Friday, May 27, 2016

Time bound

We all who works or who have worked in the corporate world understands that we have to reach certain goals by a certain time. Most of things in the modern world works this way.

Those who engage in competitions also understands. They have to prepare for the next scheduled match, albeit meeting a certain weight, a certain speed, or certain qualifications.

Result oriented. Process improvement. Efficiency.

Martial arts do not really work in the same manner. I mean what martial arts were originally intended for, not the competition type. Our ancestors do not have the luxury of knowing when or how and with what they are going to be attacked.

In martial arts one needs to continually improve. There is no schedule. One just needs to practice again and again, going through the process and getting better at it. No short cut. No efficiency.

Don't get me wrong, there needs to be results, but there is no end state. One improves by time, but one is not restricted by it. Not being efficient in training, but being efficient is the result of training. There is no such thing as "doing my best" because your best could still be better, even by a small increment, by one breath. That one breath could mean whether one will live or die. When we are thinking about this so is the person at the other side attacking us.

We see what other people are doing and we fantasize of being like that. Don't. Because we are only restricting ourselves. It doesn't matter what they do. What matters is what we do. Don't focus on an end state. Focus on the improvement because we are doing the process better. Are we practicing correctly? Are we better today than we are yesterday? Will my practice today make me better tomorrow?

There is no end state in what we do

They say that everything in this day and age must be "time bound"

But time does not really exist anyway

So we are bound by nothing