Saturday, July 20, 2013

Empathy

This is something that I have thought about for the past while.  Sifu Brinker talked about this at length during one of our I Ho Chuan meetings.  Empathy…what does that mean to me?  It means that I need to understand what any one person is feeling and experiencing.  It means in simplified terms to “walk a mile in their shoes” to fully understand as best I can understand what they are feeling.  When I think back on certain training days in the kwoon, I reflect back on our warm ups in particular.  Warm ups should be a WARM UP not a way for us to improve our push up numbers at the expense of the students we are working with and instructing.  I can tell you that there have been times that I have internally groaned when the person is called up to lead the warm up.  I just know that they will take advantage of the warm up to either improve their numbers or just want to make the class work extra hard for what ever reason. There are times for a really hard warm up, such as one time in the San Shou class.  At this particular class the point was to exhaust the students so that we understood what it was like to have to mentally adapt to an exhausted body.  Makes perfect sense and I totally understood when Sifu explained the rational after class was done.

Empathy…I don’t have enough…I have been one of those students that have lead a warm up to improve my numbers.  I have lead a warm up with the intention of seeing how hard I could push the students that I know are not as in as good a shape as I am. 

However, since that last meeting I have changed my perspective, I am gained some empathy.  I now lead a warm up with empathy in my mind for those that I am there to assist and work with.  When I bow in and bow out for class I ask my self these two questions, “where am I and what am I doing”, I now add to this “who am I here to help”.  These three questions that I ask myself ever time I bow in and bow out have helped me to be mindful of why I am here and who am I here to help.

Mr. Repay

Student of Silent River Kung Fu

Stony Plain, Alberta
ianrepay.blogspot.com

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