Make it easy.
By writtenbyQ4u, 11th Nov 2011 | Follow this author
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Posted in WikinutWritingColumns & Opinions
An article about society's obsession with wrapping everybody up in cotton wool. Unfortunately, it has filtered through to the masses.
Will this hurt?
A good friend of mine has been involved in judo for over thirty years. man and boy, he has devoted his life to being the best judoka he could be. I myself have been teaching kickboxing for over fifteen years, yet he was teaching when I was still wondering where the punches were coming from as a fledgling student!
We were discussing the joys of teaching and learning and got on to a subject closer to our hearts: Heart. To often these days we find that everybody wants to be an expert, a black belt, the next Bruce Lee, Jean Claude Van Damme or Jackie Chan. What they don't want is to get hurt.
Now don't get me wrong, the human instinct for self preservation is a necessary and required facet of the human condition for martial arts. After all you don't go jumping off roofs or running across busy motorways, because you could get hurt or killed. These are sensible things to avoid. However, if one is going to turn up to a combat class, expecting to learn to fight; strike, throw, lock, block and kick, there has to be some sense that efforts to learn combat may put you in the zone of uncomfortable.
I lament how many people come to my classes wanting to do the "fun stuff", striking pads and fancy kicks, but find doing even ten push ups a chore! This generation's attitude of getting without effort is pervading everything. My friend said to me, a parent brought his boy to learn judo but, in this art of throwing and locks and wrestling and gripping and break falls, wanted to know if he could do it with out "getting hurt". Life takes effort! A great life takes more effort!
When we were coming up, doing our martial arts, you took a few lumps. I remember being in one of my first kickboxing classes and a small, rather proficient female world champion, hitting me at will! Even as I got better, I still took lumps. I trained hard, trained often and did not feel the need to bleat about every niggle or bump that was inflicted on me. We seem to be moving toward a cotton wool world, where discomfort is to be avoided at all cost.
When I was growing up, everybody wanted to great at something; sport, fighting, acting, something! Now everyone seems happy to be average as long as they do not get hurt, physically or emotionally. One of the truest things I ever read was: "The average person tiptoes through life hoping to make it safely to death." I would rather take the lumps.
Comments
12th Nov 2011 (#)
Wow!~~~ This is brilliant. Yeah, you are perfectly right, this generation is so lazy and that is why most youths are jumping into average lives, everyone wants to be a musician as they think its easy to just sing a song....
No risk no reward...
No guts no glory...
A wonderful Poem!
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12th Nov 2011 (#)
Awesome article - people need to man up!
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