How to catch an arrow – Part XI

There is a light-hearted Facebook group that focuses humorously on what they call the Asian Grading Scale. (One of my Asian students brought this to my attention.) According to members of the group, the following is what standard American academic letter grades represent to their Asian parents:

A = Average

B = Below-average

C = Crap!

D = Death!

F = I’m F…ed!

A teenage boy recently posted – “I just got a C in math on my report card. Goodbye little electronic communication device!”

My position has always been something similar when it came to the acquisition of skills and information that could determine whether I or my family lived or died.

When I became one of the national coaches, I heard a lot of discussion about acceptable probabilities of success relative to various techniques and tactics. A prominent view was that a team member should never attack unless they had at least an 80% chance of success. Others placed the bar at 90%.

But is 80% or even 90% good enough when what’s at stake is not just a medal or trophy but your very life? Of course not. “One encounter, one chance.” In such situations, the likelihood of success has to be as close to 100% as you can get it, if you have an option.

There was a guy who appeared on That’s Incredible! around the same time I did. His specialty was jumping over speeding cars. He would run towards a very low-slung car that was racing straight at him. At the last instant, he would jump into the air and the car would pass underneath him. I have no idea how many times he practiced this skill. But the second time I saw him perform it, things didn’t go well. His timing was off or he didn’t get high enough and the upper edge of the car’s windshield hit and shattered one of his feet. He summersaulted into the air and landed hard on the asphalt, doing further damage. I never heard how he came out on his injuries.

There were people at the time who questioned my intelligence for taking the risks I did. But, although I’ll own up to being at least a little crazy back then, I wasn’t stupid (or maybe not as stupid as they thought I was). For one thing, it helped pay my tuition at Stanford. For another, before any appearance, I would practice a lot. I’d generally try to catch at least 500 arrows at the dojo in preparation.

This is where many go wrong. They try something a handful of times, or merely imagine they can do it, then try it (perhaps for the first time) on-camera or in front of an audience. We see these “fails” all the time on YouTube and TV shows like Tosh.O.

There was an old secret scroll given to those who received a menkyo kaiden in an ancient Japanese spear school. The scroll said: “By what you do today, you live tomorrow. That is the value of practice.” Not the biggest secret in the world. But, surely, one of the most important bits of advice, then as it is now.

It’s okay, sometimes even advantageous, to be a little crazy. But it’s seldom ever okay to be stupid.

Thanks again for your support.