Where are you?

Focus...it's a word we hear all the time in Taekwondo.  It's a word that instructors and schools market to the general public as one of the benefits of training in Taekwondo.  "Train in Taekwondo and you (or your child) will be able to increase their focus".

But what is focus?  How do we improve it?  Why is it important that I improve it?

In today's world of multiple, high-frequency, high-intensity distractions...we need to be able to let go.  To shed all these external distractions and find a calm moment to find and enjoy ourselves and what we're doing.

Multitasking.  Ever find yourself sitting in front of the TV, laptop on your lap, multiple web pages/tabs open...(of course Facebook is one of them), talking on your cell phone?  Multitasking is every job seeker's testament and every employer's preoccupation. But recent studies have shown that it's actually BAD for us.  Making us do a poorer job at ALL the tasks we are so efficiently multitasking on.

Being in the moment means focusing your mind on ONLY the task at hand.  In the dojang, this means thinking only of the kick, block, punch, or form that you're doing.  Letting all other distractions fall away.  As a martial artist this is important because it is the beginning of the transition of techniques from solely a physical movement, to one that includes all of you as a being.

So how do we do it?  First of all you have to realize that the mind is like a small puppy that at one moment, will be interested in something, and then the next, wonder off in search of something else.  Our job is to train ourselves to come back to the item we're "in" whenever we feel our puppy wander off.

The benefit of being in the moment is an enjoyment and appreciation of that moment.  I ask my students all the time what the most valuable thing they have is...the answer is time.  It's so rare and precious that there is only one moment.  You don't get two moments...a do over.  So be in that moment, enjoy it, savor it, indulge in it.

So, being in the moment is a concept that applies not only to the dojang, but our daily lives.  Be in the moment with your friends, your family, your children.  Enjoy them as you experience them.

Being in the moment is a vaccine against the disease of regret.  "I wish I had spent more time with her, I wish I would have paid attention, I wish I could have tried harder".

Keep training hard!