Pay Attention, Work Hard

My Sensei, Daniel Gobillot of Pine Forest Karate Dojo, wrote the Thought for the Week that just arrived in my inbox. So much of what we learn in any discipline has parallels in our other efforts, and this is a great example. There are no shortcuts to success. The best way to achieve our goals is to pay attention and work hard.

Sensei Gobillot's TFTW:

Life as a Kata

Kata, literally "form" is a Japanese word describing prearranged choreographed patterns of movements practiced either solo or in pairs. Kata is the single most important aspect in karate,(page 24, Red Book). While our individual techniques are all important to our art they can be viewed as limited and somewhat empty without kata to give them definition and purpose. Poorly executed technique can easily translate to poorly performed kata. A weak or misunderstood neko-ashi-dashi stance for instance can affect our entire karate world from yonkyu rank and up. We must always review all of our body movements and adjust to our current understanding and of course skill level.

Everyday life is also filled with moments and movements that we perform solo or with others. We wake up in the morning and maybe brush our teeth. This can be done with attention and purpose or without thought. When we relegate too much of what we do while we live to automatic action our lives, like kata with bad technique, become empty and bland.

Tomorrow our challenge is to select one (at least one) technique from our vast repertoire of movement then examine, define and expand it for use in our kata. For that hour and a half of class exploit and exhaust that one technique. Try this at least once. Then carry it to your personal life off the deck and use it for one of the many activities that you perform in your daily life. Answering the phone, getting dressed or just making eye contact.

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So pick something in your work or personal life that needs attention. Give it what it needs. I guarantee it will flourish.

Encourage your friends, discourage your enemies. In memory of Randy Pausch.

That is the martial way – to hold your head higher as conditions worsen, so that one’s enemies see that you cannot be vanquished and your friends’ flagging spirits can be lifted by your energy. After seven years of karate training, this concept is still primarily an intellectual one for me, one that I try to apply during class when the weather is oppressively hot and the workout is challenging. The workout is only an hour and a half, or on special occasions, several hours long. Any average warrior can hold out for that amount of time. In real life, the challenge is obviously much, much greater; to keep one’s head high no matter what is happening to you. For most of us, our “enemies” are not people, they are obstacles of all kinds that slow our progress through life.

No one exemplified this warrior spirit better than Randy Pausch, who died this morning after a nearly 2-year battle with pancreatic cancer. He fought this battle publicly as he chose to continue to give generously of himself. His spirit was so big and so exuberant that I actually had hope that he would beat the odds – even as I checked his web page weekly and saw the measure of tumor markers climbing steadily higher. Even when referring to those numbers, Randy continued to offer words of hope and encouragement. He continued to fight so he could have as much time as possible with his wife and children and a life that he loved dearly – a life in which he achieved his dreams. His message of hope is one that we all desperately need in order to overcome the obstacles we encounter (or create) in our personal and professional lives. He said:

"The brick walls are not there to keep us out, the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough. They're there to stop the OTHER people."

Remember the martial spirit of Randy Pausch when you face that next brick wall, and try to rise to the challenge to use your own spirit to encourage those around you and banish your enemies, whoever or whatever they might be. I can think of no better tribute to this great man.