Who is the bow for?
Most of the time, when I enter the gym, I will look directly at the students who have congregated outside the studio. Naturally they bow, “hello Saboumnim”.
Occasionally I will overt my eyes. My peripheral vision sometimes allows me to see their response. Sometimes I see a student who is ready to bow, but then stops himself when he realises I’m not looking.
To me, this shows that the student has totally misunderstood why he must bow.
Who is the bow for? It is not for me.
The bow, calling your instructor “sir”, and the many other etiquette or discipline related things we do, is a way of training our own minds.
When you bow you must empty your mind; it means let go, be totally present.
Whether I see you or not should make no difference to your own mental training.
Occasionally I will overt my eyes. My peripheral vision sometimes allows me to see their response. Sometimes I see a student who is ready to bow, but then stops himself when he realises I’m not looking.
To me, this shows that the student has totally misunderstood why he must bow.
Who is the bow for? It is not for me.
The bow, calling your instructor “sir”, and the many other etiquette or discipline related things we do, is a way of training our own minds.
When you bow you must empty your mind; it means let go, be totally present.
Whether I see you or not should make no difference to your own mental training.
posted by Tammy Parlour at 7:31 AM
1 Comments:
I feel guilty.
Sometimes I am so absorbed in what is going on, watching and thinking or getting a bit too lost, that I only realise that I should be observing etiquette when it is too late.
Then I have a "stutter" bow.
Man, I never thought of it like that before...
Something to address in myself before it gets any worse, I reckon.
I think I will make sure that my absorption is a bit broader in future and extends past what I am experiencing at the moment.
Being alert enough that things do not go un-noticed is hard - what things to observe so that my peripheral vision spots that which it should!
I think I have been trained badly, in the past, at these things. Elsewhere. Not in class.
I think one of the reasons I like training so much is because becoming better in small things means becoming better in larger things too.
Before reading this, I don't think I had considered this as much.
Time to consider for whom the consideration is considered for...
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