the phagos blog

Over the last six to twelve months, my thinking and way of looking at things has been changing.  Most of my life has been spent doing things a certain way, one that I’ve found doesn’t work for me any more.  Well, not as well as I’d like.  You see, when I’d first learn about something, or start doing something, I’d jump in head first, immerse myself, and learn or do everything I could.  Then when I hit a certain point, I’d abandon the methodical approach and rely more on my intuitive sense.  The end result was I’d wind up jumping around here and there, never finishing anything, just making a big unfinished mess before I’d abandon it altogether.  My work was a bit like that too, and it was sloppier than it should have been.  But that’s been changing.

The last few months I’ve been applying more focus to things, trying to complete things in smaller units before moving on to other things.  The biggest change has been at work, where I feel the quality of my work has improved.  It’s only been recently that I’ve started to apply that outside of work.  Not surprisingly it wasn’t work that was the influence, but rather the martial arts.

When I’m on the mat, I tend to do things slow now, rather than fast, and for a reason.  When I do martial arts slow, I feel the places where my technique doesn’t work, things I’m doing that might not work.  It lets me figure out where and how to adjust my technique so that I’m doing it right.  For some reason, it has only been very recently that I’ve given thought to applying this to my life away from the mat.    As I said earlier, when things happen for me, they tend to happen quickly.  As such, I don’t always get the basics of something down, and later on I get frustrated when things don’t work the way I think they should.  But now I’m starting to see where going slow in my life will be of great benefit.

As I’ve said before, for me, the techniques of martial arts has a high correspondence with the techniques of living.  so it’s time I stop living my life in fast forward and begin to move slower, to see where my weaknesses are and correct them before I need to call on them without having to think. That’s not to say that the pace of my life won’t stay busy, it probably will.  But the pace I move at in those things that keep me busy is about to change.

I think I’m ready to see more of my flaws, the things I need to work on to better myself.  As on the mat, I need to move slow, get the technique correct all the way through, and practice, practice, practice.  Speed will take care of itself.  It’s time to slow down and do things right.  May not be popular, but slow at the start produces a much faster finish than most can imagine.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 at 8:19 pm and is filed under life, martial arts, change. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.