Many Oriental philosophies talk about mind, body and spirit; as they recognise that the 3 are all intrinsically connected. For the sake of this post, I’ll be mainly focussing on the mind and body.
If one tenses, the other tenses. You tighten your mind, your body will start to tense; you tighten your body, your mind will start to tense. Conversely, you relax one, the other will relax.
So when you make a mistake, or don’t perform a technique/kata/pattern the way you want to, or you get corrected by your instructor; don’t get upset about it. If you do get upset (even if its just with yourself), your mind will tense, then your body will tighten and the whole thing gets progressively more and more difficult. I have one student in particular who gets exasperated with himself every time I correct him. It’s not that he resents the correction in any way, he very desperately wants to get it right and his frustration is aimed at himself (rather than me)! Then it becomes even more difficult.
You have to try to the best of your ability to do it right, but when you don’t, you have to learn how not to Continue reading “The Art Of Not Giving A S***! (Or . . . Accept As Is)” »