Embrace the Chaos
I was standing on one side of the mat. Three of my friends were standing opposite of me. One was armed with a sword, another with a knife, the third had no weapon. They were wooden, but still weapons.
The shihan called “hajime” –begin, in Japanese, and chaos broke out.
In jiyuwaza (or randori), the first thing you have to do is to run toward the conflict, the chaos. You pick out the first partner and start the flow. A good jiyuwaza round has elements of chaos, but there’s also a flow a rhythm, that’s works well—as long as you don’t stop, as long as you continue to move into the storm.
Our daily lives can be like that. Sometimes we wake up and look at the landscape of the day, and we just flat don’t want to do the day. It’s too much, it’s a pain, it’s overwhelming. If we spend too much time looking at it, “not wanting to do the day” turns into “I can’t do the day. “ The first step into the fray is absolutely the most important.
The first step: pick something, anything and just do it. The now-famous commencement speech at University of Texas by Navy Admiral William McRaven talks about his life lessons from SEAL training: the first thing you do everyday is make your bed.
Long before that speech made it on to YouTube, I began that practice. Every morning the bed gets made, and I’ve done one thing. No matter what else happens, I’ve got that one thing done—my first partner has been engaged.
From there, you go from partner to partner and take opportunities to rest or regroup where you can, but you always stay moving. Sometimes that’s called being proactive, but mostly it’s just being willing, ready and start engaging the day, the task, the moment. One of the best pieces of career advice came to me from a coworker named Rusty, a million years ago at my first job (McDonald’s). He told me that it would get chaotic, but that it was okay. Just don’t stop moving. Embrace the chaos, and keep moving.
The more we think about a thing, the bigger it gets. More times than I can count I have dreaded an important conversation. I’ve worried about the other person’s reaction, and it’s turned out a much smaller issue than the one inside my head. If I stop moving, the situation becomes much larger, and more complex.
When I keep moving, it takes less energy, and I am more ready for the moment. I move toward the storm, the chaos.
Embrace the chaos. Take on the first partner. Stay in motion.
The shihan called “hajime” –begin, in Japanese, and chaos broke out.
In jiyuwaza (or randori), the first thing you have to do is to run toward the conflict, the chaos. You pick out the first partner and start the flow. A good jiyuwaza round has elements of chaos, but there’s also a flow a rhythm, that’s works well—as long as you don’t stop, as long as you continue to move into the storm.
Our daily lives can be like that. Sometimes we wake up and look at the landscape of the day, and we just flat don’t want to do the day. It’s too much, it’s a pain, it’s overwhelming. If we spend too much time looking at it, “not wanting to do the day” turns into “I can’t do the day. “ The first step into the fray is absolutely the most important.
The first step: pick something, anything and just do it. The now-famous commencement speech at University of Texas by Navy Admiral William McRaven talks about his life lessons from SEAL training: the first thing you do everyday is make your bed.
Long before that speech made it on to YouTube, I began that practice. Every morning the bed gets made, and I’ve done one thing. No matter what else happens, I’ve got that one thing done—my first partner has been engaged.
From there, you go from partner to partner and take opportunities to rest or regroup where you can, but you always stay moving. Sometimes that’s called being proactive, but mostly it’s just being willing, ready and start engaging the day, the task, the moment. One of the best pieces of career advice came to me from a coworker named Rusty, a million years ago at my first job (McDonald’s). He told me that it would get chaotic, but that it was okay. Just don’t stop moving. Embrace the chaos, and keep moving.
The more we think about a thing, the bigger it gets. More times than I can count I have dreaded an important conversation. I’ve worried about the other person’s reaction, and it’s turned out a much smaller issue than the one inside my head. If I stop moving, the situation becomes much larger, and more complex.
When I keep moving, it takes less energy, and I am more ready for the moment. I move toward the storm, the chaos.
Embrace the chaos. Take on the first partner. Stay in motion.
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