Boxing and the lightbulb moment
The 3rd light
This light is still very new to me and I'm not sure if I have the words to explain it but I'm going to try.
My footwork is pretty good , I normally get compliments on it , I can pivot , shuffle , step back , cut off , transition from outside to inside and control my opponent with my feet
However my coach constantly tells me to take smaller steps , when I do it's common to hear him call " even smaller yet beck" " shorten that step up , smaller than you think"
It's something that until now my mind wouldn't and couldn't comprehend I just didn't get it. I thought my steps were small.
Martin Wheeler came to our school and gave a seminar , I listened , he gives away pearls of wisdom in every sentence he utters I swear.
In one of his conversations with a student he asked them why they were training JiuJitsu , what the goal was and he struggled with his response till he got to the point " to learn "
Martin asked him , what if you went and trained and instead of trying to win you let yourself fail?
Interesting
The idea was planted
What if when I sparred instead of trying to win/beat my opponent I allowed myself to fail
Why couldnt i do those smaller steps?
What was holding me back? Obviously something was.
So #1 I realized something (myself, my fear ) was blocking me from doing those smaller steps
#2 I realized I was afraid to fail , I was afraid that if I did a smaller step and I did it wrong I would be punished for it by my opponent , I was also afraid I wouldn't do it right , afraid of what would happen as a consequence.
So I knew to be able to do the smaller step I had to stop blocking myself , I had to allow myself to fail to face my fear
So I did and I learnt more things , my boxing stepped up in the game
Because when I made that small step the whole world changed and with it the way I thought about it.