Some more recent examples, I love American TKD, but while taking BJJ, I learned that you could dominate your opponent by having an escape plan for their every move. I began to study fighters that I knew at tournaments, like Anthony Allen who is a small and wiry man but could defeat most of his opponents by mastering range, escape and how to hit hard in the blink of an eye. I began to train our students with these thoughts and ideas, and they worked beautifully. We went on to adding fakes and flinches that would load the opponent’s nervous system up with false information, making them incapable of defense for the real strike.
I look out at the landscape of today and I see people suffering, I hear reports on how the pandemic is affecting our mental health. It seems the word suffer is on top of the mix of everything. But then as an athlete I also know that you do have to suffer to be on top. You must make choices; the time spent training has an opportunity cost as you give up something that you could be doing during that time. If you have a choice of suffering through a boring day or suffering through a lecture, which is the better choice of suffering? I suppose I am trying to say that if the world is suffering anyway, maybe we can instead choose suffering that leads to the top!
From the Grand Masters, I learned that kindness, vulnerability and giving of yourself is not a weakness, nor will it take away from your reserves of strength. I began to see a way of adapting my leadership style to one that was more warm, competent, and friendly. I began to read books about sharing credit, thanking, listening, and acknowledging the efforts of others. Giving to others is highly motivational! As you get better at it a beautiful thing begins to happen in your world, as you compliment others, they begin to become even more courageous and motivated, and it passes back to you tenfold.