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Due to a DCFS paperwork error, in 2012 I was separated from my four-month-old son for two months. He was not fully adopted yet and we had sold our house to move to the pacific northwest. Ryan had already been there for six weeks and was just waiting on us, the proper channels got screwed up, and my baby who had only known me since he was placed in my arms at two days old was handed over to a caseworker. I did not know if I would ever see him again and I can tell you with absolute assuredness that it was by far the hardest thing I have ever done at that point. All I had to grasp at was hope. The date that we got him back still makes my breath catch every year.
He was placed and thoroughly loved for that time with a woman I am still in contact with today. She has since adopted her own sweet boy. My Gratton is now ten and rarely utilizes the concept of personal space. He is usually in my eyeball ping ponging though life the ultimate boy wild child, sometimes it’s Lord of the Flies, and the calmer times it’s Animal Farm. I wouldn’t want it any other way. When he was seven, he proudly gave me a bracelet made of pony beads and blue yarn. It had no rhyme or reason to the pattern, just multiple colors on a string tied to my wrist. It never came off my arm, the plastic got scratched and worn, some beads fell off, the fuzz on the yarn balled up, and the blue faded. It held up through a couple charity galas where it didn’t exactly go with the fancy attire, but I had no way of removing it without messing it up so there it stayed, its sentiment a compliment to my Elsa looking velvet dress and sparkly jewelry. It finally broke off a year ago. I had just started Jiu Jitsu, the weathered frail threads could not hold on any longer, and the remaining four beads went flying across the mat. I cried a little and was pretty bummed, though it was during a time of change for our family so looking back now I see it as more of a symbolic catalyst. For Christmas this year Gratton gave me a more durable bracelet that he and his dad spent an hour poring over pictures to find just the right one with just the right saying. Given the history with this boy it could not have been more perfect. Wake up, kick a$$, repeat was muttered under my breath a few times during this particularly hard week. It seemed Ryan and I were hitting all of life’s stages at once and the waves kept coming. I had just got back in town, was playing catch up, and found myself dwelling on certain things that I just couldn’t muster seeing the silver lining. This of course happens when the kids decide to all at once have an off week and I am sure my house sounded like a war zone with figurative explosions happening behind all the corners. To get Gratton to chill out most days is pretty much a no go. He is a constant ball of Tasmanian energy, but while he is bit much to handle sometimes he is also the quickest to overcome frustrations. He moves on with a speed that baffles me and quickly bounces back with a smile of all is forgotten and a genuine love for life. I know I have to be careful when disciplining him as a parent to make sure that I am curbing and not snuffing out. He is always grinning and creating and is never down for long. I find myself striving to emulate his enthusiasm and hopeful outlook for the everyday. I recently saw a brass coin necklace that I ended up buying Wednesday night because of its saying of, “while I breathe, I hope.” That phrase settled in the pit of my stomach because of a conversation I had with my two older girls this week as we hashed over the things life throws at us. My second oldest had made a joking comment that my personal mantra was, “Oh okay, so this is what we are doing now…” in reference to our ability to roll with life’s punches on a grand scale. Gratton is the reason for that. I was talking with my oldest about how not much compares in the major scheme of things when it comes to losing your baby and not knowing the outcome. You tend to mellow out and hone in on the bits that matter, the other stuff becomes meaningless. The moment my hope dissipates is the moment I lose. Now this doesn’t mean I don’t need a gentle reminder every now and then. That’s the way with us humans, the need for the lesson over and over with a two by four upside the cheekbone or in my case a rough week that ended with a much needed conversation and glass of wine sitting on a friends unfinished patio. It was a hashing of just everything and a realizing that even though I am sad, while I breathe, I hope. A recent comment on one of my blogs said that my articles/reviews are always positive. This person literally could not have given me a better compliment and it was a very much needed mid-week perk up. I was driving home and looked at my left wrist and realized that all three phrases, my joking mantra of, “oh okay, this is what we are doing now,” the necklace of, “while I breathe, I hope,” and Gratton’s replacement bracelet of, “wake up, kick ass, repeat,” were all parts of the same story, but just like everything else in life you have to hear it several different ways sometimes for the message to be loud and clear. Today we are cleaning out our shop. The loud groans of my kids as we mentioned the days plans were incredibly audible. We will play music, my husband and I will argue a bit over where things will go and what we need to get rid of, it will be hot, there will be spiders, and it will be mundane work, but mundane work done together. It took a massive amount of heartbreak to knit my family together from the tragic pieces of several others. It was a desperate fight sometimes from outside and sometimes within us, and it will continue to be a desperate fight to keep guard of this thing so precious. So during the mundane work of a dusty shop, I will be grateful I get to work alongside these sweet babies in aspiration that I teach them the value of just being next to each other accomplishing a good days work. Because the small things matter and build up into larger things, things like hope. Likely they will just remember cleaning the shop like I remember my moms, “yard parties,” that weren’t very partyish when I was a kid, but hey they can wake up tomorrow, a new day to kick a$$ and repeat. Because we are weeding the garden then…… #notsomuchselfdefensey #butaboutbeingthehealthybuffalothough #babybuffalos #whileibreathihope #wakeupkickassrepeat #ohokaythisiswhatwearedoingnow #positivity #whenlifegivesagoodkick #cleanouttheshop #wine #lifeischangeddisassembledrearranged #keepmovingforward #adoption #fostercare #wildchild #yesiprovidesheetsformychildsbed #butalashammocks #yardparties
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 I am no stranger admitting to nor demonstrating tears. For me to make it through an entire training weekend without waterworks has about as slim of a chance as a person being able to willfully urinate on an assailant during an attack (see previous article). This time I almost made it. We had wrapped up the last drill and sat down for our debrief of Knife Control Concepts. I had new hot pink fighty journal in hand knowing I was going to get to hear everyone state their tales of what they gleaned from the weekend, but a very sweet, simple misunderstanding from my daughter got the tears leaking. So yeah, didn’t make it.
I first met Aaron Jannetti and Eli Knight last November at Shivworks Edged Weapons Overview in Charlotte, NC. Both were there to attend the course; I drilled with, as well as had one of my main evolutions with Aaron. He is lighthearted and has the ability to drive fun into the sheer doggedness of reps. I love the role-playing aspect a little too much when it comes to scenario work drills and was able to play the “Hooker with a Not so Much a Heart of Gold,” during his. Basically, I attempted to stab/mug him and thus forced him to be my friend. To give a little bit of context, evolutions are when you put on a helmet (sometimes) and just go at it, in a controlled environment, for the sake of seeing what info you have retained thus far. No worries, he got me back, it’s on video, and I totally loaded it to the internet; because #egoinjuryreport. During EWO I remember watching Aaron and Eli on the breaks working and talking with Craig Douglas about certain ideas. I later found out this was the foundations of what is now the course I took this weekend called Knife Control Concepts. Honestly, I was just surprised they had the energy to even move while on break because I was too busy not dying on the wall while pep talking myself up internally for what were some very eye opening, but violent evolutions I was about to become a part of. Craigs mantra for EWO is, “Get them off of you. Keep them off of you.” KCC, developed by Aaron Jannetti, Eli Knight, and Mike Cheney, is the supplemental grey area of knife defense. I couldn’t tell you which course I learned more because to me its comparing key lime pie and sugar cookies; I need both. Both are amazing. After I trained under Aaron at Unlisted a few months ago, he mentioned his Virtual Instructor Course for KCC he was starting up in March. I was super skeptical about it being online and honestly was at a point that I really didn’t feel I could add more to my jelly roll pan-of-a-plate that was piled high. I was however, impressed with the little nuances of his teaching; the small things that he seemed to know were important in the grand scheme of self-defense. I liked his open personality and call to those around him to constantly strive to be better. So, I agreed not having really any clue what I was getting myself into, outside of the fact that I knew I would likely benefit somewhere from it. I had never used Zoom, nor Dropbox, nor really any virtual meeting thing outside of Facetime. So yeah, right off the bat, beneficial. I didn’t know what to expect and if I am being real with the internet right now, I will say I thought it was going to a sort of, glance-at-it-once-a-week thing. It wasn’t. I needed a partner. KCC Instructor’s Course was super involved if I wanted to do it right, and it was so much so that even Ryan couldn’t join me to be my drill dummy for each meeting. I don’t know what my expectations were, but I quickly realized this was not going to be something I could skate by with. There were going to be actual people across the United Stated holding me accountable to my material. Fifteen minutes before the first virtual class I grabbed Lili and five minutes in, realized she was going to be vital to my success. She surprised me. She is fourteen, I was using her basically as a filler for knife movement and she became an active role for every meetup after that. The first time she snapped me down on the deck while we had our fourth zoom call, I surmised that she was absorbing this material and doing it with as much success as I had seen adults pull off at various training weekends. We finished the course amidst alligators, kids, and three states. I was able to receive my KCC Instructors Certification this weekend when Lili and I attended the actual in-training, two-day concepts course in Hilliard, OH. It wasn’t required, but it gave us a mother daughter road trip and I could not argue that she had earned her right to be there. KCC is meant to touch on the gray area of knife defense; where, “$h*t is not going the way you want it to.” There is no focus on entry or exit so much but understanding the energy and flow of the person wielding the knife. It was created to be able to plug in to several different types of martial arts/weapons backgrounds. The main point is feeling energy. Being the person who is almost always the smaller opponent, this was a huge plus knowing I am never going to muscle my way out of anything. Size matters, and please run from any place that tells you otherwise. Understanding how to utilize another person’s forceful movement to your advantage is something I knew I needed but couldn’t articulate enough to even say what I was searching for. KCC is reactionary with feeling movement, not reactionary with moves, and when you are in the thick of a fight you aren’t running through the rolodex in your brain to find the perfect answer of, “Tree of Strife D,” to respond to a downward stabbing motion. You are thinking, “Holy $h*t, that’s a knife!” “If you can’t manage the on-top and in-control position, then you can’t manage the other parts. That’s why this subset is so important.” Aaron Jannetti Aaron is working in the realm of, “It depends…” Any instructor worth listening to understands there is no one answer for each scenario. The creation of a workable flow in drilling is key. The more you understand it and run it, the quicker your reaction time. This applies to anything from tracing the knife or being able to get a better control of the assailant. It is a knife defense course but really it bleeds over into everything. I found things clicking in Jiu Jitsu that I hadn’t connected yet. Aaron mentioned on day two, “I want smart, violent people.” he is not necessarily speaking to those that have the ability to force their way through, he is connecting the ones that have to work harder at the technical. This is what drew me to his teaching style in the first place and what caused me to ultimately say yes to his KCC Instructors Course. Yes, it required a couple month long, daily-bust-on-it, commitment and I had to shove some other priorities into my figurative crockpot to stew, but it was worth it. Saturday in Ohio was focused on the stand-up module and Sunday was groundwork; five hours each of nonstop grinding. I wore my heart rate monitor the first half of day one because, whereas I have tracked a normal workout, I had never followed a training weekend. I burned 956 calories before one pm. It was a grueling two days. However, halfway through the second day you start to understand how the stand-up ties seamlessly into the groundwork. There is a constant reminder to note each checkpoint in the flow; to make sure you have the basics repped repeatedly and fine-tuned. You can then start to visualize how the meshing of personalities and talent these three guys have, played into what has become a program where several well-known people in the tactical world are signed up to take this course. Both days my brain shut down at about one ‘o’ clock. I have always loved the phrase, “drinking from a fire hose.” That’s a pretty accurate statement for all training weekends. I will roll through the brain fog of exhaustion in hopes I can take away a couple good nuggets and apply them later. With this program I could work in the fog; that’s the magic of the flow. Lili being here was phenomenal in several different ways. She knew enough from working with me on the instructor’s course that she wasn’t just keeping up. She is also 100 pounds so having her as partner allowed me to focus more on the tiny but important details without being hulk smashed the whole time stuck in survival mode. What was interesting was the mother/daughter dynamic. I don’t know about other people but running drills with my spouse is a fifth level of hell (Stay tuned for VA Beach KCC EIR coming in September). This was going to be Lili’s first time understanding the full grind of a training weekend and having to push through with a positive outlook. Me, I figured I was going to have to roll a bit with the squelch of teenage angst. A fourteen-year-old working with her mom can be challenging; throw in knife fighting and snap downs and well…. We talked a lot before-hand about perseverance and being a good partner. About ½ way through day two you could see the weariness setting in and with that came a small bit of attitude. I reminded her she was in an adult class, she had been prepared for how it was going to be, and well, for lack of a better term, she needed to buck up and not be a dead fish partner. I expected a sulk, but instead got a rallying. I made a small notice of the perk up and moved on not thinking about it until later. During training Eli said, “Your back up plan should make you more confident in your original plan.” That’s why the gray area is so important. You can manage your surroundings for avoidance, and you should. You can practice quick disarmaments from the entry, but anyone who has felt force on force understands that can easily all go down the crapper quite fast. It’s always messy, but a strong foundation of movement and flow in reaction will make you calmer and more clear thinking on the onset. I love chips and queso, and man, I love a good finale of Bananas Foster, but a really good, several hours, time spent on a good pork shoulder can make my heart sing. (I have no idea why I have so many food references in here…) I knew while writing notes that this EIR was going to be a long one. There was so much to unpack, and I have no issues writing about my screwups, I mean heck, this is an Ego Injury Report. However, the blow to my ego with this course went straight to my mama’s heart, because this wasn’t a screwup where I could laugh it off, but one of failure by example. The second day wrapped up with the very last drill being force on force. It was the culmination of both stand-up and ground-work flows, only this time you were defending against the other person who was trying their best to be a good, bad guy. I videoed a friend as they went first and when our turn came up, I made the mistake of asking Lili if she wanted to do it. I was tired, knew I was going to be taking this course again in September with Ryan, so I made it an option for my fourteen-year-old when I should have shown the perseverance we talked about so much on the drive up. This being her first dog tired, back-to-back, go-round, she took the option of being done. I immediately had a settling in my gut that I had screwed up even though I tried to justify it in my brain that I would be doing it again in six weeks. But that’s just it, it wasn’t about me, it was about leading by example to HER on finishing what you start no matter how hard. By the time Aaron called everyone to sit down for a debrief I was in full blown, failure mom moment. The debrief is something I have done before with Aaron during Unlisted. He had us sit down and write out everything that had happened, to our recollection, in the shoot house drill. It is effective in helping sort out your emotions and facts in the aftermath of a highly intense situation. I have used it several times since, so was looking forward to this everyone’s thoughts when done at the end KCC. We were given time to debrief with our partner each day so I videoed each one while Lili and I talked through the things we learned and what to focus more on. Lili spoke about her takeaways and when it was my turn, I realized I needed to make sure she understood I had failed her in that moment and that in the future I would do better. I shut off my phone and she looked at me with tears in her eyes and then proceeded to apologize for not being a good partner for that aforementioned time. She had essentially, “Owned up to her $h*t,” and I couldn’t be more proud. That and the fact that she managed to not cry during training the whole weekend, a feat I barely manage. A few minutes later Aaron asked the circle of people to voice their opinion of the program, and to offer critique on it. There were approximately 30 attending, fourteen were women, and Lili was the youngest by four years. When it was her turn, she spoke clearly and without hesitation to a room full of now friends (because she forces friendship like her mama), but she had misunderstood the question. So, in front of 30 plus adults she talked of what she liked of the course and then proceeded to own up to what she thought were her screwups during the drills. I had finally made it through a training weekend without even once tearing up and she made me cry with her clear understanding of what she felt she needed to focus on to become better. My ego injury of mom failure in perseverance was turned into something rather beautiful of my girl understanding my mess up, owning up and apologizing for her own, and then reflection in front of a room full of peers. For this mom it was incredibly humbling, and I guess that’s exactly what an Ego Injury Report should be. #KCC #Selfdefense #knifedefense #momlife #daughterlife #groundandpound #everythinghurts #didntjumprope #noshadowboxingeither #bearcrawlfordays #ownup #dobetter #raisingwarriors #perseverance #takeyourdaughtertoworkday #shegetshertrashtalkfromhermama #sass  A few weeks ago, I was attending a heavily male dominated pistol course. I found myself surprised at a sort of sarcastic conversation I overheard between two men who are pretty well versed in the world of self-defense. I don’t know what actually started the topic, but the gist was poking fun and finding a rather raw humor in a “concept” (I am using that word incredibly loosely) that I have heard a number of times in the Women’s Self-Defense world; just pee on him.
I was honestly glad to hear them using it as the brunt of a joke because when you really break this down it is a laughable idea at best. These two who were making fun of it are the stereotype of the guy I have typically heard this, “advice” from, so I found it refreshing. I mean they eventually took the humor a bit too far for my taste and I blocked the rest of the banter out, but I was happy they found it as silly as I did. If we boil this up to two parts, we can start with just the ability of it in the first place. Likely urinating on an attacker is an adrenal response, not something you can necessarily control. There is a reason for the term, “scared $h*tless.” Your body can react to fear by a bowel or bladder loosening, but with statistics showing upwards of 70 percent of women freezing during an attack (Crist, 2017, Reuters Health), I don’t see being able to pull off voluntarily peeing on the bad guy. This idea of turning on or turning off the downstairs waterworks is slimmer than the chances of your tibia surviving a UFC match in 2021. And yet this is the advice I have heard in many women’s self-defense workshops; punch this mitt a couple times, here is a choke position where I hold you as gently as an infant so you can succeed thus the false feeling that you can kick a$$, and then pee on them. I have been in countless force-on-force drills and one of the main takeaways is that you aren’t thinking of all the millions of moves you have learned; those only come because you have drilled them constantly and they flow, no pun intended. What is first and foremost on your mind is surviving the weight and sheer will of the opposing person. To be frank my brain is definitely not going to implement peeing on somebody unless practiced and…ew. The reality of you being calm enough to think through and loosen your body to actually urinate on said bad guy is pretty much nil, and if you have that calmness, I wouldn’t be wasting brain waves on attempting to release your bladder. If it happens, cool, no big deal; but I want my energy focused on striking and their physical dismemberment. This second part is going to be a harsh reality to some. They aren’t getting off on your looks during a rape, they are getting off on the power, their control, and your helplessness. You peeing on them is probably not even going to phase them. They have made the decision beforehand to violate you in a horrific manner; your body’s reaction to fear by pissing yourself will likely not even cause a hesitation. Honestly, probably the opposite. This is going to be a bad correlation and I hate even putting violent attacks and family in the same paragraph, but if you have children, you have likely changed diapers. Getting urine on your person is old hat; you will get peed on. If you have animals, you have cleaned up after them. You don’t stop halfway through, deciding meh, I am not going to finish my objective because pee touched my hands. No, you power through the job, wash them afterwards, and move on. It’s the same with vomit, I mean I am not wiping it up with my bare hands, but accidentally touching puke is a mild irritation in the grand scheme of cleaning chunks. A person committed to assaulting you via rape will not care unless they are that really really rare NCIS case Gibbs arrests that turn out to be a germaphobe on chronic levels. Remember Larry Nassar? I wrote this article on grooming here, https://www.facebook.com/107895177634806/photos/a.126236149134042/221938696230453/?type=3 He was a doctor that sexually assaulted hundreds of girls. Do you think he cared about getting urine on him? In fact, “An Atlanta Journal- Constitution investigation in 2016 identified more that 2,400 cases of doctors across the country who had sexually assaulted their patients.” (Saadi, 2018, STAT). A little bit of pee is not going to deter someone, especially in the medical profession. So here is my humble opinion on this concept, no, just no. Relying on the ability to do this under stress is a terrible plan and even if plausible outside of your normal adrenal responses, repping this for training purposes is just…. It’s kinda not something you can muscle memory into you outside of the relaxation of your good ol fashioned john. Don’t waste mind matter on urination during an assault, practice fighting back, with your hands and your feet, or your teeth, or a weapon, or a piece of glass, or a screwdriver, anything, just not your pee.  Several years ago, and by several, I mean probably closer to two or more decades, my dad was let go from his job. I remember him sitting in our living room looking through a glass of whiskey at the Christmas lights on the tree. It was a blow he had maybe seen coming, but it was very fresh and the worry of his wife’s tuition for college, care of four kids, a mortgage, and incoming bills sat heavily on his shoulders. He had busted his way from pretty much poverty level by working nights in a factory/truck driver/construction worker, while at the same time raising a family of four small children, taking night courses in college with no external financial help, to finally reaching his goal of a corporate engineering job. It had given a small amount of reprieve on finances and now had abruptly come to a standstill.
Outside of having several dependents and just general adulting, if I were a betting person (I totally am), I would say ego also played a bit into the equation. Being fired adds a bit of indignity to a situation and while most would spend their time spewing venom on their former bosses going over all the times they butted heads, my dad didn’t. Now I am not saying he didn’t do that in his mind as he contemplated the tree, but what he said after the whiskey fueled pity-party he allowed himself that night is what stands out and shaped the way I started thinking later as an adult. He said, “Christun, in every argument there is a percentage that is your fault, no matter how minor it is, you are still responsible for what you screwed up, you have to own up to it and correct it.” TCB Boxing and MMA where I currently train has a past reputation and it’s not pretty. When I first started I was enlightened by the many rumors swirling about the gym. Some people were genuinely concerned for me and my family, some interested in the truth, and others just wanting to hen peck. I kept going because the things described were not anything I had witnessed in the group of people there, in fact quite the opposite. Honestly TCB was the reason I started Jiu Jitsu in the first place. Aaron showed genuine concern for me when leaving for my first ECQC and wanted to make sure I knew a few groundwork things before I left. I begrudgingly let him show me a couple moves, he was right, I ate humble pie, and here we are. Over the months I noticed general issues that plague every gym but nothing alarming in any way. What I did witness was a constant drive from leaders there to be a better human and a giving of time, money, and effort to those that couldn’t afford it that went above and beyond anything I have seen in other places. Does this mean that the rumors were wrong? I have no idea, I honestly don’t even care, but even if they were true the fact that it has evolved, those in leadership evolved, are enough for me to be ecstatic that there is growth. So many places stay stagnant, stuck in their ego driven mind set. Metaphorically speaking, they get fired in life, talk trash about all the things a former boss did without examining their own faults, and instead of being better, they end up bitter. I recently overheard a conversation at a local MMA match where our team was competing. A girl from TCB corrected another from our group who said a rather unsportsmanlike thing to a fan of our team members opponent. This girl very quickly turned around and stated. “That is not who TCB is.” I relished in that. So even if the rumors were true then, that’s not who we are now. We must allow room for growth, a way to become better. In the words I heard recently from Raul Martinez, “We must own up to our $h*t and do better.” Punch face is a volatile world. MMA/Jiu Jitsu/Muay Thai/Boxing all of it is a high emotive, easily ego’ed atmosphere where you must give yourself and those around you grace to become better. And by better, I mean humbled. And really nothing is more humbling than getting a good safe beat down. You are going to lose, some days will just suck, you are going to screw up, hell you are likely going to be the person that loses control and is unsafe that day that everyone talks about. Learn from it and keep going. Own up to it and keep coming. Because when you rise out of the ashes of your screwup that’s where the settling in of what you have been learning will take place and the growth from that is exponential. Gym atmosphere can be tension filled, it’s a melting pot of ages and people at different places in their life, all with different goals, with different backgrounds, different experiences and then you throw them together to hit things. It is inevitable that there will be someone or multiple someone’s who will make a bad call, decision, have bad temperament, snap at another person, and piss multiple people off. I feel everyone does this at some point in time in martial arts especially if you are using it as a lifeline. You mess up, roll too hard, lose control, get mad at yourself, but end up taking it out on those around you. Another flip side may be that you are new, you don’t fully understand what is being asked, you don’t want to look stupid or weak, and if you are honest with yourself maybe a little intimidated and feel you have something to prove. You do something stupid, may not know the correct speed, or how hard to apply anything. There is a reason people talk about how it sucks to roll with white belts and it’s because of the lack of control and honestly just a lack of understanding in what you are even doing. You screw up, get embarrassed; you aren’t alone, most everyone there has done it, own up to it, learn, and be better. When Ryan and I first got married I remember reading an article by a teacher that taught her students how to apologize. Coming from a family with three younger brothers, we brushed things under the rug and went back to playing. There was absolutely no concept of an apology unless mom made us and it was a super begrudging, “sorry,” with an eye roll and a huff. Later with adult relationships it turned into an, “I am sorry, but if you hadn’t of done this…..” Yeah, not a true apology when you are blaming your actions on someone else. Only you can own up to your mistakes. This teacher broke it down into four steps that I taught my kiddos and we use in our home. And trust me the adults are not above this, I have had to apologize to my kids multiple times and if I don’t use the format, it ain’t real. The steps go as followed: 1) I am sorry for… (Explain in detail what you screwed up) 2) This is wrong because… (Understand fully what you are apologizing for and state why) 3) In the future I will not do this anymore. 4) Will you please forgive me? The apology is not for you, you are the one who messed up. You aren’t apologizing to absolve your own guilt; you are apologizing because you genuinely hurt the other person and want to make it better. Their reaction has nothing to do with your apology, they may still be hurt. Allow them their anger and processing. I see so many times where someone apologizes and then gets mad that the person is still upset, that’s not true remorse. The best apology is changed behavior. Own up to what you did, apologize, and do better. Even if you are only two percent at fault, you are still responsible for your own actions. Own up. Expect nothing in return when apologizing because again, this is about your part and only you can control yourself and how you become better at life. Now for the second part of what it means to be part of a community, especially a high emotive environment. Those that witness these moments of failure in others, give the grace. Understand you don’t know what the other person is fighting and when they take that hard, somewhat shameful, but brave step to come back, accept with open arms because you aren’t above screwing up either. Training ebbs and flows. I always joke that with weekend courses I will always have one awesome day and then know the next is not going to be so great. Same in the gym, I can be spot on with my kicks, punches, feeling on cloud nine with my progression and then boom, I suck. Work through the suck, help others work through their suck by moving forward positively. We must be able to be better versions of our past self, we must allow growth for ourselves and those around us. That is unity and that is team. “Own up to your $h*t and do better,” is basically just a more raw, cliff notes version of what my dad said to me 20ish years ago. It rang true then, it rings true now. TCB Boxing/MMA Aaron Kimball #ownupdobetter #4pointapology #youarentaboveit #doright #punchface #behumbled #givethegrace #everyonemessesup #theapologyisnotforyou #gymlife #tcb #tcbfambam #tcbarmy #growth #christmaslightsandwhiskeyglasses #lifelessonsfrommydad #theymakemeshadowbox |
