Emotions and Egos

Another public demo added to the list and a memory of different emotions. Commitment. Getting together with the team at 5:00 in the morning and having everyone show up and give it their best at all demo practices. To create a demo in such a short time frame displayed a very solid and dedicated team to what it is we are trying to accomplish. Excitement. When everybody is getting ready to perform, there is such a high sense of energy and its just plain cool to stand back and take in everyone doing their forms, adjusting and tweeking, putting their own personality and flow to them. Inspiration. You can't help but be inspired to do your best and that discipline is installed even when you are home or training with each other. The expectations are high and everyone is driven to succeed because as a team we are all counting on each other and want to do well for the representation of our school and the expectations of our teachers. Being nervous. No matter what mindset you use, this emotion is always present before any public activity. No matter what perspective you try to fool your brains with or how the butterflies in your stomach always amplify to elves with jack hammers, this emotion will always be present and labouring if you let it get the best of you. Although with a team and more and more public experience you achieve it does get easier. Keep in mind, everyone around you is going through the same feeling and they're pulling it off and so can you. Content. The comfort of knowing that you can approach anyone on the team for advice or maybe a relation to the trouble you are having or that little boost you need. The fact that this is a team makes it rewarding when you can do the same for someone else and being able to recognize that someone on the team may need your help but is not very good at approaching or saying how they feel and taking the initiative to approach. Pride. Witnessing all that took place and knowing you and your team were a part of it. By contributing a piece of yourself and the standard of the school. Looking around the room and feeling the energy of some truly wonderful and awesome people, not to mention extremely lethal. Disappointment. I really felt like I let the team down today. Everything went well with the exception of my board breaks. Sorry guys. Regret. I should have practiced my techniques more and took the little extra time to put the holders in the exact place required. Although I didn't stop and continued through, in my mind the word fail echoed through and the fact it was public left a sting. Humility. I have become, to a point, comfortable with the back up of being able to muscle through things. That failed me today and taught me a good lesson about not always relying on your physical strength. My ability to quickly adapt and just make it happen is great, but I think over confidence and ego impaired this ability today. One of the main reasons I try not to carry an ego is because an ego is fake and nobody respects an inflated ego and sooner or later it will catch you and it will throw you flat on your face. So as I said, the fact this reminder was public just reinforced my beliefs and was a great reminder to humility. You can't always be perfect, there is no such thing. Wisdom. Learning wisdom through mistakes is the true way to be successful and really be able to figure out what went wrong and what process is required to repair and a break down with an attention to detail in every step of your techniques to be solid and stick with you. Happiness. All in all after I managed to think things through, I couldn't stop smiling all day. Knowing what we did for those seniors today was what really mattered. I still see the smiles on their faces and I'm sure we really made an impact on their lives. I also can't stop smiling as I recall all the smiles on my teamates faces. Good job guys, you all looked awesome, and it was great to see team support from Sifu Bryant as well. Now where is the damn ice!
Brian Chervenka