In his
book The Inner Game of Tennis,
Timothy Gallwey describes two separate aspects of every human endeavor, the
external and the internal. In the
external arena a game or a task is played on an outer scale with outer
obstacles and outer goals. It makes
sense, right? The ball is coming at you,
so now you swing your arm and hit it back.
Easy-peasy. The external game is,
on its face, easy. But, where we as
people get into trouble is the inner-game…the game we play within
ourselves. In this game we are battling
against our own insecurities, mental blocks, lapses in focus, deficiencies in
mental preparedness. The inner game is
very, very hard. And, in order to be
great at anything, we must be masters of the inner game. Stated another way—we must be masters of
ourselves.
Within
the last four days, I’ve sat on two Yoshukai testing boards, one for black belt
rank and one for kyu grade. These two
tests were absolute examples of the necessity of mastering the inner game. Both had higher and lower points, but the
comments were almost always about the state of preparedness of the students…the
inner game.
As
martial artists, it is extremely easy to focus on the external game. Are we chambering that front kick? Do our strikes with our weapons have the
proper focus? Do we physically know the
structure of a form? These are things
that we drill hour-in and hour-out in class (and hopefully, outside of class),
and the external game of karate is very rich indeed.
The
internal game, on the other hand, is not generally at the surface of our
practice, yet it is present in everything we do. What is keeping us making the same mistakes
time and again? Why do we fear a certain
aspect of our training? What prevents us
from reaching the full fruition of our goals?
Gallwey
describes it in a simple algebraic expression:
P = p – i
Where P
(Performance) equals p (potential) minus I (interference). When I first read this, the simplicity of
this concept hit me like a liver shot.
We must be constantly analyzing and eliminating our sources of interference. In this way, our pursuit of any task becomes
a microcosm of our pursuit of our best self.
That sounds important…let me repeat it in a slightly paraphrased
way. The more we work on our inner self;
the better eqipped we will be to achieve our external goals.
So, it’s
time to ask yourself, what’s in the way?
Sometimes, looking at these factors is difficult, but a “gut check” is
necessary for an honest assessment of our own progress. If you want to be great at something, that
desire alone is an indicator that within you lies the potential to reach your
goals. After you’ve put that goal forth
in a tangible way, then begin the playing the inner game. Remove the interference, one bit at a
time. Understand this: you’ll never get rid of every last bit of interference. We’re human, after all. But, you can make that interference
absolutely insignificant.
Back to
karate! Here’s some of what this means
to us: When the time comes to confront
your goals—that is, to test yourself, make sure you’re prepared. That test can be a number of things—your
first attempt at your ranking kata without looking around to see what’s coming
next, your first attempt at Japanese kumite, your next literal martial arts
test…you get the idea. There is a great
amount of trust that you must place in yourself—that you will keep focus and
work to prepare yourself adequately. But
don’t forget, your instructors play this inner game with you. They want to see you achieve your goals. But also remember this, your instructor is
playing his/her own inner game, too.
Nobody’s perfect, and we’re always growing together. So, if your instructor tells you you’re not
ready, trust that assessment. Mainly
because a test experience should be an opportunity to annihilate the final
obstacles to that next goal. It is in
your best interest to make sure you’re mentally prepared.
Which
brings us back to what I said at last night’s test…if testing shodan is one of
your goals—and if it is, that’s fantastic—you can make the inner decision to
begin your training today. Exciting, isn’t
it?
OSU!
