Quote:
Christian Reiniger wrote:
Another little note on that:
We're talking here about people who have spent a great deal of their life training. That training has become an important part of their life, of their self, of their identity. If someone declares that training as useless / delusional / whatever, they're not only sending a message about that form of training. The person criticizing means "you should train differently if you want to reach your stated goals" -- but for the person on the receiving end the message is often quite different.
That received message may contain aspects like "you wasted the greater part of your life", "an important part of your identity is based on a delusion", "you're endangering your students by teaching them your stuff will work" and so on.
That hurts. A lot. And it threatens the very core of that person -- his sense of self, his beliefs, his identity.
Powerful stuff.
Now add to that that the person criticizing you is someone you have never met, someone you haven't built a measure of trust for, someone whose style of communication you don't know yet (or which is quite different from yours) -- and who has never seen and felt you train.
No wonder such a discussion results in lots of fire, emotional blood and tears...
Honest opinions are good. Uncushioned (sp?) frankness can be very good if the recipient can handle it. But in a public forum it's usually not the wisest choice.
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Christian:
I was born in 1961 and started training in martial arts and fighting sports in 1973 and what year is it again...... I guess I fit that bill as well.....
I am wholeheartedly in pursuit of developing my budo to the highest level as possible (no different than when I was involved in fighting sports). That means that every day, you check your ego in at the entrance of the training facility, dojo, etc.. If somebody out there says that I am completely wasting my time, I have numerous options available to me. I can simply ignore that person. I can explore the background of that person and try and figure out why that person is saying what he or she is saying. I can communicate to that person; I can meet that person and explore what that person is saying in order to see if it accurately applies to what I am doing. A hallmark of a mature, thinking person (TO ME) is the ability to separate the ego from the ideas, thoughts and beliefs so that you can remain open to taking in new information and recalibrating your ideas, thoughts and beliefs. I consider it a hallmark of personal insecurity if a person allows the opinion of someone else to threaten the core of that person. Budo is suppose to help us develop a calm, secure sense of self!
I am harder on myself than anybody else. I actively look and explore for the "missing parts." Some poster described that as being negative. That perception could not be farther from the truth. It is because I am secure enough with myself, that I am able to be so frank and honest with myself in my self-assessments. Why should I allow my self-esteem to rest in hands of someone I never met? I should be capable of listening and deciding how I should act upon the words of others. Talk to anybody who knows me and they will tell you that I am very positive, brutally honest and very, very encouraging and caring of those around me.
The crucible of life is always filled with "
fire, emotional blood and tears...". None of us were born with warranties that life was somehow suppose to be fair, nice, easy,..... The most successful people that I have met have had a way facing the crucible of life and crafting those experiences to always better themselves. I choose to pursue that path.
One of the beauty's of a public forum (in my opinion) is that frank, uncushioned, honest opinions are simply small fish in a larger ocean. It is easy to dismiss one opinion in a sea of many. If it strikes a cord in you, positive or negative, then you should listen to the cord being struck and do something constructive with it. If it was someone very, very close to you, it becomes harder to separate your ego from the message. If it does not strike a cord in you, swim on..... To me, the more we can raise our children and grandchildren (I am lucky enough to be in that position) in a loving, secure environment, the better we can prepare them to be strong enough to face a world that is often times cruel, uncaring, and unforgiving. That means not letting the words of others destroy your positive, self-image. If you do not have a positive, secure self-image, then I would suggest that you find some life experience (therapy, meditation, gardening, etc.) which can provide you with that stable, secure, loving, self-image. That will leave you better able to handle the crucible of life.
I will leave off with some paraphrasing from some cheezy, Hong Kong, Kung Fu movies with a scene that never happens: Two combatants face each other in the middle of a village. On says "Your village kung fu is weak." The man facing the attacker who hurled that comment is hurt to the core, balls up on the ground in the fetal position and cries himself to death..... The other combatant is very angry because he did not have an opportunity to tell the recently deceased that he has spent the last five years alone in some mysterious mountains watching panda bears pick the lice off of their private parts and was about to demonstrate his newly discovered, undefeatable style of Kung Fu !
.......
Regards,
Marc Abrams