What I Learned Getting My Ass Kicked in Sparring Class

Growth often means pain.

“If you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it’ll spread over into the rest of your life. It’ll spread into your work, into your morality, into your entire being. There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level.” — Bruce Lee

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When I began to fix my life back in 2016, I decided to divide it into two phases. I won’t get into the details here, but the first phase was relearning how to notice reality, be more compassionate to myself, and start to take the initiative

The second phase was learning Kung Fu.

I wanted to learn discipline. I wanted to integrate my mind and body into one singular purpose. I wanted to create my own peace by learning how to defend myself. But if you ask me why Kung Fu specifically, it’s just something that I decided when I was sitting in the dark, wrapped around the blanket of my own mind, listening to the hum of the air conditioning like a cold drone rumbling from a deep hallway.

I’ve gone through enough to know that there are truths that only come from quiet recesses inside of us, parts of the brain that can’t really be spoken to directly, are difficult to…