Monday, March 26, 2018
We’re halfway through our Monday here in Obu. This morning the girls participated in a
conditioning practice on the track. They
started out with some running and then did a variety of new drills and
exercises. I took several notes and have
a lot of ideas that will be implemented immediately to our training back home. It’s not an accident that this group of women
is as successful as they are.
Yesterday was an off day for the Shigakkan athletes. Kiwa (Ryoko’s daughter) took care of us. She opened the wrestling room (dojo) for us
and we spent a solid hour working on our motion and experimenting a bit. A couple of our athletes had a breakthrough
in a specific problem area that we’ve been focusing on for quite some
time. I’m really excited to see it in action at tonight’s practice.
Following our mat practice, we went to the mall to look for
some souvenirs and to eat in the large food court. The mall was very similar to a traditional
American mall, so there was no culture shock there. However, there was a bit of a cultural clash
at the end of our shopping experience.
We showed some of our true American colors as one of our gracious hosts
waited for the group to arrive at the meeting spot on time. I had a lengthy conversation with her about
cultural difference. She said that
Japanese teenagers are never late (I haven’t confirmed that with anyone else,
but I certainly believed her). It turned
into an important teachable moment when we got back to the dorm and then again
this morning.
Some of our girls were convicted and felt bad. As I chatted this morning with Morgan (Gabby’s
brother who joined us on this trip), I told him that “feeling bad” is a luxury
that we take for granted. If we’re
disrespectful, directly or indirectly, we can move on quickly from the shame by
covering it with “feeling bad.” Almost like we take privilege to forgive ourselves. It relieves
us of our regret/shame, but it doesn’t address the missed opportunity to
respect or honor someone who is serving you.
It’s complicated, yet so simple.
Do what you’re supposed to do, be where you’re supposed to be and be on
time and you are respecting and honoring others. It adds value to both parties. It’s having empathy for them and understanding
they also have a schedule. It’s putting
others before yourself and making sure that your desires aren’t always the
center of attention. That’s uncommon for
American teenagers, isn’t it? We have to
reverse engineer our thinking, don’t we?
In the US, we tell high school students that they are the
most important thing on the planet. We
bend over backwards to individualize and differentiate everything they do. We give them a smorgasbord of choices and
empower them with many decisions. We
make it our mission to reassure them that they’re special, unique, privileged,
etc. There’s great intention in this
freedom and potential for incredible growth and understanding, however, there
are sometimes unintended consequences, too.
We can have our cake and eat it, but we also must have caution when
doing so and never lose sight of the big picture.
Other people matter and we can’t forget that. We must be mindful of others’ schedules and
lives.
C.S. wrote, “humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s
thinking of yourself less.”
Think on that for a while…
I know I have been.
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