I Coulda Been A Contender!!!
I was quite literally using The Lord’s Prayer as a mantra as I strained through the workout.
“Our Father, who art in heaven…”
You might know the rest.
I repeated it over and over to take my mind off of the pain and rebellion my body was having against me.
In this literal hole in the wall gym (through a roll door behind a dentist office) I trained in a mix of kickboxing, Ken Po, and general badassery. (is that a word?)
When my sensei heard me saying the prayer over and over, he commented, “Yeadon’s bringing the Lord into it!”
After the brutal calisthenics and weights, then we moved into actual sparring.
He grouped four of us together, and I got ready to spar with my partner.
Then it got real.
OK, you three versus him for one minute, then rotate to the next person in the group against the other three, and keep going. Rotate each minute.
ummm…what? three on one?!?
Too late. The punches started landing. Also kicks. And then a chair.
Ok, no chair. It wasn’t WWE.
I’m no Jet Li, and fortunately, nobody else was, either. Nobody was going at it at survival level, but still…
Three on One isn’t easy. Not for the three, but much less so for the one.
After what felt like an eternity (but was probably only 8 minutes total), we got a break for recovery.
And the next day, it was more of the same. Brutal training followed by sparring.
I never got a chance to compete anywhere, fortunately. Twenty-three year old me was raring to find a match where I could actually fight. Today, I realize that I most likely would have gotten my a$$ handed to me by someone faster, stronger, better.
Years later, I have realized that when I compete against someone else, there is a winner and a loser. Sure, I may win, but so what? There will always be someone better out there, waiting for a chance.
The more important competition is what happens internally. The competition with myself.
In that internal competition, it’s all about growth and improvement. How can I get just a little better than I was yesterday.
1% growth daily.
Don’t compare yourself to the person next to you. Compare yourself to how you were yesterday.
You can win the internal competition.
You can still be a contender.
