This is a story of failure. This isn’t just a story about a bad day, week or month, but a story about following a path of failure. It is a mistake I have made in the past, one that I hope will illustrate some clear points. A reasonably mature person will learn from their own mistakes, but a truly wise person will learn from the mistakes of others.

It was a Saturday afternoon, and I was a 5th degree Black Belt. For those unfamiliar with what that rank means - it would take an average beginner 15 to 18 years to reach that rank. It is considered a “master level” rank by most junior Black Belts. The title is Renshi, which designates a “teacher of teachers.” I was high enough rank to promote someone else to “Full Sensei,” a rank considered worthy of teaching Black Belts. I had Black Belts in four other arts at that time.

Not only was I 5th degree Black Belt, but I had already been approved for my 6th degree Black Belts in Chinese Kempo and Guardian Kempo, and I was simply waiting for my time-in-grade to pass. I had already passed my test. I just had to wait.

All this is to say that I should have known better...

NO BREAKS ON BREAKING DAY

On that particular Saturday afternoon, I was teaching a breaking seminar. A student had seen a demonstration of another master break coconuts, and he wanted to see me do it, so he bought a coconut from the store and brought it to the seminar. It was a cured coconut, and it had not been prepared for breaking, but after an excessive amount of effort and an almost embarrassing number of strikes, it did finally break.

He also brought block of ice. The ice likewise was not scored for breaking, so he invested about fifteen minutes cutting the scores in it for breaking. It also wasn’t the kind of ice block normally used for ice breaking, but I gave it a try - several time. It did not break. Finally, I surrendered to the ice.

The student, a Blue Belt, decided to give it a shot. He hit it a few times to not avail, but then on his fourth or fifth strike - it broke! Needless to say I was a bit embarrassed, but he had accomplished an impressive feat.

While my students casually and easily broke their bricks in the parking lot, I retreated to the dojo to check my own breaking technique. I had been breaking my normal allotment of bricks with my normal level of ease, but I had not tried a break that was even moderately difficult for me. I stacked two bricks without spacers to check my focus and power.

They did not break. I tried again. They still did not break.

Fortunately our breaking technique is fairly safe, so I could fail without seriously injuring myself - but despite several attempts, I could not break the two bricks. There was a time that two bricks without spacers would have been no problem. I had even broken three bricks without spacers.

When we learn to break bricks, we use spacers so there is enough room for each brick to break individually. By stacking them without spacer, your power and focus must be multiplied. Breaking two bricks with spacers only requires your power last longer. Breaking bricks without spacers requires much more power that must be properly focused or the bricks will not break.

Not surprisingly, the student who brought the breaking items for me and who broke the ice soon stopped attending.

Obviously I still remember that day more than half a decade ago. I failed, and that failure continues to haunt me.

My failure may not be what you expect...

OTHER FAILED DAYS

That day wasn’t the first on which I should have had a wake-up call. In the months and years before, I had several other events that should have warned me that day was coming.

An old trick I used to do simply because it was impressive is a brick break with a glass. You must have an appropriate glass, and I’d do the simple, standard break. You choose a short glass with a thick bottom and break a brick using the bottom of the glass. Then the impressive part is when you turn the glass upside down and break with the rim. It’s a difficult and dangerous break, but I could get it to work a little more than half the time.

I ran out of glasses. In my last break, I not only failed to break the brick, I cut myself with the glass as it shattered in my grip! I finished the demonstration by breaking with my hand, but I was bleeding from the glass.

Also in those days, a young man visited us from the United Arab Emirates. He was the junior national champion in full contact fighting there, and he wanted to fight me. Even though he wasn’t wearing a cup, I let him.

As we began, I let him punch and kick first. I didn’t know what he meant by “full contact,” and I could not imagine that was he meant was the same thing I would mean, so I let him have his shots first so I could gauge his power and match it.

He was fast. Blindingly fast, actually. In fact, he was too fast for me to fight him safely. I’d return his attacks with quick defenses and counter, but I was hitting him harder than he anticipated. I tried to pull my shots, but because I was trying to match his speed, I was moving faster than I could easily control.

He stepped in with a hook kick that I hardly saw, and without thinking I reacted instinctively and kicked his groin. It was a controlled shot, but it still found it’s target and the young man went down. I had allowed my speed to exceed my control. I had injured a guest.

Despite the appearance that I won the fight, it was actually a failure - though not as obvious a one as the others. I had allowed winning to become more important than his safety. I wanted him and my students to know that I could easily beat a national champion. To do so, I put his safety at risk. Some saw that I could beat him, but I should have seen that I wasn’t nearly as mature as I ought to have been.

IT ISN’T ABOUT THE DAY, IT’S ABOUT THE PATH

I made several mistakes in those days, mistakes that lead to failures on many levels. It is only through hindsight that I’ve really learned the lessons from those days, and as I’ve pondered them recently, most of a decade later, I’ve gained some insight that I’d like to share. If a student, particularly a lower ranked student, can learn and apply these lessons, that student would be well on the way to becoming a Master.

The failure wasn’t in the day, it was in the path. Every time a glass broke when I tried the difficult break, I let it go - and even when I cut myself, I just chalked it up to “one of those things” and kept going. When I accidentally hurt that young man, I understood that I had to make sure he had a cup before I let him spar in my class again, but I did not consider my own failure on that day.

It was the breaking seminar that really drove the point home. Thankfully it was something in which my failure was objective and no one else was at risk because of it. I wasn’t defending someone or teaching a dangerous skill - I was just breaking things - or not breaking things as the case may be.

I forgot one of the key lessons of teaching - learning.

I forgot one of the key lessons of leading - growing.

I had grown complacent. I thought myself adequate, but I did not see how the choices I was making were hurting me and hurting my students. I could do a lot, and I stopped learning more. By not learning more, I was losing what skill I had. By not growing, I was being a bad example and I certainly was not a man to be followed - I was going in the wrong direction!

I had taken a path of mediocrity and had not realized it. I had become all too typical. I had crossed a major milestone in my martial arts mastery, and I started to slide backwards. In the middle of it all, I was blind to it.

Until I failed.

LESSONS LEARNED TOO LATE

After I failed, I began to see, but by then it was too late. My failure had affected things on too many levels. What I had done in my personal martial arts performance, just as I now teach, I was also doing in other areas of my life. My life and character was being revealed in my martial arts, but I wasn’t aware enough to see what I was doing. I did not yet understand the degree to which my martial arts was showing me my mistakes.

As a Teacher

I had done the same thing as a teacher I had done as a martial artist.

I had stopped learning and stopped leading. The nature of Guardian Kempo and the other arts should be a shared experience. I should have been practicing teaching. I should have been constantly working to improve my teaching technique and working on my teaching style. I should have made classes a cooperative effort in which we all teach and we all lead, and we all learn and we all follow. It should be a mutual quest for truth, skill and insight - but it had become little more than me showing things to people.

There was very little teamwork. It was me showing people how to move, but providing little insight into why. It was me telling others what to do, but providing little guidance. It was me placing expectations upon people, but providing very few tools for them to rise to those expectations.

Despite all that, a few true gems came out of those days - Sensei Wendy, Sensei Mariellen, Sensei Stewart and Sensei Eric and Scott Delmas all managed to thrive through those years - though largely as a matter of their own character rather than my leadership.

It was too hard to learn. It was too hard to keep up. There was too much to do. There was no program in place to help students reach mastery. Either they did it or they didn’t, they sank or they swam - and that was that.

I would develop the concept of the Guardian Kempo Academy that would eventually give rise to all the Guardian Martial Arts programs, but by the time I did that, the school closed and most of the students were gone. Those that remained still found things difficult, but less so, and their success was still very much a matter of their own character, but things were better. Those who chose mastery had the tools to do it. Those who wanted to improve at last had a program designed to help them.

In the years that followed, things would be simplified, streamlined, reorganized and shuffled around to help students reach mastery. I put everything “on the table” and considered all of martial arts from two perspectives rather than one. Traditionally, masters look at themselves and forge a program they would have liked, or make one just like what they went through. However, we forget that we are the 1 in 100 that stuck around for Black Belt, and that means that 99 of 100 didn’t make it in that program! Why would we create a program that loses 99%? Earlier, that thought had never occurred to me.

So the new question became “How do we craft a program or collection of programs to systematically take an average person, adult or child, and help every single one who chooses to do so become a martial arts master?”

In Business

I had done the same thing as a businessman.

I had settled into a “this is what I want to do” mentality instead of a “what do people need?” mentality. Rather than looking at the marketplace too see what value I could provide, I looked at myself to see what I wanted to do. We had no children’s programs at any level, but I didn’t want to teach children, so I didn’t. I just did what I wanted to do, and that cost us. By the time I was putting together the program that would someday become Little Guardian Karate, we were so deep in trouble that we were perpetually in danger of closing.

I had finished the first draft of the program, gotten our first offsite contract to do an after school program, and we had just started generating revenue from it. That same month, we got our notice - we would be shut down in two weeks. Two weeks later I locked up our first dojo for the last time. For a year, we survived on the grace of the Stone family in Lakeside who let us do our Noon classes at their home, and on the grace of students who met in the park to train for the evening classes.

Even though I had learned the lesson, it was too late to save that school. We were out of business. It would be a year before there would be another school.

In My Personal Life

I had done the same thing in my personal life.

I wasn’t growing as a person. The irony is that I was teaching more seminars in those days than I do now - including relationship seminars - but I wasn’t making the best choices. I wasn’t even remembering all my own material! I had to use my outlines and notes every time I taught, and I was living out a fraction of what I knew I had to do. I was making choices that I knew were leading to dead ends, but they were “comfortable” choices that did not require I grow as a person.

I learned my lesson, but the mistakes were made and will forever be part of my personal history. Looking back, I wonder how I could have been so stupid or so blind. I untangled myself from several relationships, even dropping one whole circle of friends, and started over. I soon settled on a handful of trustworthy people of wisdom and character with whom I grew close.

One of them was Sensei Wendy, and, of course, I’ve been blessed to have her as my wife.

In My Spiritual Life

I had done the same thing in my spiritual life. I knew a lot, and I could win debates and engage in discussions, but my personal spiritual life was in shambles. I had read my Bible, and I even still learned a lot about it, but I didn’t seek any understanding. I wanted my spiritual walk to be like a buffet - taking only what I wanted and having as much of it as I liked - but ignoring anything else.

In the years since I’ve learned many simple, profound lessons. One is that God knows better than me. It sounds stupid now, but I realize that the way I was living my life before could not be possible unless I assumed I knew better than God. Now I know better. I’ve learned the God’s genius and wisdom are infinite, and I should just trust Him. His ways aren’t always easier, but they are better.

The lessons just keep coming. Every year, seemingly every month, I’m learning and growing and changing in significant ways.

I HAVE SEEN THE ENEMY...

I saw my enemy, and it was me.

Yes, others did things they should not have done, but I gave them the ammunition. Yes, many students didn’t do what they should have done, but I didn’t give them a program and tools to help them be martial artists. Yes, a lot of other people did a lot of other things, but that doesn’t excuse what I did. I am not responsible for their choices, but I am responsible for mine. Their fault is their responsibility. My fault is in my power, and it is my responsibility.

I tell the children that the declaration “May you have a child just like you!” is either a blessing or a curse. It’s up to them.

Likewise, I can be my own worst enemy, or I can be my own best friend. That’s up to me, too.

Destiny is forged from a string of choices. One choice leads to another, and another, and we take a direction. Whether getting better or worse, the changes seem small and meaningless at first. But over time, they chart our course through Life.

I made some bad choices before and I didn’t consider where they were taking me. I was enjoying a process, but I wasn’t thinking enough of the final results.

Now I’m making different choices, and I’m considering not just where those choices are taking me in the next year or two, but where they are taking me and my family over the next 100 years. What impact will my choices have on the generations that follow me?

When I think about that, I find it much easier to make choices that seem hard now, but I know they are the best for the future. I know that I still have a price to pay if I want to run interference for future generations, but I am investing myself in paying that price to build something that will make a difference for generations to come.

DOES IT CHANGE ANYTHING?

Sometimes we learn lessons that hard way. Certainly though my own failures, I’ve learned these lessons the hard way, but I’ve also learned to watch myself more carefully. When I see my character revealed in my martial arts, I consider what I’m learning about myself.

My teaching of students is a mutual lesson. I am learning to teach and I’m refining my technique through teaching others. I gain new questions by being asked questions by students and trying to anticipate their questions, and I gain new insights by considering those answers. As things don’t work for students, I look at them more carefully to figure out why and in doing so I find new insights that help me. It’s very much a feeling of “Let’s learn this together.” I hope to pass that attitude on to my senior students so they can become better teachers.

My business is surviving and growing. Our innovations and new program choices have produced more value for others, which, in turn, increased our revenue, and our structure for things I believe will provide greater value and better opportunities for students. As we multiply the value we produce, I expect that value to be mirrored somewhat in the revenue we generate. Ultimately, that’s what makes one worth any given income - value production.

My personal life is a powerful, exciting adventure into love and intimacy. My marriage is a treasure beyond description, and my closest friendships outside my wife are likewise treasures. I continue to learn and grow in my relationships, and as I’ve been seeking better ways to teach martial arts, I’ve also been seeking better ways to teach the relationship and applied psychology skills Wendy and I use in our marriage. As in martial arts, it’s good to work toward mastery, but it’s better to lead others on the path at the same time. Doing so in martial arts requires a systematic, organized way of doing so. We are working to do the same with relationships.

My spiritual life is thriving. The lessons I’m learning and new insights I’ve been gaining are tremendous. I can see the impact these lessons have in my own life and Wendy’s life. I hope to find ways to distill them to core principles and “backwards engineer” them - meaning break them down to the foundational assumptions that lead someone to the conclusion. Very often in spiritual things, we make too many assumptions about where people are and what’s important to them, but if we can start at the very beginning, we can build that insight.

It started with a handful of seemingly insignificant, but difficult choices, and the changes were not apparent at all for months. Over the course of years, my life changed more and more dramatically until now I can look back a decade and hardly recognize myself. It’s amazing what a difference a decade makes - even just a little at a time.

WHAT CAN IT CHANGE FOR YOU?

I was already a 5th degree Black Belt when I was having those insights. That is WAY too late to be learning such simple lessons. Whether a White Belt, Black Belt or any color in between - what does your martial arts performance reveal about you? Take an honest look at what you do or do not do in class, at what you do and do not do in your personal, academic or professional life, and see if there’s a parallel. If you see one, is there anything you should change?

Small changes accumulate over time. Start with the easiest, most simple things first that will have the biggest impact. Kiai is a simple one that most of us can do better with nothing more challenging than choosing to kiai with power, whether just a shout or shouting the words to something. We can choose immediately to lead the class by our own example as students. Those two changes we can do at any moment, and the long term impact in our own lives and that of others can be enormous.

I was making this mistake at 5th degree Black Belt, even after teaching for years, but I didn’t know any better. It wasn’t something about the rank, it was the insight. If I had the insight at 2nd degree Black Belt, then I should have taken action then. If I had the insight as a Yellow Belt, I should have taken action then.

So no matter your rank, whether high or low, and no matter your age, whether child, adult, parent or grandparent, insight is knowledge - and that’s only power if you use it. I hope this article provides some insight, and I trust that any insight will be put to good use.

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