I guess that about anyone who reads these blogs has told me at least once that I'm too nice. Believe me, the kwoon is not the only place I've heard this. While being considerate of others is just a part of who I am, I am determined to find a middle ground with this. How many times have I not only cheated myself of a victory but cheated my sparring partner of a learning experience by being too nice. How many times does the student almost make the teacher tap out but doesn't because he's too nice. And Steven, you know I don't get you in that position very often!
This falls along the same lines as not hitting a woman. I just don't like to hurt other people. That's not to say that I can't or haven't in times past but those were under different circumstances. I have no problem hurting someone who is trying to do the same to me. But there must be a middle ground. And I suspect the middle ground is in my head, not my physical capabilities. The question is, how do I overcome something so deeply rooted in me? I still have a hard time hitting the ladies in class, even after all the times they have boxed my ears.
Any thoughts or suggestions on this?
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A lesson I'm in the middle of learning is how being too nice can be a part of leading other people down roads not healthy for them. People can learn to lean on you and forget how to stand on their own. Taking care of people is a wonderful thing, and not hurting people is damn near a mantra. But ... when the “nice” gets to the point of accidentally disabling the other person, all with the best of intentions, things are out of whack. When the “nice” takes away your own choices and demands that you take care of another person over yourself, it's time to reassess.
ReplyDeleteOn this same subject, I've been trying to learn to trust myself, to listen when I feel something's not right, to identify my feelings instead of bury them. I've been in a stage of thinking that there's razor thin lines everywhere, that keeping a balance is damned hard, if not impossible. Balanced on an edge is no way to go through life. It's just another sign that things aren't right!
So in the applied world of the kwoon (oh, I like that phrase), what is it that stops you from hitting me (the usual “lady” in the class), or getting a partner to tap out? I think if you find that it is my gender that stops you, and Steven's sifu-ness that stops you, then you are perhaps taking care of us a little too much over yourself. It's okay to win. The beauty of the world according to the kwoon is that you can try, and try again, to find that balance between freeing yourself a bit more while still not knocking me through a wall or breaking your sifu's elbow.
One thing I've been asking myself about sparring: Who is it that I feel most free to be myself when I spar? And then, once I've identified that, I have to ask: Why? The people that are most satisfying for me to spar are those who make me work for the privilege, and make me pay a fair price. They give nothing away for free, but neither do they demand much more than I can give (or not often, anyway). They are skilled enough that I don't have to worry about hurting them, and also skilled enough to keep from hurting me. But the key thing – the thing I love -- is when the sparring takes me out to the edge. It's outside my comfort zone, it's beyond what I really think I can handle. That's where the extra zing comes in. It's those rare partners (those rare rounds with those rare partners) that breaks new ground.
You have often commented that Steven has a skill in taking us, his students, just a hair faster and harder than we think we can go. When that happens, we usually discover something more and better about ourselves. That may be something we can all take from the safe kwoon world into the larger one. If we could, even sometimes, be the kind of person to show people they can achieve just a little more than they thought they could, wouldn't that be a wonderful thing? The opposite of that would be if Steven took care of us so well that we were insulated from needing to improve, if he only made us go as fast as we thought we could, or only taught us as much as we thought we had time to learn ...
Speaking for myself, not necessarily as a lady, but as your occasional sparring partner, if you let me box your ears and don't box mine back, I lose. It's frustrating, and I can't grow. From my perspective, I'd much rather be occasionally hit too hard than to never be hit at all. You once said that when someone hit harder in a sparring round, you tended to reciprocate, to hit harder back. While that can sometimes escalate the match beyond what's comfortable, it also can keep each partner on equal footing, which is what any partnership should do.