Slow on the Uptake

   Have you ever been in the moment so much that it makes you lose track of all that is going on around you? When the world becomes a blur, a singular moment of focus that trumps all other thoughts. Reality seems to bend to just that one moment, then it is gone and you realize your mind is now a blank trying to reset itself just to move forward even one step. I have.

   Tuesday in the Black Belt class we were working on a sequence of Mlong Kuen that includes a release from the hip that I have been doing wrong for a while. I saw my error, I worked on correcting it, I focused repeatedly on the correction to try to cement it in my mind. But my mind was slow on the uptake, muscle memory kept fighting to do it the "old" way. The internal argument got pretty heated at some points. I feel like I won(?) but only practice will tell. 

   Fast forward to Thursday. IHC class, hand demo. Now was the time to see if I won or lost the argument with myself. Here comes the move, GOT IT! I was so focused on getting that move correct that as soon as I did, well crap, I honestly could not even remember the very next step. I felt like a balloon that had just had the air let out of it. Pffffft. I was deflated. I stopped dead in my tracks, aghast with what just happened. I slowly sculked away from the rest of the team that were doing their demos, embarrassed with my utter failure. Yes I got the move, but at what cost?

   So I have deduced that my "focus" was actually a lack of focus. One move does not make a form. Yes that one move can be detrimental to the form by altering or negating your intent, but the form must go on. I have, since this incident, done this move a few dozen times focusing on the sequence not the move and now it is part (hopefully) of the overall form. 

   Painful lesson to learn at a very inopportune time but that is the way my cookie crumbles. Failure can be a jerk sometimes but mastery doesn't care about that. Mastery is turning that failure into a success. 

Push Ups  8037

Sit Ups  7513

Sparring min  460

1609KM 731.96km

Acts of Kindness 780 recorded

Hand Form  195

Weapon Form  200

Mastery recited 22