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Monthly Message: February 2002
Fellow Karate-ka:
While
thinking about how to effectively teach you my students this week, I
realized that I have learned a lot from you. By continually trying to
stick to the basics of karate and give you good foundations in which to
grow from, I realized that my basics and my foundation has improved. I
further realized that this is an ongoing process.
No
matter how junior or senior a person is or how young or how old, we all
learn something from each other. This is why a class atmosphere is so
important to all of us. Think about how many times that I ask you to
repeat something over in class. Then think of how many times I do the
same thing from class to class. Finally, think of how much more
effective your technique and knowledge of the repetitious study subject
is.
Sometimes we all get impatient and want to move on to something
different because we think we already know all there is to know about
what we have been doing. Unfortunately we find out the hard way that we
can not effectively perform the new subject material because we do not
have a firm grasp of the material we wanted to leave behind in the first
place. We find ourselves frustrated in our studies and then realize
that we must go back and first recapture or relearn what we thought we
already had good control of.
When
we start to do the original basics again we really realize that there is
still much to learn. We work with other students both juniors and
seniors, young and old, and learn something from each of them. We begin
to realize that we need each other as well as ourselves to effectively
master any given material. We are all teachers as well as students.
The important thing here is not the physical but the development of our
mind and spirit.
By physically
challenging ourselves to overcome training hurdles we are setting
ourselves up for success in everyday life. We learn to accept failures
by realizing that we were not prepared enough for the thing we have
failed at. We then go back to the basics and polish them and try
again. We learn to keep trying and never to give up. We reach for our
goals and utilize the knowledge of the basics to help us get there.
Finally we realize that it’s not about the attainment of the goal but
the journey to get to it where life is really lived. This is because we
learned from each other along the way.
This is the way.
Sensei Dave
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