8/10: OBSTACLES
This past week clearly had a theme of obstacles. Every day at our kid’s summer camp we started the day off with an obstacle course. We had plenty of nerf gun fights that included setting up barriers and obstacles. There were plenty of mental obstacles as well, including overcoming the exhaustion that all the kids started feeling mid-week. My favorite was the Magna-Tile tall tower challenge where the obstacle was how to overcome gravity, height and structural instability. Then at church on Sunday, our guest minister was a woman in a wheel chair who talked all about the obstacles in her life and in the lives of the others she has helped over the past 20 years in dealing with her own situation.
The first obstacle in my martial arts journey was actually the reason I started martial arts. This is a rather amazing story and is the lynchpin as to why any of us know each other. My senior year in college at Virginia Tech I bent over to pick up a piece of paper and my back locked up on me. It was absolutely the worst experience I’ve ever had with my back. I couldn’t even straighten my back lying down. The pain was so bad I almost dropped out of school for that final year. Honestly, I don’t know how I made it through. A friend of mine suggested I try this kung-fu class he was going to. He said it focused more on body motion than fighting. I gave it a try and literally fell in love with it within the first 10 minutes of class. When I moved to MI there was only 1 person in the entire state that taught that same style. That person was my former business partner. Had my back not locked up on me, and had I not known 1 of only about 100 people on a campus of 25,000 people that trained at that kung-fu gym, there is probably no way any of what we all share today ever happens.
Over the course of time since that fateful day, I have gone from feeling angry towards God for afflicting me like He did, to thanking Him as I realize it was a necessary step to getting me to where I am today. I can’t imagine how different my life would be had I not bent over to pick up that little piece of paper.
I’ve talked a bit about obstacles in class lately. We have a couple kids with broken wrists. Those are clearly difficult obstacles to overcome in Jiu-Jitsu class. Most every adult will get minor injuries over the course of their practice. But these obstacles should not stop us in our tracks. When Chad Mendes fought Conor McGregor, he talked about an injury he had in training. He said if your arm is injured, work on your legs. If your legs are injured, work on your arms. But either way, keep working. Way too many times, especially when it comes to competing, people use the excuse of not being ready, or not being perfectly healthy, as a reason to not compete. To be sure, there may be times where you absolutely have to stop training due to an injury, but I venture to say more times than not, you can overcome an injury….work around the obstacle….and continue training. I know this because it is what I have been doing my entire martial arts life.
Some may say I HAVE to do that because I have to run the business. No, I don’t HAVE to do that. It’s still a choice and a tradeoff I am making. Sure, my motivation is higher to be there because the business will most likely suffer if I’m not there, but there are plenty of business owners who would put that onus all on their employees.
We all have plenty of obstacles in our lives: health issues, financial issues, time issues, fear issues, work issues, you name it. You have 2 choices with those obstacles; let them stop you or find a way to work around them. Health issues? We all have them, but most of us can work around them. Financial issues? Look at cutting your costs or, like I have done many times in the past, find a second job. Time issues? Allow yourself a couple hours a week to prioritize yourself. Fear issues? Join our team of people that are here to help you overcome that. Work issues? Start the discussion with your manager about work/life balance. None of that is easy, I know, because I have had to overcome all of those issues myself. But like I shared on my personal Facebook post last week, it’s amazing how much time we really have if we just put our phones down and focus on optimizing the time we have.
Whatever your obstacles are, this week start figuring out how to solve them or work around them instead of letting them define you. You will be much better for it.
