Mastery 1/20

For one of my requirements this year I wanted to try something I did very unofficially a few years ago but instead formalize it as one of my personal requirements and officially write and post it this time around. I want to write a blog for each line in Stuart Emery’s Mastery, breaking it down into my personal understanding, and how it retains to my training at the time of writing it. And I’m finally getting around to doing the first one. 

Mastery in one’s career and consciousness growth simply requires that we constantly produce results beyond and out if the ordinary

Begin - March 23

I think what I’m struggling with is the word “constantly”. I’ll have long stretches of time where things are going smoothly, I’m making good progress, asking good questions, keeping on top of things, and then inevitably I will have a few off days which will be detrimental to my momentum which makes it so much harder to get back to that good place. 

In thinking about this sentence from Mastery, I’m wondering what constitutes “constantly”? How do you measure it? Is it small scale, doing kung fu every single day, through working on my requirements? Is it large scale, making progress in the I Ho Chuan over a whole year? Is it microscopic scale, checking in every single moment, asking myself where am I, what am I doing? Is it macroscopic scale, continuing on the path of mastery for the rest of my life? 

In any case I think I’m focusing too much on “constantly” and not enough on how it pairs together with the idea of  “producing results beyond and out of the ordinary”. Because kung fu is such a big part of my life it is easy to forget that this is not everybody’s normal. When I tell my coworkers I had an off day because I only did 150 pushups the day before, they remind me that a lot of people’s normal is 0. And I forget that when I start to fall behind, that that becomes my normal, that I don’t magically get to continue at a high level, just because I reached it once upon a time. That’s what constantly means, I think. 

Through writing this all out I am realizing that it is not only “The Extraordinary” that is constantly changing, always raising higher when we reach it, and lowering when we face injuries or life circumstances, but that the definition of “The Ordinary” also shifts and changes along with our training. 

	Current Total	Should Be At
Push-ups	7222	8023
Sit-Ups	6862	8023
Hand Form	73	149
Weapon Form	43	149
Blogs	5	7
Sparring	42	149
AOK	151	149
Steps	444	230
Repair Relationship	6	7
Mastery Blogs	1	4
Digital Journal	1980	Words
Jaw Exercises	19	35
1-on-1's	5	7