Jumping Roundkicks and “self certainty”
July 2002, Virginia
I can still remember how it felt to step into the ring that day. I was eighteen, and fighting in the “big boy” (18 plus) blackbelt division for the first time at the USA-NKF National Championships. The cold air of the Coliseum made it impossible to stay warm before your fight, so inevitably I felt cool and dry as I waited on the line, facing another young fighter like myself.
Regardless of how I felt, I made a good start of it, scoring some body punches, staying and controlling the center of the square ring, as the judges, the other fighters, and a handful of spectators looked on. About half way through the match, my spiky haired opponent woke up and asked himself “why am I losing to this guy?”. A question he dutifully answered by a strong face punch to my eye so hard, I thought I was gonna feel his glove on my face the whole way home. As I picked myself off of the blue and red puzzle mats, I asked myself a different question, “why in the hell did I think it was such a good idea to come anywhere where I could get hit this hard?”.
Even though he got a foul for the amount of contact (excessive head contact is illegal in karate), he started to slowly take control of the match from me. He put the icing on the cake when I attacked and he jumped in the air and round kicked me with his opposite leg hard in the body, knocking the air and the hope of winning out of me simultaneously.
I think I used to view good performance as a mystery. Either I was going to have a “good” day or a “bad” day, and try though I might, I had trouble flipping that switch to help me control my fighting performances. Fast forward one year.
July 2003, North Carolina
I’m nineteen, fighting in another national championships, and have moved on to my second round after narrowly winning my first match. My Coach at the time, Tommy Hood, and my dad are both watching the fight from the side. A sort of de ja vux occured, with somebody catching a hard, jumping round kick to the body, then losing the match. Only this time, it was me doing the kicking and winning. It truly is better to give than receive.
The strangest thing about that match, about that very move was, that I had never practiced that jumping round kick. That was actually the first and last time I would ever score that technique in competition again. The last time I had seen that kick was precisely a year ago when I was on the receiving end. I couldn’t explain how or why I did it. It just came out of me.
It would be years later before I realized the ingredient that made these two performances so starkly contrasting. When I caught that hard punch in my first match, it wasn’t the physical effects that contributed to my loss. At that very moment, I let my certainty about myself start to go downward. And not surprisingly it set me up for the even more decisive kick and losing the match. On the other hand: in my match a year later, before I threw that jumping kick, I was riding high on certainty after scoring and controlling the match. When I scored that kick, it setup me up to fight even better and win. I even went on to take fourth that day losing the Bronze medal match by one point.
Whats the point? I have learned and am learning that confidence is seldom static. Either you are growing it right now or are tearing it down. And depending on which action you are taking, lies your greatest victories or your most painful defeats. Have you ever noticed that confident secure people seem to always grow more confident, and successful regardless of circumstance? And how insecure people continually tend to become more insecure and fail, regardless of circumstance? The good news is we have a choice. So what are you collecting, reasons why you are going to succeed, or excuses for why you are going to fail? You owe it to your self to grow that certainty. Good luck and remember to practice that jumping roundkick.
To Your Success,
Sensei Joseph