Sometimes I don’t feel very much like a martial arts master. Like when I’m wrestling a guy who outweighs me by 80 pounds, or when I wake up in the morning to find that my back has gone out, or when I’m trying a new technique and I can’t seem to make it work.
But then I focus on the fact that I’m a master not a champion, and it all becomes clear.
The champion is warrior or competitor who is in search of the trophy, the accolades, the purse, the measurable reward or the attainable victory. Once the goal or the peak has been reached, champions often destroy themselves with continued attempts to achieve former glory, or give up and fade away into dissipation and sloth.
The master is the experimenter, the innovator, the teacher, the one whose goal is to fully explore and experience the art form. Masters are searching for new discoveries and a fuller experiences. Recognition comes to them late in life, sometimes even posthumously, if it ever comes at all. Though both are the stuff of legend, few are the masters who become champions and the champions who realize mastery.
It’s important to stake stock of your path. To self-evaluate, to analyze, to think about what you’re doing. To have goals.
Ask yourself what it is exactly that you’re trying to do.
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Cabal Fang WOD:
Command & Mastery Drill. Lay a heavy bag on the floor, set timer to beep every 1:00, and pick up your dull wooden training weapon. Switching hands/grips each cycle, complete 4 cycles of 1:00 ea. of (a) Mount heavy bag and strike, (b) Sit-ups w/ strike at the top, (c) Shadowboxing w/ weapon (d) 10-count Bodybuilders w/ weapon in hand. 16 mins total. Count number of times live end of weapon touches your body (should be -0-). When all 4 cycles are done, complete 12 Push-ups per touch.
Robert Mitchell Jr. 