Changing It Up

 I was speaking to one of my coworkers today, he was giving me martial arts tips. More specifically tips on how to beat a black belt, despite the fact he has never had any training of any kind. I also am fairly certain he has no idea that I do have experience in martial arts. 

Many of his tips were very amusing, such as “magic always beats karate”.  However it was his finale tip that really stuck with me, both comedically and in a thought provoking way. His finale tip was “A black belt is ready for you to throw a perfect round house kick, what they never expect is the stumbling round house kick”. While I do not suggest anyone ever throws a stumbling round house kick, there is some wisdom to what he said. That wisdom being to try to be unexpected. We all have our go to moves while sparring, patterns that we naturally fall into. An experienced opponent is able to pick up on these patterns right away and use them to our great disadvantage. This is why it’s so important to step out of our comfort zone and try new things while sparring, to break those patterns; become unpredictable.

I also see this translate into life. As humans most of us don’t like change, despite change being the only  constant in life. We develop patterns and routines, which definitely have an up side. But they also can allow mediocrity to creep it’s way into our life. Lucky the solution is the same as with sparring, step out of your comfort zone and try new things.

Logan Ward