Acceptance and Unacceptance

The martial artist must always train holding two truths:

1. Thriving for perfection
2. Accepting what is

How do we do this in our everyday training and the training of our students?

Appreciate imperfection for the beauty of what it is. Think about how cute a child's smile is when they have big gap from a missing baby tooth! Now how about the young child learning martial arts who has very little muscle tone and is flopping all over? What about the older adult that is so stiff in their movements that you wish you could just apply some WD-40? Now how about you when you can't seem to get out that one combination of moves quite right?

Is it a little harder to find yourself cute and to have the same joy and compassion? The serious, hard work of growth in he martial arts should be enjoyed with pure satisfaction of what is, or as another teacher said "always happy, never satisfied!"

Courage and Strength

Yong-Gee/Heem (courage and strength)are the themes of 2010 at Cincinnati Taekwondo Center. When someone is working-out in the gym trying to build physical strength, one must have the courage to do one more repetition or pick-up a heavier than ever before. This is an act of courage because you are opening yourself up to failure and defeat, but do not despair...

Many people prescribe to "failure is not an option," but the samurai had it right when they accepted death before they entered battle. Acceptance of failure will free you to push yourself to your very limits and know that even in failure you have built strength.

This is the secret that famed sports psychologist, Jim Loehr writes about in his book, Mental Toughness Training for Sports. The greatest athletes, inventors, and leaders have all turned adversity into strength, which in turn has lead to so many great successes.

My very first taekwondo instructor always would get this big smile when someone scored a point on him in a sparring match. I realized it was his way of accepting his lost and moving on in the match, in which he usually won. So don't be afraid to fail in class and in life. Learn to laugh at yourself. If you give your all and fail, you are still getting stronger and better. This is the beauty of courage!

Respect -Joen Gyung

The flip side of modesty is respect. As you make sure not to take more than you need , make sure that you allow for the differences between yourself and others. Different ways that we process, store, and communicate information make us seemingly very different creatures. We may have great differences in the way we see the world, but we can respect even our greatest enemies and through this respect strengthen our own position.

Respect precludes that we do not have to be correct! Righteousness should not be used as justification for greediness. Modesty and respect can resolve at least 80% of conflicts. When our will pushes into another's will, it like deciding to invade a foreign land and must be done with full justification.

Sparring is a great opportunity to explore protecting our own boundaries, yet not abusing our sparring partner. Using modesty and respect will help you to become a victor and respected martial artist.