losing skill

[mixjourneyman]

I also just remembered the saying "don't circle walk for two days and you lose all your skill"... Hahaha its too true.

Either way, yesterday I kicked my own butt and put in enough effort that by the end of my training session things felt better than they did at the start

[Wanderingdragon]

I think you may have reached a new level of awareness, good work pally

[Jeice]

"the mind is willing, but the flesh is spongy and bruised."

[CaliG]

I believe those who stick it out in martial arts are those who can handle the highs and the lows of their development. There are times when everything comes together for me and other times when I have to wonder if I'm just wasting my time.

But after years of training I don't take it seriously anymore. I just think of it as a good day or a bad day or even better I try to learn from my mistakes and come up with some type of training to fix those.

I think this is also the danger of competition, some competition is good if it motivates you to train well. But when you start having expectations of how well you should do then you run into trouble. On a recent thread about competition someone mentioned that he used to take on higher belts and a lot of times they wouldn't come back. What's the sense of that?

I think in that case their rank became a big part of their identity and they forgot that the journey never ends.

I think a big part of martial arts is accepting that sometimes we fail and I believe this makes us better people all the way around. It's probably even a quicker way to break down your ego than meditation could ever offer.

Btw, I threw a BJJ/wrestler brown belt yesterday with a fireman's carry! So it was kind of good day until he swung around, put me in his guard and armbarred me. My point? Don't take it all so seriously.