Krav Maga, Kyiv, 2015
The house dance class I attended was on the third floor. In the basement of the same building, a friend trained in Krav Maga.
One day, a vague sense of curiosity led me downstairs. When the instructor asked why I was there, I explained: “I just wanted to watch.” He replied: “What's there to watch? Change your clothes and give it a try.”
After that I spent a couple of terrific years training Krav Maga.
The same curiosity led me to a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu academy, where I arrived, well, you guessed it, “just to watch.” This time, my future coach smiled and said: “Nothing to watch. Try it.”
Ten and a half years have passed, and I am still stepping onto the mat. Of course, there have been plenty of disappointments and injuries. But I am still curious.
What is the lesson here?
Curiosity is worth trusting, but not because its meaning is immediately clear. Quite the opposite. It is how something new asks to enter your life, something you truly need and something that will change you profoundly.
By the way, my first year of Jiu-Jitsu was brutal. Yet I kept training despite everything, guided by that same mysterious impulse. Much later, I understood what I had been “suffering” for. The mat did what psychoanalysis merely explained.
There is another important lesson. Novelty cannot be understood intellectually. It is tempting to believe that if you sit next to a phenomenon long enough, you will eventually understand it. Unfortunately, that is an illusion. A subtle form of intellectual arrogance.
Genuine understanding comes through direct, lived experience. Motorcyclists have a saying: “You choose a motorcycle with your ass.” As a matter of fact, that is exactly how I once chose my favorite steed.
Sincerely yours,
-Alexander
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