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| | GET OVER YOURSELF:
THE BIGGEST ROADBLOCKS TO GROWTH
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| | It’s been a while since I penned a newsletter--I’ve been busy with a number of “projects” with regard to Guided Chaos. (I’ve also been spending a lot of time sword fighting with my granddaughter sharpening her skills to ensure that her sword can prevail in battle. I figure in another year when she turns eight years old I’ll teach her about “The Riddle of Steel”.)
Anyway…
Recently, I was having a conversation with Grandmaster Perkins and he asked:
- “Why is it when instructing people some of them act as if they are too proud to receive advice?”
- “Why must they feel the need to counter my advice with some story about learning the same thing long ago?”
- “Why do they feel the need to send me information on some nonsense teachings from some bogus masters who clearly have no clue about what a blood bath, real fights can quickly turn into?”
For example, there are those who for some reason, no matter what you tell them or after explaining something to them, they cannot help themselves from making statements such as, “Oh in my other school we already do that…”, “Well actually I already know most of this stuff…”, “These are old concepts that have always been in my art…”, “These are very basic concepts…” and on it goes.
After some discussion I decided to write a newsletter based on our conversation and my own personal observations. In this newsletter I’m going to address some of this and let the chips fall where they may. I could write a whole book on this sort of thing however I gave him my personal observations and if I had to sum it up in one word it is “Ego”, pure and simple.
Egotism [noun]
- The drive to maintain and enhance favorable views of oneself
- An inflated opinion of one's importance including intellectual, physical, and social over-estimations
- Strong tendency to talk about themselves in a self-promoting fashion, arrogant, boastful, grandiose sense of their own importance and an inability to recognize the accomplishments of others
Bingo!
Let’s face it: most of mankind only understands the sword and for some folks only through the “layeth of wood” on them repeatedly can they be reached.
Some people just can’t help themselves.
No matter what it is, they always seem to think they know more than everyone else or the people they are dealing with or that they are training with.
However in this case I’m not talking about your normal testosterone-laden contest over who is more of a badass but something else. For them it’s as if it’s always a competition to see who knows more through constant one-up-manship.
You know the type: these are the folks you work with who think they know more than the boss or the CEO of the company. They think they know more than people who have been doing a certain job successfully for thirty years. They know more than their doctors and can prove it because they looked it up on “WebMD”. They know more about science than card carrying PhD’s because their uncle works in a lab somewhere. Or like some of my relatives who try to school me about military capabilities that I’ve actually used because they saw it in a movie. I kid you not.
When it comes to training however my thoughts are if you know so much or feel you know more than I then you don’t need my help. I could give you specific examples but it would embarrass some or provoke their egos, which is not my intent. The point is such thinking only serves to hold others back. If they are instructors, this thought process can only retard the development of their students.
This is something that I have experienced throughout the years of training in the martial arts and for those who have been around the game long enough you know what I’m talking about. Even in our own schools unfortunately you have those who, because they have studied under this master or that instructor, think their “kung fu” is better than others so to speak.
I’ve heard people say things like “Well, I was working with so and so and he does it like this…” Oh yeah… They speak without knowledge and without at least asking the instructor to clarify what they meant when they were taught a certain attribute within the art. They go off half-cocked thinking they have all of the pieces to the puzzle. This is the epitome of the expression of “knowing enough to be dangerous…”
Such thinking is a fool’s errand and only serves to close your mind off to the higher concepts of the art of Guided Chaos.
A little history
When I first started training in the art of Guided Chaos (or as we called it back in those days, “Ki Chuan Do”), the vast majority of my training was under the instruction of Grandmaster Carron. In the old days (as some will recall) the training was, let’s just say, a bit more “raw” than the approach we use today. There was not as much structure as we have today to present concepts so there was a lot more variation in the teaching methodology.
But the most important thing I understood from the start, as with any other training I’ve experienced throughout my life was that in order to learn I had to not only suppress but subordinate my ego. This is of crucial importance because without such a mindset it becomes almost impossible to learn this art, especially as you delve into the higher concepts. I can remember one of my earlier instructors in the art who is a peerless fighter tell me flat out:
“No matter who you are in order to get good at this art you have to swallow a lot of pride man, because you’re going to get hit a lot. Nobody who does this art in the beginning is automatically good at it. If you hang in there eventually it will just come…”
In other words a little humility in this art goes a long way...
This is an important aspect because let’s face--it nobody likes to get hit and in the beginning, as “Yoda” would say, “get hit you will”. But as you train properly, if you can learn to mentally get out of your own way, your development will improve exponentially.
In those days Grandmaster Carron was very big on doing the exercises and ensured I knew how to do them properly and what they were designed to accomplish. Many of the explanations of the exercises and how to teach them I learned while training under him and owe much of my development to his forthright methods of teaching. I clearly remember when I asked, “How do I improve my skills?” him telling me “You have to do the exercises”.
I was telling Grandmaster Perkins it’s funny how I run into some of his former students and how they try to “enlighten” me on some of Grandmaster Carron’s teachings and how I have to kindly "explain" the facts of life to them. I’ll share some of that here because I think a little perspective is needed.
There are many students who have trained with Grandmaster Carron over the years and some who may have worked out with him more times than I have but none of them, no one has received more actual training from him than I have. They literally have no idea how truly skilled he was. As incredible and lethal as his ability was, and brave as a person he was (at least in my mind), they haven’t even the most remote clue as to some of the extraordinary things he could do and taught me.
Most people have experienced how he could hit with multiple strikes with bone crushing power while seemingly not moving at all but very few have seen how he could step and close distance on people in the blink of an eye, strike people with what looked like a mere tap and raise bruises that looked like they got hit with a baseball bat. He could raise his feet and kick so hard and fast you’d be off the floor before you knew it. Or sweep you off your feet so quickly that in an instant you would be looking up at the sky, seeing your feet, yet catch you so you didn’t strike your head on the floor.
Looking back on some of this stuff when talking with Grandmaster Perkins I almost laugh. I can remember him placing me at the edge of a large boulder at one of our old training venues where I couldn’t move backward and continuously catching me while striking me so I wouldn’t fall and crack my skull open. Trust me: your balance gets really good when you don’t want to fall off a big rock. He could torque your arm, head and body simultaneously with such force you thought you were going to be torn apart.
Yet in all the years I trained with Grandmaster Carron he never injured me. He had that kind of control and skill. From time-to-time he would even work with me at ultra high speed to develop my ability to move at full speed while maintaining control.
He could train me in this fashion because I always respected his abilities and never allowed my ego to convince me that I knew more than him. This doesn’t mean I “deified him” (as some were predisposed to doing) but respected the fact that his skill was much, much greater than mine. At the same time I was never afraid to ask him questions when I didn’t understand something. Whenever I asked him a question he always answered it, even if it wasn’t what I wanted to hear.
On the other hand over the years there have been a number of people who would challenge him because they just had to see what all the fuss was about, only to be crushed both physically, mentally and spiritually. Even worse--after such an experience, instead of learning from it, some of them grew more emboldened. And then they wonder why they have not progressed in years.
Grandmaster Carron was a combat veteran from the Vietnam War and one of the bravest souls I had ever met and that’s saying something because I’ve met a lot of brave people in my Marine Corps career.
I think he always knew I thought that about him, I just wish I had told him that…
Get over yourself
I’ve found the best way to progress in this art (and probably in anything you want to learn for that matter) is by making yourself teachable. Think about it: if you wanted to learn something and were paying good money to learn it, why would you deliberately fight the teachings and sabotage your own training?
Yet there are folks who do. I don’t get it. I mean I do--but I don’t get folks who think like this if you know what I mean. The ego is very sneaky--we all have one to varying degrees, because it protects us--but if not kept in check it will get in the way of your learning because it doesn’t like to lose, look bad or feel slighted. For example, when I’m training with Grandmaster Perkins, one of the things that I focus on is just flowing, listening to what is going on with my body and working on my skill. I’m not trying to win or lose but trying to feel what is gong on. I do not try to control his hands, push or create unnecessary space or any of that stuff.
I do not, to the best of my abilities, try to correct myself or focus on not trying to make a mistake, since this causes you to become defensive and overly cautious and stiff. Instead--and this is extremely important--I place the onus on him to correct me.
My attitude is: you’re the Grandmaster, so you figure it out. When you go into the training with this attitude a whole different level of skill begins to open up to you that wouldn’t be available to you if you put him in a position where he has to spend more time controlling your overreaction to everything he’s doing rather than teaching you.
When I feel the desire rising up in me to try and win, (which I can’t) I’ve found the best way to overcome this in myself is to just remind myself when training with him to just “get over myself”. Sounds simplistic but I found it works for me.
Life is short and for those who know me they know I don’t take myself too seriously because in the end we all end up back in the clay. You have a simple choice: you can allow your ego to control you and be miserable due to your lack of progress or you can subordinate your ego when training and be happy in your advancement. I choose the latter but if you fall into the former category you may need to look in the mirror and reexamine why you train.
If you think you know more than us you probably should go elsewhere.
[Lt Col Al will be teaching at the Maryland Seminar 8/29-30]
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