Effort

“There may be people that have more talent than you, but there’s no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do.” – Derek Jeter. Last week we talked a lot in class about effort. To me, effort is one of the biggest aspects of training of any kind. An instructor, coach or parent can teach you everything that you need to know about a sport or art. They cannot make you do it the way they showed you. They can tell you what you will have to do to succeed, but they cannot make you try to do it. If I could figure out how to get inside everyone’s head and make them do their pattern the way we talk about, or spar the way we tell them to, I would. BUT, since I haven’t mastered mind control yet, some of this is up to you as a student. When you get feedback from the instructors, are you applying it, or are you just continuing to do the same thing. When you are practicing your pattern, are you practicing it full out? Or are you just walking through it lazily? Your pattern will be the way you practice it on testing day, for good or bad. If you don’t work hard in sparring during the training cycle, you’ll be in for a shock on testing day. The amount of effort you put in on a daily basis is directly related to the results you will get at a testing or tournament. Now, do things go wrong on those days? Absolutely. You can’t always control that, but, you can put your best foot forward.