Natural Talent ?

[Makalakumu]

Originally posted by Kodanjaclay
I disagree that people with natural ability are apt to quit. I had natural ability when I was a kid, and I am still going, as is my best friend, who started a couple years after me.

How did you react when techniques came easy? Did it make you feel confident? Did you feel as if you could criticize others? Did you understand that other people might struggle with something that is easy for you? Those are mental and spiritual challenges. Many people with natural ability fail in at least one of those questions and a good instructor will pick this up and try to instill some humility in the student. This may seem mean to the student and they may quit. I'm not saying that all people with natural ability quit, I'm just saying that people with natural ability have to watch themselves or they can get board and cocky which can cause them to quit.

 

[Kodanjaclay]

Well... considering I was a kid, we didn't really think that way, and had we, our instructor would have been more than happy to humble us. We had the attitude "this is fun!". We did do some really stupid stuff, and sometimes we played rough with each other, but that was only within our clique. Outside of the clique, as we became more senior, it was impressed upon us that we had a role as teachers. We were supposed to be examples, so any "ego stroking" was probably taken care of by that role. I'm not saying that we were perfect, or that within our group, we did not have our opinons... we did. We had one guy we called cowboy because he looked, acted like the guy from best of the best who wore the cowboy hat... chris penn? And yes, he wore a cowboy hat. the guy was a jerk, and we did not like the fact that he was allowed to test for recognition, even though he did not know his material, including the names of his hyung.

Out of the four of us, one ended up being a womanizer, who did become like you described. The other became a US Army Sniper, and now serves as a police officer, and then the two of us, who still train.

 

[Makalakumu]

Your instructor must have been very good. (still is) If he can lead so many talented martial artists through the pitfalls of natural ability and ego, he deserves the recognition. I hope that I can do the same for my students.

 

[Kodanjaclay]

Thank you, but that should be a was. He too has been bitten by the money bug, and these days things are different. This is why I left several years back. Its all about the greenbacks it would seem.

 

[the_kicking_fiend]

some people are just better at moving than others

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[Kodanjaclay]

This is very true.

 

[Galvatron]

I definitely believe that some people catch on more quickly than others. Throughout my years as a student and as an instructor I have seen people who I just knew were going to be great. It's my experience that the best way to retain people who catch on quickly and might otherwise start to bore is to challenge them more.

 

[Matt Bernius]

I won't try to disect the physical from the mental but I will say that talent is generaly wasted in the hands of the undisciplined.

A different way to sum this up is:

"True genius succeeds inspite of natural talent, not because of it."

- Matt