Finding Inspiration Within

Finding Inspiration within – Your strength is your individuality
 
“If you celebrate your differentness, the world will, too. It believes exactly what you tell it—through the words you use to describe yourself, the actions you take to care for yourself, and the choices you make to express yourself. Tell the world you are one-of-a-kind creation who came here to experience wonder and spread joy. Expect to be accommodated.”

― Victoria Moran, Lit From Within: Tending Your Soul For Lifelong Beauty
 
Strengths and Weaknesses Exercise
 
We teach our students that “Black Belts” are all unique, we all have different strengths and weaknesses but must have a strong sense of self worth. Discovering who we are and what we are brilliant at can fill us positivity and develop our sense of self, this can provide us with the inspiration to achieve greatness.
 
Young students are so motivated to conform and be like one another, so as to not be different and a potential target for bullying or social rejection and yet so much power is unleashed from being individual and unique.
 
As students develop within our programme, technically from a skill based point of view we encourage individuality, especially within sparring or patterns where students are encouraged to “develop” their style. This is common amongst many arts and I have found martial arts to truly develop the individual’s unique character from the process of developing their style.
 
We’ve included a little exercise below that we use to encourage our students to highlight their differences and unique gifts and talents, If done correctly it can be a powerful exercise. We find that students who understand their own uniqueness find inspiration intrinsically.
 
Part one of this is done alone and part two is done in a group or as a pair.
 
PART ONE:
 
A: List your strengths, any small thing you believe you are good at, be as broad as you can be, examples:

– I’m good at drawing, I’m good at typing quickly, I’m good at making people laugh with jokes and my sense of humour.
 
B: List your weaknesses, to truly get to know ourselves we must know our strong and weak points, examples:
 
– I can sometimes be lazy in the morning, I often interrupt a lot during conversations, I rush my homework.
 
PART TWO:
 
In pairs or as part of a group, answer the following questions about the other person, do this in private, you will exchange answers when completed.
 
A: What particular skills do you think your friend has and is really good at?
 
Examples:
 
-“Sarah has really neat handwriting and is great at netball, she’s really flexible and can run really fast.
 
B: What makes them/their character special and unique?
 
Examples:
 
– Sarah is always smiling and is really happy. She’s really good at helping people when they are upset. Sarah is really good at cheering people up and helping people through tough times, Sarah has a really positive mindset and doesn’t give up!
 
We have found that rarely are the answers a students gives themselves an accurate or full representation of who they are and what they are brilliant at and this exercise helps highlight other areas where they shine which gives an excellent insight into developing their sense of self.
 
Give it a go and let us know if it helps your child discover their individuality. Over the next few blogs we are going to be talking about developing Black Belt Confidence! We will be kicking off with the vital understanding of …. the comfort zone!