A martial artist knows….A winner neither gloats in victory, nor complains in defeat.

Image courtesy of: Sakurambo

Throughout modern history there have been countless men and women who have been tremendously successful who will tell you their secret is they failed more than everyone else.  Thomas Edison failed at making the light bulb over a thousand times before he found the right formula.  I recently saw an old interview with Michael Jordan where he detailed, how many games he lost at the free throw line. I have a few friends who have made their careers as accomplished salesmen in the corporate world. Those that have been successful often say they achieved success by hearing “no” from more of their clients than their peers. Failure provides the experience for future success.

Much as I discussed in a previous blog about the purpose of testing being to provide information, a failure or a success should be analyzed in a similar light. What worked well, what did not work well and what we will do different when the next opportunity arises. Complaining about why the sale did not go through, why the ball did not make it in the basket, why the product is not ready to go; creates a barrier to future success. True you might not have accomplished the task you wanted this time, but confusing the issue by pointing fingers or talking down your competition does nothing more than to cloud your mind.  These negative methods do not allow personal growth and development. In fact they often will alienate the people who could be part of a future success. 

The other side of this coin is the person who wins the game, gets the sale or brings the new product to market and then lauds it over the competition. How you treat others when you succeed should mirror how you would want others to treat you when you fail.  While you should feel good about your accomplishment it should not be based on smearing someone else’s face in the mud. Congratulate your competition on a hard fought game; convey that you admire and respect their abilities and look forward to future opportunities to match skills.  While they might not be happy with their defeat, they will appreciate the respect and dignity you showed them and will likely return the favor when the tables are turned. 

Be the positive role model you want to see in others. If you win or lose with a toxic attitude you will find that others do not want to be around you.   When you face failure be self reflective about what you personally could have done different or better.  When you triumph be graceful and share the glory; be sure to credit those who helped make the success possible.  The choice is always yours – it is best to have others to share future successes and failures with rather than to stand as an island alone.

A martial artist knows…..If you expect to succeed, embrace hard work.

Photo courtesy of Kris Hughes - all rights reserved.

Every generation of humanity has benefited in many positive ways from the technological advances of that generation.  The most tangible evidence of this is the advancements in the medical field. Illnesses and injuries that just a few decades ago would have debilitating or terminal are now diagnosed and treated with ease. These advances not only increase the quantity but also the quality of life. The development of the mechanical engine has allowed a single individual to do the same amount of work as scores of men in previous times. The increase in productivity has not only benefited the individual but his community as well as the individual has been able to bring an ever increasing variety of goods and services to his neighbors.  However there is a potential downside to these advances.

When technology allows us to do more with less effort, the desired byproduct should be for the individual to channel that freed time into additional productive pursuits. Instead we often see the opposite; where the individual is only focused on completing the task at hand and not focused on what he or she can still accomplish in the time they have made available. This is not to say that we should not enjoy the benefits of this increased productivity by investing additional time into our families, hobbies and personal interests. 

The challenge arises when the individual who has committed to a certain amount of time to work, rests on his laurels when technology allows us to accomplish the same tasks in less time. Instead of recommitting themselves to accomplishing more in the time they have allotted to work they say “job done, I can take it easy”. When this happens on a consistent basis the individual gets accustomed to spending less time working and more time taking it easy.  We as a society are seeing this more and more often particularly in our children. 

Today’s children seem less capable of self motivating themselves to accomplish their own tasks.  Technology has made it easier for the tasks to be done, and we as parents have not filled in the work void with additional tasks to accomplish. The children have gotten accustomed to maximum benefit for minimal effort on their part. This has imparted upon them a lazier attitude than previous generations, and we as parents are the culprits. 

We need to teach our children the beneficial attitude of hard work, not just the material benefits of hard work. The person who embraces hard work will succeed in life, regardless of the circumstances they find themselves in.  We all face hardships at different times in our lives; how we attack those hardships is the ultimate deciding factor of the final result. Those that embrace hard work lift themselves up by their boot straps when they find themselves in difficult times and immediately begin working on a way to resolve their problems.  Whether it is loss of a job or natural catastrophe those who have embraced hard work will resolve their problems much faster than the person who waits around for someone else to solve the problem for them.

We need to cultivate this attitude in our children in as early an age as possible. In our family there is an expression “When we work we work, and when we play we play”. When there are projects to be done all hands, regardless of age, chip in.  Everyone works at the task until the task is done. Growing up in this environment teaches children that adults value hard work and if they are to be respected by their elders they should do the same. 

If you want your children to embrace hard work you have to give them age appropriate tasks to accomplish.  As they succeed the tasks get more involved and more challenging. Hmmm… kind of sounds like progressing in the martial arts. Helping our children to understand good time management; budgeting appropriately for both work and play along with fostering an attitude of accomplishment will go a long way to putting them on a path to future success. Teach them to focus on how much they can get done, instead of how little they can do to make their boss/parent happy. Those who embrace hard work will always rise above those that only want to get by.  Which do you want for your child?

Tang Soo!

Master Homschek

Why Should I teach?

When the student is ready the teacher will appear. I have heard this quote many times in my martial arts training. For the beginning student it refers to the student entering the dojang and wishing to start training in martial arts. It is a very primitive stage of martial arts training. Simply an agreement between the instructor to present the curriculum and the student to come to class and absorb what they can. In the beginning no more can be asked or expected. 

At some point in the students training they will transition to a stage of recognition. They have begun to learn and understand the techniques and begin to mentally link parts from various drills together. They begin to see the relationship between footwork and power or sparing and forms. At this point they are ready and the teacher again appears. Instructors will observe their practice, will answer their questions then  give them new questions and avenues to explore and point them in the right direction. 

In the final stage there are more questions than answers. Many people do not make it this far. It is the stage of enlightenment. It is at this point that the student is most ready. It seems that there are instructors everywhere. In class there are revelations that occur while doing the most basic of drills. New insights that occur as the instructor is covering the same drills that you have done for years. On the internet where you look for techniques or subjects that interest you and then apply them to the direction of your training. With your peers when you exchange ideas on the things that excite you both. 

A very big part of this is final stage is teaching. Teaching forces you to view a subject critically. It is very hard to teach something that you do not believe in. If you cannot make a technique work for a specific student or yourself you must tear it apart and see what parts are critical and what can be modified or discarded. You learn the techniques inside and out. 

I am telling you this in hopes that you can know what is ahead of you and get to the last stage. After many, many years of training I have recently begun to experience the enlightenment. It is a very thrilling feeling. Learn something new every day and more importantly, having more questions every day. It is this that now drives me in my training.

So it is very fitting that the circle closes with me being the student and my students, being the instructors, helping me to learn every day. 

When the student is ready the teacher will appear.

Tang Soo!

Michael Mullins

Mr. Mullins began his Tang Soo Do training in 2004 under the guidance of Master Scott Homschek at the River Valley Tang Soo Do Academy in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. He earned his Cho Dan (Black Belt) in Tang Soo Do in June 2009 and His E Dan (2^nd Degree Black Belt) in 2011. He also holds a Black Belt in Uechi-ryu Okinawan Karate and a Brown Belt in Shotokan Karate.

He has a Masters Degree from Virginia Commonwealth University. He is retired from the United States Army after 21 years of service.

 

New Year's Resolutions

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

About this time every year people make promises about changes they are going to make in their life for the better.Unfortunately the large majority of these promises are broken in a short period of time. When making our New Year’s Resolutions we honestly believe that the changes are necessary, and that making these changes will result in an overall improvement in the quality of our life and our relationships.

With such a powerfully positive motivating principal behind us, why do we usually fail to live up to the promises we make to ourselves? Simply put we are not accustomed to setting goals, developing plans to achieve those goals, and acknowledging our successes and failures.

This is where Tang Soo Do can make a difference in your life. Tang Soo Do is about goal setting. Through training in Tang Soo Do the student not only learns to set achievable goals, they learn to develop a plan for achieving those goals and constantly monitoring their progress on the way to achieving these goals.

As we start this New Year look at the goals that you want to achieve. Honestly assess if those goals are achievable. Develop your plan. Implement your plan. Assess your progress. Revise your plan as required. When your goal is achieved. Set a new goal.

For 2000 years this has been our secret to success. I invite all students and potential students to follow this plan for success. For those students who have personally seen the benefits of Tang Soo Do in your life, your goal for the New Year should be to invite at least one other person to join Tang Soo Do, so that they may also enjoy successful goal accomplishment.

Tang Soo!

Master Scott C. Homschek

Originally published on www.rvtsda.com January 2003

Photo courtesy of: Rajwinder Singh from Sydney, Australia (Happy New Year !!  Uploaded by berichard) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

A martial artists knows...….. Inability is not disgraceful; lack of effort is!

Don't wear a cone of shame!

“I can’t” gets my attention.  It alerts me to an opportunity to watch and learn the character of the individual who made the protestation.  “I can’t” is a pivotal decision point – what happens next will tell you everything you need to know about the person.

“I can’t” may be a very factual statement and taken without further information is not worthy of judgment; instead further inquiry and observation is in order. “Why can’t you?”, “Are you willing to try?”, “If you truly can’t, what are you going to do about it?”, “If you have tried and still can’t, is there something else you can do to compensate for this deficiency?”

Lack of ability to accomplish a specific task is not disgraceful IF and ONLY IF you have exhausted the alternatives.  It IS disgraceful to be faced with an obstacle and throw your hands up without even trying.  Too many people are too willing to give up before they even try because this is the easy path – in their mind it negates their personal responsibility.  It also indicates that they feel it is someone else’s responsibility to fix the problem for them. Furthermore, if you step in to resolve their problem before they even try for themselves, you are enabling this negative behavior. Shame on them for not trying! Shame on us for encouraging them not to try in the future!

This is not just an issue of parents and children, though that is where the behavior often starts.  This is a societal problem and it is rampant.

BOB:      “I can’t pay my bills!”

SAM:     “Why not?”

BOB:      “We have run up our credit cards?”

SAM:     “What did you spend the money on – medical bills, car repairs?”

BOB:      “No – nothing like that we took a cruise last year, we bought some new furniture – stuff like 

                that.”

                

SAM:     “So what are you going to do about it?”

BOB:      “It’s so bad we might need to declare bankruptcy”

SAM:     “Have you tried looking for a second job?”

BOB:      “I can’t do that?”

SAM:     “Why not?”

BOB:      “I won’t be able to spend as much time with the kids if I am working two jobs?”

SAM:     “So instead you will shift the burden of paying your bills to someone else through 

                bankruptcy?”

BOB:      “Well, would you be willing to lend me the money till we get back on our feet?”

SAM:     “So you want me to bail you out with a promise you will pay me back?   

               Why is it again you can’t work a part time job to help start paying back the money you 

               owe?”

BOB:      “I told you I don’t want to take time away from my kids?”

SAM:     “So you want to teach your kids that you can be irresponsible with money and it is OK 

                to let someone else fix the problem?”

This conversation can go on and on with the Bob not willing to solve the problem he created; while Sam eventually having to walk away because the deadbeat will never understand. 

At what point do you start to demand a person take responsibility for themselves.  The answer is IMMEDIATELY.  Empower the person in trouble to start taking actions for themselves – even small actions to resolve the problem will help to give them momentum to tackle the larger issue.  They may still need help and we should be willing to help them IF and ONLY IF they are taking direct actions themselves to try to resolve the problem first.

If in the scenario above the debt was caused by a medical emergency, the person in trouble had already taken on an additional part time job to help cover the debt and they still could not get out from under it then we should be ready to step up and help in any way we can.  It is our moral and ethical responsibility to help those in need who cannot do for themselves.

The above scenario was one of a financial nature. Let’s look at something more practical.  If you see an innocent elderly person being accosted by a thug who is trying to hurt them – should we intervene.  I would answer a resolute YES.  Have someone call 911 and intervene to try and protect the elderly person if you have the means to do so.   Alternatively, if you were at a restaurant or bar enjoying an evening with your spouse or some good friends and the guy next to you starts an altercation with someone who is bigger than him and gets pummeled and shouts for help are you obligated to interfere because you have martial skills and are capable of taking out the bigger guy.  Not me.  I did not create the problem, nor do I feel it is my moral or ethical responsibility to use my skills in defense of the idiot who started the situation in the first place.

There are many things I cannot do. However, if the problem is outside my ability I do not throw my hands up and wait for someone else to fix it.  You start by getting educated. You start by analyzing what is really going on. You start by seeing if there is someone who can give you guidance to resolving the problem. You take action.  When your action indicates that there is no way you can do this by yourself then by all means seek assistance.  If you have taken action already you will be able to tell the person whose help you are seeking what you have already done – this will show that you are trying to resolve the problem and that there is a bunch of stuff which you have already tried and it has not worked.  Your helper will now be better educated on the situation and also much more likely to be willing to offer their assistance.  Or you can throw your hands up right away and say “I can’t” and wait for someone else to solve it for you – we call these type of people sheep.   

The choice is yours every day – every problem – every opportunity.

Tang Soo!

Master Scott C. Homschek

Photo Credit: By MythicSeabass from Olympia, WA (Cone of Shame) 

[CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons