Show up
to prayer
to the silence
to the quiet
secret place
inside you
with no expectations
no anticipation
there is nowhere to go
nothing to do
no one to be
in the stillness
this is the practice
the showing up
THE SHOWING UP
By Robert Van Valkenburgh
Meditations of a Gentle Warrior
To read my longer writing, visit http://www.robertvanvalkenburgh.com
As long as we have choice, we have hope.
One of the most powerful lessons martial arts teach us is that very difficult, seemingly insurmountable problems can be solved by applying the right combination of posture, balance, angles, and leverage. What at first feels like a hopeless challenge becomes less and less so the more we learn and practice. Over time, positions we were once helplessly stuck in no longer cause us concern or discomfort because, as our skills improve, so does our power to choose how and when we escape or reverse a bad position.
With this ability to choose comes confidence and optimism. The more we practice, the more we learn that, as long as we have not yet been submitted or knocked out, we still have some degree of freedom to choose our own fate and the fate of our opponent. Skill and experience gives us hope because, as long as we are free to move in some direction, even if it was not the direction we once wanted or hoped to move in, we know that the fight is not yet over.
The experience of being stuck or overwhelmed can feel almost claustrophobic at first. It is enough to make many people want to quit, but the ones who stick around, the ones who see past their own discomfort and keep coming back in spite of it or even because it, soon discover that fear and pain are temporary, and are far outweighed by the joy, satisfaction, and physical, emotional, and psychological freedom that comes with the progress that continued practice offers. Success, we come to find out, is not necessarily reserved for the best of us, but for the ones who keep showing up and who remember that no matter how bad it gets today, there is always a solution to the problems we face, even if we do not know it or know how to apply it yet.
Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.
Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh unless otherwise noted.
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Some days, all we can do is to show up and that is okay.
There is no doubt that, at the end of each day, we feel better knowing that we accomplished something or that, at the very least, we put in a little bit of work toward our personal goals or our dreams. Sometimes, however, the day gets ahead of us and we never quite catch up. We feel ourselves being dragged in by its undertow, tossed around, struggling to find our bearing or catch our breath, and then unforgivingly tossed back on the shore, shaken, frustrated, and powerless.
Regardless of how well we have prepared, how strictly we stick to our plans or our schedules, and no matter how strong our will may be, there will always be circumstances that arise which are totally outside of our control. If too many of these crop too quickly, or at the same time as one another, our day no longer belongs to us and what we perceive as order gives way to chaos. Frustratingly, this may even happen more than once in the same day.
On days like these, when we feel beaten down and lost, it helps to keep in mind that at least we showed up and made it through, and we get to try again tomorrow. Perhaps we can take a quiet moment to reflect on what went wrong and why, but also what went right, even if what went right went totally unnoticed by us or anyone else at the time that it happened. While we may not be able to change our past experiences, we can change our perspective on those experiences and, through that, change the way that we approach tomorrow.
Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.
Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh unless otherwise noted.
Follow Robert Van Valkenburgh and Holistic Budo on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and LinkedIn.
If you found this post helpful or meaningful in some way, please feel free to Share, Comment, and Subscribe below.
If our goals are shallow, most likely our commitment will be as well.
Starting martial arts can be scary. Walking through the door for the first time is a huge step. Once we get started, however, staying can be even more difficult. When our initial motivation wears off, once we reach some short term goal or when we realize that our goals are harder to attain than we had originally imagined, we need to dig deeper inside of ourselves for a reason to continue.
It’s easy to show up on a good day. There is no discipline needed to stay the course when things are going well. When we are feeling down, when we are frustrated, when we feel like we are not progressing, and especially when we just plain don’t feel like it, that is when showing up matters the most.
It isn’t really on the good days that we make the most progress. Good days are just good days. It’s when we push through the bad days, when we step on the mats and put in the reps in spite of ourselves, that we make our biggest strides forward, even if we don’t immediately notice. Before we can hope to win against anyone else, we have to first win against our own internal resistance.
Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.
-Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body, Severna Park’s Holistic Chamber of Commerce, and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
Meditations on God 