Effort


I have just come into my 8th month of footwork practicing. It has been a long and steady process that I am looking forward to getting through. In the end I will have a lot better speed and balance. For myself it is exactly what I need to get to the next part in my training. This year the weather has been a little crazy. The hot weather has been especially hot, the cold weather has been especially cold. I have also added on additional speed training with my moon crescent swords. Everytime time I finish it feels like my hearts gonna come out of my mouth.


Why do you train so hard? What is the point to all of it? Why not just put it off until next week? I hear these questions echo through my head as I wake up to another open field to start the process. Squeeze in a few hours before working my Clark Kent job. Maybe a little bit of Taichi after work. I don't get any money from training. I don't even get a belt in my style. The only thing that I have at the end of every session is the self respect that comes with training.


No one at my job knows what I do. In there eyes I'm nothing special. I'm just the guy who smiles a lot. Most people don't even believe martial arts is real, so I have a hard time getting into the details about what the internal arts are. So why do I keep doing what I do? Part of it is because I can spread the culture and history to the world. Part of it is because so that I can protect the people around me. There are over a thousand reasons why martial arts is good for you. But none of them are the real reason that I pick myself out of bed everyday and get back to my training field.


Somewhere along the line I picked something up that I have not been able to let go. My training is not for money, competition or even my master. It's the one time that I can feel something that is real. Money is an illusion, beauty is temporary, love is immeasurable. Effort is something that I can grasp a hold of. I may never be the best and I never need to be. I need to know that I have put the effort into my life to make the best version of myself. The effort I put into my training is the same effort I put into my friendships, my Clark Kent job and most importantly my dream.


I am blessed to not have been born with talent. Everything has always been hard for me in the beginning. Maybe that's the reason I wanted to be better. It seems that talented individuals get bored easier making it harder for them to keep pushing. Like a bow and arrow, the farther you pull it back, the farther it can fly. The good news is you don't need talent, looks, or even youth. You just need to keep pushing. There won't be anyone at the end of your day to tell you "good job". There may not be any visible progress for months. But I promise you there is nothing you can continue to do everyday and not get better.


You can't control anything in your life except for your effort. Train hard. I'm training with you. To the people who are going through this......good job.

Comments

Will said…
Hey Fox, great blog and nice to see another dude under the awning doing something other than choreographed "hip-hop". Hope you enjoy having us on your periphery as much as we enjoy having you on ours. Keep doing what you do. Will
May 10, 2010 at 9:43 AM
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