while not using your arms, giving time to allow your arms to heal, and vice versa. Not quitting or resigning yourself to failure is also one of the core values taught in my Karate class. Many times at my promotion exams, my teachers purposefully confused everyone who was testing and only told them to never give up and to keep trying until they get it right. Other times when people are injured, my teachers modify what they tell them to do to allow them to participate in class and work on their form and technique despite their injury. In this way, the development of one's spirit is emphasized more than technique or strength.

The Bucking Horse Reflection

Even though I could not find the actual anecdote for this one, I still remember its core lesson. Self-defense involves going out of one's way in order to avoid danger. This is a very important idea in martial arts. At the beginning of many martial artists' careers, they are taught not to put themselves in dangerous situations. Many teachers often emphasize that they would rather their students never have to physically apply their training (such as getting into a fight or brawl or something), and rather have them be intelligent and walk away from the potential threat or avoid it altogether. 

However, it is important to distinguish avoiding the problem and walking away from being completely passive, something that is also to be avoided. When one is completely passive, they are allowing themselves to be taken advantage of, bullied, or even abused physically or mentally. While it is possible to avoid some situations, there are times when one has to act in order to protect themselves. For example, my father always told me that I should never start a fight and always try to avoid problems, which is something that I still actively try to do, but he also told me that if it looked like anyone were about to hurt me physically that I should defend myself accordingly. I also agree with that, but by no means am I condoning needless violence. After all, in the past martial arts were used with force in order to survive, but in modern times, the majority of people who learn martial arts to defend themselves are lucky enough to never have to do so. 

Difficulty and Disruption

During my last WISE class, we listened to an audio recording of an essay by Brian Grazer. In his essay, he wrote about how he likes to make things difficult on himself, to push himself outside of his comfort zone in order to keep growing and developing and discovering new things about himself. His discomfort, he believes, is what he needs to stay alive as he ages. 

There are many different facets of this idea. For example, in the physical aspect I do think that making things difficult is a good idea as long as it is within reason. But for as far as being put into uncomfortable situations unnecessarily is concerned, I do not think it is a good or reasonable idea. Most of the time when something inconvenient happened in my project, I worked through it, but I ended up losing valuable time. These disruptions, for the most part, are not caused by other people, but lack of care or an oversight on my part.

The Spring Crunch

At the beginning of my senior year, I had so many ideas for what my WISE project could be. From parkour, to calligraphy, I always was thinking about what I wanted to do, what skills I could learn and I never really gave much thought into how much time I would actually have to commit to my project. Within the next couple of weeks I will have two finals and two AP's and consequently my workload from school has drastically increased making it more strenuous to do any sort of time-intensive work aside from my studies and physical training.

I have been reading Kaicho Nakamura's books and one of his lectures is about focus. The lecture basically stated that in order to do the best work that you can possibly can, you have to focus solely on what you intend to do. For example, when students are not distracted by social networking sites or videos they are much more productive and their work is of much better quality. By focusing this intently, students also finish their work much sooner than they would have otherwise. If I apply this to my studies, with any luck I will be able to do more work for my project as well as have more time to relax. 

New Blog Structure

I am changing the set up of my blog. I am going to create another two pages in addition to my main page. One will be my research page and the other will contain martial arts anecdotes or scraps of wisdom as I come by them.

Project Hiccups

For the past ten days or so, I have run into several major problems with my project. Since the majority of my project work is physical training, any type of injury is a hindrance. Unfortunately I very recently injured my knees, the left more than the right, but both just do not feel right. These injuries make it somewhat painful to climb stairs and at times just to walk.

As to how I hurt my knees, it is not that complicated (at least I think). Wednesday night I went for a run around where I live which consists of steep hills, and I think that the jarring motion of running may have played a small role in the injury. In addition, it probably did not help that I ran another mile the next day. However, I did not feel pain or discomfort while I was running, immediately before, or immediately afterwards but once I arrived home Thursday night, my left knee started to hurt. I did attend my Karate class that night thinking that it was only a minor injury but thus far, my knee still hurts when I put a significant amount of weight on it.

To think that several short runs could cause that kind of injury makes me think about how fragile people really are. Whether someone sprains their ankle, breaks their arm, or even loses a limb due to a serious accident, injuries happen to everyone and in every place. That being said, I often catch myself thinking about the destructive power of martial arts. Many simple strikes, if applied correctly, can be lethal. From the simple and straightforward punch, to the variety of knife-hand techniques that many martial artists learn, all of these share a simple, deadly grace that can inspire awe in spectators.

Moving forward with my project will probably involve me just working on hand techniques as to minimize the strain on my legs and expedite the healing process. Meditation will also start to play a big role, as it is necessary to foster personal growth and development.

Karate Class

Today's Karate class was very fun. I had not been able to attend any of them for the past week so it was nice to get back into the swing of things. The illness really took a lot out of me and I felt really sluggish in class. I also felt that my technique was a little off. However, I did remember all of my self defense techniques which was encouraging.

I plan on going for a short run early tomorrow morning and then I will practice my techniques. I really need to polish my techniques and make them faster, stronger, and much more controlled.

Project Update

It has been a several weeks since my last post and this week will be a catch up week for me. Last week was my spring break from school and I had planned to do all of my research and amp up my training then, but unfortunately I became extremely ill at the beginning of my break and am just now recovering.

Today was the first day resuming my workout and it was ok. I avoided intense cardio based activities because I am still prone to coughing due to exercising which is why I am going to take it easy all week. However, I plan to gradually add small cardio segments this week such as short jogs in the morning to wake up.

This week I am going to start posting my research and searching for more motivational videos to help power through senioritis, which is slowly taking hold and making it more and more difficult to focus on my training and my studies.