Failure

I didn’t plan on ruining a perfectly good baseball bat with my shin.
However, when a bunch of martial artists get together for the weekend, peculiar opportunities arise…

We would be leaving out some significant stories if we didn’t share our experience at a martial arts conference this week. It is invigorating, being in the company of fellow martial arts instructors and business owners as they share their successes and failures, training in styles different from our own, and feeling part of a community. Having our children in the classes taught by so many talented martial artists was motivating for all of us. Thank you, ProMAC! Perhaps, most educational of all, however, was the result of my last minute decision to join a bat-breaking demonstration.

The conversation went something like this:

Chris: “It’s not too late to sign up for the bat breaking demonstration… “

Holly: “Okay… ummm… how about next time, after I practice a bit? Say, six months?”

Chris: “You’ve been practicing kicks for almost twenty years. You can do it.”

It wasn’t unreasonable to trust his judgment. I’ve watched him break three. So, I stepped onto the proverbial mat.

I did everything I could think of doing to be ready in 36 hours. I kicked the bag with three different coaches. I ate a well-balanced meal the night before, passed on the beers and margaritas, went to bed early instead of hanging out with friends, limbered up for an hour the morning of the event, had a light breakfast, and spent another hour training my mind on how to aim at the bat and lay up the kick.

My coaches said I was strong enough to succeed. The four ladies ahead of me cut through their Louisville Sluggers like they were kindling. Amazing! When my turn came, though, I failed. Not just once. I kicked the bat again and again and again, and though it splintered, I did not succeed in kicking through.

The coach who was bracing the bat for me attested to the crowd that I had, indeed, broken it, bending it over his knee to finish the job. I wanted to believe him. Folks came up afterward to congratulate me on the break, and I thanked them. My sons, however, were full of excuses for why my foot didn’t go through. One of them broke into tears of disappointment. I spied my coaches having a private conference off to the side. I embraced the four other participants, broken bats in hand, trying hard not to see sympathy in their smiles toward me. I felt like I could stand tall as long as nobody felt sorry for me. Please, don’t feel sorry for me.

It did sting a bit when I realized that someone posted the video on facebook. (Wait, are you looking it up now?)

Honestly, though, I can say—with a touch of banality and a whole lot of sincerity—that above all I was feeling proud of my willingness to step up to the plate. Of the four-hundred-plus conference participants, only five stepped forward to break a bat that morning. Initially, I was afraid to try but found the courage to set that fear aside. The fact that my sons cried and tried to excuse my failure, however, demanded that we frame the event with some directive meaning. For, after all, I know that we all are going to experience this kind of a breakdown again (and again and again).

Failure does not define me. It is an event, not a person. A better measure of my character is whether I attempt anything that challenges me enough to make failure possible. And, if I do fail, who I am is evidenced in how I choose to respond.

The way we see it, you have three choices. You can harbor a debilitating psychological wound and let its septic presence affect your willingness to be vulnerable to failure again. Not recommended. On the other hand, you can adapt to the situation, decide that the task at hand is not for you and find other challenges to help you grow. Or, you can stay the course, learning what you need to know, practicing what you need to practice in order to have the outcome you initially sought.

This time I am choosing to stand strong. Look out, bats, here I come!