Projection.
One thing that I believe many, if not most of us do, is project and assume our own methodology of dealing with the world, onto each other.
What do I mean by that?
What I mean, is that thoughtful people tend to expect others to be thoughtful. Creative people tend to expect others to be creative.
Insecure people assume they're always hurting other people's feelings. Arrogant or caustic people always assume people are tough skinned. Angry people tend to expect others to be angry, and so on.
We all have the same needs, of course. Its our beliefs on how those needs are defined and met, and our projected value upon them which make us all so different.
In a nutshell, its hard for any of us to believe that everyone else isn't exactly like us.
I mean, why wouldn't they be?
We're clearly the best possible option and collection of feelings and methods of interacting with the world, right? (otherwise, why would we do them?)
And yes, we all tend to think this. (But we can't all be right, now can we)
The other day, a student mentioned how their partner got angry with them when they were sparring, and I thought "how strange. I've never had a partner get angry with me during sparring." and started looking at things from my perspective on what it would take for me to have an angry partner.
It was then that I was reminded of one of my favorite analogous stories, the house of mirrors.
Perhaps all those sparring sessions in which one of my partners was trying to get out of my back control weren't them simply enjoying the challenge and opportunity for growth.
Perhaps whenever I tagged someone in a game of freeze tag as a child they weren't immediately looking for a potential solution and were in fact plotting revenge.
All we have, is our own set of filters from which we view the world. And, with considerable effort (at least at first) we can attempt to remove, or, at least temporarily replace our filters with others'.
Are they really angry at you, or are they frustrated with themselves for having fallen for an old trick?
Are they really angry, or are they loving the challenge and rising to meet it?
If you go into sparring looking for growth, looking for a lesson, then you find it; regardless of the outcome of the match, you will still grow and still find a lesson (and thus "win").
If you go into a sparring session looking to win or lose, then those are the only two outcomes. Either one has a loser. And who likes to lose?
Sensei's Challenge: Play with your filters. Everyone thinks they're right. It is a fun and exciting challenge to see things from other perspectives. Take the exercise in problem solving to a whole new level: See the world through this person's eyes... before the sparring match... after.... or even... during!
Sensei Ono, Shinka Martial Arts
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