“That bastard!  How is he doing that?  Man, I hate when he hits me!  If he’s going to hit me, then I’m going to hit him.  Only harder!”  How many people have said this to themselves?  I have.  I’m glad to say that I don’t anymore, but at one point I did.  My ego was controlling me.  My ego was holding me back from becoming better in Gung-Fu, and life. 

Having a big ego can be the bane to any martial artist.  Why is this?  Having a big ego will do nothing but hinder one’s progress.  If you have a big ego you are going to be creating a glass ceiling for yourself.  They are not going to be willing to listen and learn from others.  Whether those others are people will significantly more skill than them or someone who has only a little more skill than they do.  Or perhaps someone who even has less skill.

If someone has more skill than you, and they try to help you, if your ego is to big you are not going to be open minded enough to think about what they said and take honest criticism.   On the other hand, if you are practicing with someone who has less skill than you and they hit you, you are going to feel like you have to prove something to them and to yourself.  Instead, you should be analyzing why you were hit. You’ll be out to prove to yourself that you are better.  Whether a person has more or less skill, there is always something that can be learned.   

While being a student and now a teacher, I’ve seen how having a big ego can impede the progress of a martial artist.  When I was a new student, some of the older students would take advantage of my inexperience.  Now there’s nothing wrong with practicing advanced moves on someone, but there is something wrong when those moves end up hurting people intentionally. As my skill grew and I closed the gap, and in some cases even surpassed these people, they would get mad because they couldn’t take advantage of me anymore.  They also ended up only hindering their progress because they wouldn’t learn from their mistakes.  Instead of trying to help me counter their attack and in turn learn a counter for that new attack they were still trying the same attacks.  They always wanted to have some type of edge.  But eventually that edge disappeared.   

I’ve also seen the ego problem as a teacher.  When people with previous experience are not able to do a technique and they see someone with less experience accomplish that skill, that student becomes angry.  

Having a big ego will do nothing but impede your progress and even make a glass ceiling for yourself, in both martial artist and life.  So do yourself a favor and when you come into a Windy City Wing Chun academy, leave your ego at the door.  

If you have any questions or comments you can direct them to ken@windycitywingchun.com 

Back

Copyright 2004 Windy City Wing Chun Gung Fu Federation, Inc.