Messy is the New Black

I love training in a Japanese martial art. The precision, the history and the pageantry are all part of the attraction for me. If you train in a Chinese Art or a Sport version of karate, you are taught that technique is personal expression. Not so much with a Japanese Art, technique is an historical expression performed the same way it was in the beginning and always shall be, anon. I have a Japanese Sensei who has more in common with the strict, "tough love" caricature you see in old movies, berating students for making mistakes, sometimes with his voice, sometimes with a stick across the legs, back, whatever was nearest.

It was only recently that I came to understand that, though his approach had made me a very good karateka indeed, it had severely depressed my ability to try new things that I was not immediately good at. When you get yelled at (and hit) enough for making mistakes, you learn to avoid doing things you may screw up. This caused me tremendous stress when I was mountain biking, taking a new class, and most recently in Yoga. I thought I hid this well (except for the mountain biking, anyone who ever rode with me could tell that it was a very stressful endeavor for me), until a yoga instructor called me on it in my first class saying, "that one got messy on you, you don't like it when things get messy do you."

Since then I've started to focus on these hang ups and change them so I can get back to the more carefree approach to trying new things that I had before karate, and most of all trying to bring that sense of play and adventure back into my method of teaching karate. The more I examine this issue, the more I realize it certainly isn't just me. I notice that many of my friends have hang ups about being witnessed doing anything less than well. Even things that don't seemingly matter. We work hard to do some things tremendously well, but when it comes to something new, if we suck, we are less likely to stick with it. Given that it takes ten thousand hours to master any skill, how any of us could expect a better outcome is incomprehensible.

My challenge to myself and to all of you is to go out and try something new, strange and out of your comfort zone, go into it with an open mind and an "empty head". Quiet (or in my case, muzzle) the inner voice that criticizes you and just have fun learning something new with all the wonder and good nature of a child. Get Messy, its very hip!