Thomas Hardy once said, “Character is fate.” Truer words have never been spoken.
Joe Gibbs won 3 Super Bowl Championships, as Head Coach, and won 3 NASCAR Championships, as Team Owner. In an interview, he was asked what he looks for in someone who seeks to join his organization, his ‘tribe’.
Joe replied, “What I’ve learned is it’s always about character, first. Then it comes down to talent.” Amen, Joe.
I’ve come to believe that to be true in the Art in Mastery. Character over talent. Often, talent can be ‘the great seducer’. We witness this in professional sports and some of its amazing athletes. Talent, however, ain’t everything.
The home-run record holder, Barry Bonds–called a ‘baseball pariah’ by some–will, unlikely, ever get into the Hall of Fame. Quarterback Peyton Manning, on the other hand, who is physically declining, winning his final Super Bowl with the Denver Broncos, will be a first-year Hall of Fame Inductee. Again, character over talent.
After I earned my Shodan, 1st-degree black belt, I participated in grading kyu (non-black belt rank) and black belt tests at the dojo. Sensei Dan would say, “Your technique doesn’t have to be perfect, but you have to throw with kokyu (breath), with feeling.”
Way back when, I ran around, throwing and evading 5 bigger, stronger black belts for a couple minutes for my Nidan test (for 2nd-degree black belt), I got it. Sensei had trained me during the years since Shodan. He asked me to test because he believed in me.
My technique was solid enough. After all, Sensei taught me. He wanted to see how I could manage to keep throwing my opponents, even when I was dead tired and totally gassed. In randori, 5 black belts all came to grab me. Sensei and I knew that I would eventually get caught; it’s by design.
What was important to Sensei was who I was being in those couple minutes on the dojo mat. He wanted to know if I had character, heart, and the willingness to persevere. It was always about character, really. Sensei didn’t care if I looked impressive, throwing some dude. He aimed to create character within me. Rather, his job was allowing me to create it for myself.
Character defines you; it defines what’s possible. We all have our limitations. Being short and small, I know I have mine. In Aikido, some techniques don’t work as well on larger opponents, because of my size. So, I adapt.
Sensei once told me, “Be good at one technique. Make it yours.”
Often times, we’d talk after attending some Aikido seminar. Sensei would tell me, “That’s pretty. But that’s got to work if you have to use it.”
Sensei’s mantra, “Make it work,” has become mine, as well. I have come to find that his words of wisdom apply to more than just Aikido or the martial arts; they apply to life.
Perhaps, character is about making life work. I accept my imperfections–my frailties and weaknesses. I can’t do the impossible like dunking a basketball, but I can do the possible. It’s just really cool that ‘the possible’ includes throwing a 300-pound man coming to clobber me.
More than “fate,” as Thomas Hardy said, character allows us to create ‘the possible’, despite our limitations, in what can be an infinite realm. It’s good to know that there are different kinds of infinity. Just saying.
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Photo credit: By Gearstd@Shutterstock
Dave – The picture is awesome! Thanks!