Me the grumpy hermit. lol

Let me say right from the beginning that there is nothing to learn from today's post- unless you are one of those who collect the photos at the bottom every week. 

I simply had too much on my mind this last week to form any idea of what to write.

Still- I like writing blog posts for my favourite community on G+ and to chat with other martial artists during the weekend.

For many of us martial arts make up that part of our lives devoted to going to class, meet other students, train with students, hearing announcements and maybe even chatting with classmates before or after class.

It was pretty much like that for me as well until a while ago. Largest part of my life, however, I have trained by myself. I have grown up with lots of examples on how to do it and after-training meditation is still one of the greatest parts of each morning.

This is the ultimate me-time...

I understand very well that we all have our own experiences of humanity and mine in particular is mostly that humans have a way of constantly looking for an undisturbed, calm person on which they can dump their problems. Some martial artists may have heard the saying that "the superior man, when he stands alone, is without fear" and nice as that sounds I can confirm from my point of view that A: superior men- or women- are few and far in between and B: that may only be when they are alone, but when they are amongst people things may be very different altogether. :D

It is understandable if you associate martial arts with gyms and schools full of people and tournaments and events with lots and lots of people, but to me- it is also about regrouping, spending time by yourself and gathering strength to deal with people when you have to be among them.

Talking to others certainly have its benefits, but so does some quiet introspection.

For one- you realise how much better life becomes if you just learn to control yourself. Controlling everyone out there is impossible. It is not even a viable solution to stay clear of them for good! What you do learn, however, is how much you can figure out on your own and probably most importantly-

that happiness and contentment- especially contentment- comes from yourself.

I know it won't make sense to a lot of you, but that is just because you don't meditate.

One important benefit of training by yourself, though, is reaching that maturity in your training where it becomes independent from an instructor, availability of a dojo or external motivation. 

Heaven knows a lot of people would do well to learn some self- motivation!

The sun is getting low now and I have stuff to do. It has been a pleasure chatting with you anyway and I hope you all train well and improve with every passing day. 

Until next time...