Here’s how martial arts are taught: everyone learns in the same room together, the black belts, the white belts and everyone in between. When it’s time to spar, everyone joins in. When I started learning karate, I was merely a mobile punching bag. The other students hit and kicked me at will. They moved too fast for me to keep up. I was disorientated, hurt and usually angry. The only ways to stop the pain and confusion were to quit or to accept that it was a bear hunt. I had to go through it.
I went through it. Because karate. (My seven year-old self would have been so proud!) After a few years, I was the guy calmly hitting and kicking people at will.
What thing do you want to do? Get in the game. Start now.
Yes, you will be surrounded by people who can do it better than you. You will get beat up. You will look stupid. You will be disorientated. But you will be off the sidelines and in the game. That’s the only place to actually learn how to do it.
Get in the game.
Go on that bear hunt.
So many FFOREST friends are already deep in one game or another. We are an active, creative bunch of people. Even so, I thought this one was worth revisiting because there are always new things to learn. Next week I start learning British Sign Language, Level 1. I’ll be looking and feeling stupid. I’ll also be in the game.
‘I am a very normal Earth sportsball. Please come to playing with me in the grassfield. Do not looking at the strange cloud overtop. It is a very normal Earth cloud made of cloud.’
Play this whole album. It’s wonderful. (Spotify).
Grow slowly
Jeff
You haven’t seen my boots!
I recently decided to take up paddle boarding. Every time I take it out I have to carry my board that’s twice the size of me down to the public beach, drag it past a whole bunch of onlookers into the ocean and unsteadily climb on in full view of who knows how many people. I hate learning things in front of people. I like to learn something quietly in a back room and then emerge once I have it all figured out, so this has been a stretch for me. It’s so worth it though. Once I get it out there I never want to finish and come home.