Learn From Your Mistakes!

Jung SuWon Martial Arts Academy just had a testing cycle and belt ceremony - watching it I was struck by something.


One of the tenets of Jung SuWon are Great Grandmaster Dr Tae Yun Kim's 5 Principles of Mental Conduct, including, "Learn from your mistakes".


On the surface "Learn from your Mistakes" might seem an obvious thing to do - who would not want to learn from their mistakes? But how do you REALLY go about doing that?


During testing I watched some students fail to break their boards on their first attempt. Just like life, one of the first things you need to do, is to allow yourself to make a mistake. Let it be OK that you made a mistake. Let it be OK you didn't break that board the first time. That is not always easy, though. How much have we decided we have to be 'perfect' in everything we do? How much do we (in error) decide that making a mistake is failing to be the 'perfect' student or employee or family member?

Watching testing I saw too how important it is to not become attached to a mistake. Don't hold on to it. Don't beat yourself up emotionally over your mistakes.

During testing I watched a color belt strike at a board and fail to break it. Not once, but several times. Watching him, it was pretty easy to see the student's mistakes. He was physically strong, but he was not twisting his waist enough. During another miss, you could see he was stopping at the board instead of visualizing and striking all the way through it.


At that moment he could have given in to feeling embarrassed that he was in front of an audience and missing his break, or he could have beaten himself up emotionally over how could he miss, when he's broken boards before, or, after a few more misses, he could have started to give into self doubt and start to believe that maybe he would just never break this board.

But he didn't. Each time he missed he didn't seem to let emotions get to him, instead he just re-gathered himself and tried again. And again. And again.

Finally he broke it!

Wow!

How he faced his 'mistake' (his unbroken board) until he over came it, left a huge impression on me. I thought of all the times I've made a mistake, or failed at something. My first reaction is usually to give into my emotions. Internally I beat myself up - How could I do that? How could I be so stupid? What was I thinking? etc.


Watching this student fail and then successfully break his board, I saw that there is no way I can learn from a mistake until I first let my attachment and emotions go.

But when you do - when you face a mistake or situation, when you keep the attitude that you are ready to try again, and ready to try until you succeed or accomplish your goal, you truly learn from the mistake and truly succeed.