Fighting Through Life

In week 3 of my capstone project, I have been slowly gaining more information about individuals experiences with martial arts, disability, and life. Through observations, interviews, and participation, I have found a consistent thread in peoples journey regardless of their skill level or physical abilities. They wouldn’t be the person they are today, without the people that surround them.

This isn’t new

I bet that everyone reading this knows of at least a handful of phrases about teamwork or community they could half quote to someone who stopped listening to your drunk ramble ten minutes ago. So that’s it this week, no reason talking about it any further, right? Just a quick reminder to surround yourself with people better than you and attempt to rise to their abilities.

Teamwork makes the dream work…

It takes a village…

A single arrow is easily broken, but not ten in a blah blah blah…

I’ve found that mostly everyone boasts about the lovely outcomes of teamwork, collaboration, and community. Yet, seldomly, do people discuss how is a community created, how do you maintain collaboration, or why is it so difficult to work as a team? The answer is simple, albeit rare, you have to care, but more importantly.

The people around you have to KNOW you care

It helps when everyone on the team cares, but it begins with the coach/instructor/sensei. I have found here at TRIALS MMA that they have a unique and special group of people in their classes. They may not be able to boast several world team titles or have a surplus of international talents in the gym, but every participant cares.

They focus on the journey and the bettering of themselves, they ensure everyone knows they’re there for one another in and outside of the gym, they emphasize the importance of participation over performance. None of them do this better than their coaches, particularly owner and head coach Ryan Schultz.

On any given day, Ryan can tell you both the emotional and physical wellbeing of each and every one of his athletes regardless of the last time he saw them in the gym. When him and I discussed this, he put it simply, stating, “there’s no other way to do it”. Consistently giving words of affirmation with a seemingly endless limit to his energy, Schultz shows his athletes the difference between being their coach, and being in their corner, on and off the mats.

Make no mistake, this message applies to all facets of life. Whether you’re a foreman or a manager, a coach for college athletes or your local U6 soccer team, or even a father. You must ensure that the people around you, the people who look to you, know that you care about them. If you can do this, those people will go twice as far as they ever felt possible, just to prove you right.

The following is a poem for all you literature nerds out there titled, “The Winners” and was written by Rudyard Kipling in 1888. In it, Kipling discusses the antithesis of the themes that I fumbled through in this week’s entry.

The Winners

By – Rudyard Kipling

What is the moral? Who rides may read.
  When the night is thick and the tracks are blind,
A friend at a pinch is a friend indeed;
  But a fool to wait for the laggard behind
Down to Gehenna, or up to the Throne,
He travels the fastest who travels alone.

White hands cling to the tightened rein,
  Slipping the spur from the booted heel,
Tenderest voices cry, "Turn again,"
  Red lips tarnish the scabbarded steel,
High hopes faint on a warm hearth-stone–
He travels the fastest who travels alone.

One may fall, but he falls by himself–
  Falls by himself, with himself to blame;
One may attain, and to him is the pelf–
  Loot of the city in Gold or Fame
Plunder of earth shall be all his own
Who travels the fastest, and travels alone.

Wherefore the more ye be holpen and stayed, 
Stayed by a friend in the hour of toil,
  Sing the heretical song I have made–
  His be the labour, and yours be the spoil.
Win by his aid, and the aid disown–
He travels the fastest who travels alone.

Ask yourself, do you want to travel fast, or do you want to travel far? For, “Scaling the mountain or breasting the stream, he travels farthest who pulls with his team”.