This week, Master Joe finally helped me with a section of the tai chi broadsword 2-man set I have been working on for a while and couldn’t get JUST right. Up until that night, that particular section had seemed just sort of, just, mysterious to me. Every time I would get to that part in the form, I would kind of just fudge through it and hope I ended up in the right direction.

Once he explained it to me, it was suddenly VERY clear and I wasn’t able to see what was SO difficult about the whole thing in the first place.

In reflecting on this lesson, I started seeing that this concept is pervasive throughout life. Basically, until you know, you just don’t know. I know that’s a simple statement, but, it’s not exactly a simple concept.

What do you think? Have you ever experienced a flash of clarity in your life when something that was shrouded in complete mystery just 10 seconds ago is now clear as day to you? I can think back to more than one time that this happened to me in my life. What about you? Any stories? Examples?

The most recent example of this that I can think of that is NOT martial arts related would be when I started getting into dating again.

After Stephanie and I broke up, I took a look back on my adult life to see what typically happened to me emotionally after something like this. I noticed that in past years, I would get VERY down on myself. I would get feelings of worthlessness and for the most part, straight up social anxiety. I wouldn’t want to be around anyone as I thought everyone would just be talking about how much of a loser I was whenever I would enter a room/bar/club/restaurant/whatever.

I did not want this to happen to me this time around, but I was still skeptical that I was worth people’s time. Warning… this is going to sound lame… so… whatever.

Before we broke up, she would watch a show on VH1 (that I would often watch too) called “The Pickup Artist”. This show was the first time I had ever seen a focus on “pickup”. At first, I thought that it was bullshit and just about picking up women and I immediately discounted myself from being able to identify with the show.

After watching a few episodes, I started to see that the show wasn’t really solely about getting women. The “woman getting” was a by-product of realizing your self worth. Realizing that you do have qualities that people want to experience if only you will stop being a fly on the wall.

Back to the point, sort of. After we broke up, I was curious to see if any of this stuff worked. I was curious to see if you just be yourself, smile, check your posture and body orientation and not care about the outcome of an encounter with someone, interactions with people become really easy.

As I do often, I started searching the internet and eventually stumbled on the pickup podcasts. I started listening to what these guys had to say and was intrigued.

Really? So, if I want to talk to someone while I am out and about, all I have to do is… talk… to… them? What? Impossible!

As I made my way through these podcasts, I started trying some of the things they were talking about. My focus wasn’t getting girls or dates. Sure if that would have happened, bonus, but I looked at it more from an experimental point of view.

Finally, the point. I was in Target, buying some new clothes for my 1st date with Victoria. There happened to be a girl working in the area that I was looking around in, folding clothes and doing retail person type stuff. Given all of these new things I was hearing, I decided to just talk to her. I wasn’t trying to get a date. I wasn’t trying to get in her pants. I didn’t care.

All I wanted to do was test to see if I, in fact was capable of talking to another human outside of my circle of comfort without any pressure of dating or “getting a number” or anything like that.

I was successful. I talked to this girl while I was looking at sweaters for about 5 minutes. It was at this point that I had a flash of clarity.

I could talk to anyone I wanted. It didn’t matter anymore. If they loved me, it didn’t matter. If they hated me, it didn’t matter.

Until you know, you just don’t know.