Clarence Benjamin Jones

I stumbled across an interview with Clarence Benjamin Jones on the BBC this week. Listening to him describe his experiences as Martin Luther King’s legal and personal counsel was fascinating.

Clarence Jones first met Martin Luther King when King personally visited Jones’ home in California to convince him to become part of his legal team. Surprisingly, Jones turned King down. After King left, Jones received an invitation from one of King’s aides to attend the upcoming service at a local church where Martin Luther King was to be the guest preacher.  Jones accepted the invitation and found King to be much more charismatic in that venue than he had been in his living room. Not only did King direct a big part of his sermon directly, but anonymously, at Clarence Jones, by the end of his sermon Jones was convinced to become part of Martin Luther King’s legal council.

What struck me about this Clarence Jones interview is how different his life would have been if he had not attended that sermon. He would never have become part of King’s counsel, nor would he have helped write King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. The world would be a different place.

Life is full of opportunity. Some opportunities are exploited while others are ignored. While it is easy to see what comes of opportunities taken, it is more difficult to realize the consequences of opportunities missed.

“Sometimes we stare so long at a door that is closing that we see too late the one that is open.” - Alexander Graham Bell (1847 - 1922)

Oh Canada

Training in kung fu presents certain unique challenges. Chinese hand forms tend to be fairly lengthly and they cover quite a bit of real estate. Finding a location outside your kwoon that gives you enough space to complete an entire form uninterrupted is almost impossible. Most of us break our forms down into segments for practice at home and piece them back together when we return to class. Weapon forms exasperate the issue, and in most cases, are impossible to practice indoors safely.

This brings up the unique challenges a person faces when practicing the martial arts in a northern climate. At our latitude, the climate can force us to keep our training indoors for seven months of the year. That’s a long time to be away from your weapon practice. During the deep freeze intervals when the temperature drops below -30 degrees centigrade, any outdoor cardio exertion is impossible without the cold, dry air damaging your lungs.

I do believe these unique challenges give us the opportunity to become better martial artists. Overcoming the limitations of the short daylight hours and extreme weather in the winter help us prepare for the other inevitable pitfalls that end up crossing our paths.  Like any other challenge that falls your way, it’s how you choose to react to the challenge that determines whether or not you will come out ahead for it.

“Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are." - Bernice Johnson Reagon (b. 1942)

Incremental Progression

The Sihing Class I ran on Friday reminded me of the key role incremental progression plays in mastery. There are no shortcuts, the harder you work the more you will progress. An hour of practice can produce great results but finding an interrupted hour for mindful practice can sometimes be the single most challenging aspect of mastery. Fortunately, it is almost impossible not to be able to find ten uninterrupted minutes a day over six days to apply to mastery. As I continue to tell my students - if you can’t spare ten minutes a day to kung fu, I’ll show you how to set your alarm clock to go off ten minutes earlier. Any limits to how we apply ourselves to our training are in between our ears.

My Sihing students were exposed to a sample nine minutes of the future final twelve hours of their black belt grading on Friday. It was not only an eye opening experience for them but one for me as well. These past five months I have been spending the majority of my time honing the skills of my five candidates who were promoted to black belt at our Chinese New Year Banquet. Seeing my current Sihing class mentally breaking down over those nine intense minutes brought into focus how far my last five candidates developed over their grading year. I definitely get spoiled working so closely with a group whose focus was narrowed upon achieving mastery. It is very inspiring and motivating to be reminded how far one can progress when they dedicate a portion of every day toward their goals.

Incremental progression is the key.

“Success is steady progress toward one’s personal goals.” - Jim Rohn (1930 - 2009)

Toys in Space

I find this story unbelievably inspiring because as a kid I worked on a project to put a toy into orbit. I came up with many designs and the ultimate design may or may not have ( if I was a betting man I would say not have) achieved orbit. The technology available to me back then precluded me from ever recovering my rocket or proving it’s ultimate destination.

What I find so inspiring about this story is that these two teenagers not only dared to dream, they followed through. They did the research, they invested the time, and they ultimately achieved exactly what they set out to do - first try. Just goes to show that if you take a well thought out plan and couple it with good old follow through, anything is possible.

Thank you Mathew and Asad. You guys made my year.

“We didn’t really believe we could do it until we did.”- Mathew Ho (b. 1995)