Slow down! I have said it a million times to my students. Recently I was reminded by a friend and training partner the exact same thing. During a review session with my friend Chris Bailey I found myself repeatedly going too fast through some techniques I know I had been having some challenges with.
Just like I tell my students, as a result of going fast I was making mistakes I was unable to see. The very second I slowed down I automatically corrected my mistakes without even being aware I did so.
Chris shared a cool little story about speed that he was told by Rorion Gracie. If you drive 75 miles through your neighborhood you are not going to see anything. If you slow down to 5 mph you will see everything.
This is true in our training as well as in many other areas of our life. There is some kind of misguided thought that we need to be in a hurry to get to the next thing. Kids want to be teenagers who want to be adults who want to be married who want to have kids who want that big job and then get it all and want to be kids again and then die!
Sorry if I left you out of breath with that last paragraph. But that is kind of the point. We can get in such a hurry in our lives that we are out of breath and don’t even know it. The next thing is always going to come.
The older I get the more I realize that. I love having things to look forward to these days and I love the time it takes to get there. I am learning to truly appreciate the moments between again. To live more in the now.
I know I still need a lot of work in this area. I tend to think fast, talk fast and unfortunately move fast. I attribute part of this to being smooth, but that isn’t the whole of it. I do rush when I could walk. I do walk when I could just stand and stare at the beauty around me. Not all the time, but more often than I would like.
Sometimes you just gotta sit and watch the flowers grow. Sometimes there isn’t a real point of destination. I think those times are extremely important to recognize and experience. I personally plan to look for more of them and to help my students recognize them in their own lives!
