What motivates you?

[Fairfax_Uechi]

the perfection of my character even in my 50's after 35 years I have yet to scratch the surface and am not much better than I was 35 years ago

I hope I read this wrong. If you truely mean this, then maybe you need to keep a training log or some sort of journal. In my log, I keep my workouts on one page, and coments on the backs of the previous page. I record everything, how the workout went, how I feel, etc. I do this as martial arts is an aspect of my life that ties it all together. As I've mentioned in ohter posts, I look at the internal as a huge part of the arts. So many little things become clear through my training.

Now with all of that said, I try to make a little progress in everything every day. So what may not seem like much day to day, is huge over months, years, and decades. For instance, I used to have a huge temper. Through taining, couseling, and chaning my attitude, I still have a temper, but it's one thats like a sleeping fed lion. It's there, it's very powerful, but as long as it's not threatened it's like it doesn't exist. But threaten it enough and it can come out. The key is keeping it asleep, which I continue to work on.

In any case, do you meditate? Do you evaluate yourself often? Or are you very hard on yourself and evaluate yourself all the time? There's a difference between seeing progress over time and just looking at today, yesterday, and the short term. If you've truely come a long way after some reflection, then I hope I've helped. If you honestly believe that you've made little progress, I would challenge you to look at changing your training (on the mental side), and give yourself 3 months to see if you can make some huge leaps!!!

[Menjo]

the perfection of my character even in my 50's after 35 years I have yet to scratch the surface and am not much better than I was 35 years ago

I hope I read this wrong. If you truely mean this, then maybe you need to keep a training log or some sort of journal. In my log, I keep my workouts on one page, and coments on the backs of the previous page. I record everything, how the workout went, how I feel, etc. I do this as martial arts is an aspect of my life that ties it all together. As I've mentioned in ohter posts, I look at the internal as a huge part of the arts. So many little things become clear through my training.

Now with all of that said, I try to make a little progress in everything every day. So what may not seem like much day to day, is huge over months, years, and decades. For instance, I used to have a huge temper. Through taining, couseling, and chaning my attitude, I still have a temper, but it's one thats like a sleeping fed lion. It's there, it's very powerful, but as long as it's not threatened it's like it doesn't exist. But threaten it enough and it can come out. The key is keeping it asleep, which I continue to work on.

In any case, do you meditate? Do you evaluate yourself often? Or are you very hard on yourself and evaluate yourself all the time? There's a difference between seeing progress over time and just looking at today, yesterday, and the short term. If you've truely come a long way after some reflection, then I hope I've helped. If you honestly believe that you've made little progress, I would challenge you to look at changing your training (on the mental side), and give yourself 3 months to see if you can make some huge leaps!!!

Thats a great idea about logging my training, even though it wasnt directed towards me, thanks.

Also in defence of what patusai said, I find quite a few MA won't admit that they are skilled or even gaining any talent...It keeps them training hard and not getting a swolen head, although I beleive its a good method, some aknowledgement to training should be accepted once in awhile.

Just trying to get some ideas in...

[red dawn]

What motivates you to join and keep learning to become better at MA?

seeing how far I have come with the MA, and how much more I still need to learn keeps me going. It's almost an unexplainable drive.

[Whitefeather]

There are several things that motivate me:

1)

The ability to protect loved ones and strangers alike. With every bit of training, I know that I am improving the odds that, if somebody attacks one of my loved ones, or a stranger, I will improve my odds of being able to defend my brother man (or sister woman, for you feminist wing-nuts) and to stop somebody that would likely do more people harm.

2)

The rain.

3)

I derive enjoyment from pushing myself, training harder than I did yesterday, even though I feel sick and every body part is sore, training longer than I did yesterday, even though it is eleven o'clock and I have a test tomorrow, knowing that, through perseverance, I have become better than I was last year, last month, last week.

4)

First place at the local Karate tournament. Without a shadow of a doubt, clear cut, completely, irrefutably, better than the competition, first place.

5)

42

6)

To be able to say: "Have a good'un"

David

Edited March 20, 2006 by Whitefeather

[Menjo]

There are several things that motivate me:

1)

The ability to protect loved ones and strangers alike. With every bit of training, I know that I am improving the odds that, if somebody attacks one of my loved ones, or a stranger, I will improve my odds of being able to defend my brother man (or sister woman, for you feminist wing-nuts) and to stop somebody that would likely do more people harm.

2)

The rain.

3)

I derive enjoyment from pushing myself, training harder than I did yesterday, even though I feel sick and every body part is sore, training longer than I did yesterday, even though it is eleven o'clock and I have a test tommorow, knowing that, through perseverance, I have become better than I was last year, last month, last week.

4)

First place at the local Karate tournament. Without a shadow of a doubt, clear cut, completely, irrefutably, better than the competition, first place.

5)

42

6)

To be able to say: "Have a good'un"

David

A good read.

Did you start off with this attitude?

[Whitefeather]

A good read

Thanks for the compliment

Did you start off with this attitude?

Well, umm, to be honest, mostly no. It started when I was about ye tall, wait, sorry, umm, when I was around five years old, and, at that point in time, the entire idea was to be able to whup on any idiot-punk who even looked at my then-infant little sister in an ungood manner. So, it started as a wee little bit of #1, but, as you can see, it kinda evolved.

Regards,

David

[Brandon Fisher]

My students

[hurricane]

I just really love it! Also, I discover new facets of myself and the interaction with others the more and longer I train, so my motivation could be summarized like this: It's something I love doing and there seems to be a never-ending flow of things to learn and to discover.

[seitaehw]

what drives me: karate is what i love to do. i am so lucky to have found it as soon as i have. for a while, things got hard. my best friend left and i was in a fighting rut, but when it was done, i knew i had to continue karate because i loved it.

[tekki]

The more train, the better I get. The better I get, the more fun it becomes.