I am on Day 4 of mat leave due to a cold bug a student gave me on the mat...No Kenpo Girl is not happy.This is the longest I have been off the mat for as far back as I can remember. While I would love to put “The Sleeper” on the student that got me sick in the first place, I am trying to take the higher road… Because everyone enjoys an enthusiastic student. They not only make instructors life easier but make mat time entertaining with their eagerness to learn new things. Yet, it’s usually these dedicated students that end up bringing more than just their enthusiasm to the mat. They bring the sickies. We’ve all known student’s that would rather work off a fever on the mat then in bed and it isn’t long before the domino effect takes hold and the rest of the dojo is sick. It’s an unfortunate side effect of a close proximity sport that requires a lot of contact but in all actuality it becomes one of the unlucky lessons we must preach and learn. When I attended a seminar by Sifu Marty Zaninovich he stressed that we should do martial arts not just for self-defense but more for self-preservation. I contemplated his words of wisdom as I sipped my Theraflu. There are so many different threats to our well-being so why would we just train for a physical assault? Whether you are stretching or washing your hands you are still practicing self-preservation. Self-preservation is one of the basic, vast and most important lessons we can practice on and off the mat. With self-awareness we are one step closer to preserving our greatest weapon: our bodies. If this is the case then martial arts which has been looked upon as a self-defense orientated activity is in all fairness truly about self-preservation. It goes way beyond learning to block a punch or using hand sanitizer. With your self-awareness you begin to recognize your strengths and use them to your advantage. But what about recognizing when we are at our weakest? |
Jesalyn Mae HarperHello my name is Jesalyn. I'm a divorced single mom and a karate addict... Archives
March 2018
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