How to become good? That is the goal some have when deciding to an activity. But, HOW does one become good at something? It must begin by attempting it once and being bad at it, reviewing the results, trying again and being slightly less bad at it. Repeat ad infinitum. There are many who have taught this lesson. Aphorisms and sayings abound. Some notable examples are:
“The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.”
― Stephen McCranie
My favorite is the story “Perfection” from Art & Fear – Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles, Ted Orland · 1985. It goes like this:
“The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced. All those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pounds of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot — albeit a perfect one—to get an “A”.
“Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work—and learning from their mistakes. The “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.”
While these examples are mostly about art in the traditional sense of creating something for the purpose of creation itself. The lesson does lend itself very easily to Martial Arts and how to become good with the specific techniques. We all have 10,000 bad kicks in our legs; 10,000 bad punches in our arms; 10,000 bad throws; 10,000 bad kata. One should not be afraid of throwing a bad kick. That’s fine. There are lots more where that one came from! They don’t have to be perfect. It will never be perfect – but it can be less wrong. We can learn from the bad kick and throw a less bad kick, over and over again. After a few thousand we’ll start getting some nicer looking kicks.
So listen to Jake the Dog and get out there and throw some bad kicks!
For more thoughts of Francisco, check out his other blogs:
Best Fighting Style: Rock-Paper-Scissors
How to Develop Martial Arts Expertise: 60 Frames Per Second
Francisco Berro is senior student at KSKD, and a regular contributor to the KSKD Blog Page. We enjoy many conversations and thoughts about Martial Arts and Life!!