Brevity

brev·i·ty/ˈbrevitē/

Noun:  Concise and exact use of words in writing or speech.

         Shortness of time.

Today we celebrate mother’s day! A celebration of our mothers who have done more for us than we will ever realize and do it happily.
Yesterday, when I was mailing my mother a card that she won’t get until after mother’s day (Sorry mom) I was thinking about how mothers impact who we are and a lesson that I could share with you that I learned from my mother I hope that you won’t think less of my intelligence or lack of intelligence as it may be, but believe what you will, this is not a story about intelligence.
As a young boy I struggled when it was time to learn to read and write. At the time I don’t remember it bothering me. I know that as a first grader I was still not a very competent reader and struggled. Later in life I found out that some teachers had pushed to place me in an alternative education program. My mother on the other hand preferred to teach me a lesson that is very relevant to wrestling and life. That in order to master something you have to struggle with it.
She hung flash cards all over our house. She must have written out thousands of cards labeling everything in big bold black Sharpee. I remember going to sleep and seeing the card on the LAMP by my bed. Waking up and going to brush my tooth with a card labeled “TOOTHBRUSH” on the toothbrush holder. When I went to get dressed in the morning I there was a card on the CLOSET, DRESSER, DRAWER and inside where I kept my SOCKS.
Every night my mother and I sat at the kitchen table (yes it had a flash card taped to it) and she would show me a flash card. I would read the letters and then say the word. She had labels on everything in the house but my sister and the dog.
Hour after hour, night after night, card after card.

R A I N

C A T

D R E S S E R

I remember two things about being five years old, seeing the vapor trail of the space shuttle challenger after the disaster at recess and flashcards.

R E D

Y E L L O W

P U R P L E

Then in fit of frustration every flash card would go flying across the kitchen. Sometimes on the floor, sometimes in the trash, sometimes at my sister, sometimes at my mom, and I would go storming into my room, out the front door, or anywhere that I could. I never got dragged back to the table that I remember but somehow I never got away with not going back.
Every rebellious intention I had to stay uneducated, every intention I had to not read those stupid card. As much as I hated them, somehow I was back at the table.
H A T
S O F A
“I don’t know this is stupid”
“Just try and sound it out”

F I V E

G A V E

T A K E

We started my first time in kindergarten and it continued when I was held back for a red shirt kindergarten year (feel free to scoff at me for repeating kindergarten but I got twice the number of naps you!). I guess that I must have gotten somewhat better because after two attempts I was allowed to move up to the 1st grade! I was still a weak reader and placed in the last reading group of the grade but I was in the 1st grade… This had to stop right? Not, a chance. I was going to learn to read at the level of my peers or I was going to die from paper cuts from flipping through the cards.

W I N D O W

S H E E P

C A R

These cards must have been up for years and visitors to our house must have thought my mother was crazy for labeling everything like an over-organized psychopath. Years after the cards came down there were still places that had marks from the scotch tape that held them to the furniture.
After at least two and a half years of this it was time for the Florida reading test. For some reason I always enjoyed those days. I probably loved them so much because no flash cards were used on test day. After the test and the results came back and we had a parent teacher conference. I was sent home with a packet of makeup work to complete over the winter break. In January I would return in the top reading group.
This of course relates to any challenge or anything that you want to learn. In my life as a coach it relates to drilling technique to the point of excruciating boredom. Stance, motion, level change, angle knee drop, head in the chest, drive to your feet, catch the foot, trip, tackle the legs, finish. Each word is a step that we must repeat and struggle with a thousand times if we are going to learn a takedown. Each step could just as easily be a letter on a flashcard when you are learning to read. It is not glamorous, it is not fun, it is dirty and tedious, but it is the greatest part of learning.
Now that many years have passed, I was blessed to have a mother who’s will was so strong and a father who also had a strong will. All of this gave me a strong will as well and throughout my life this has been a blessing for me and a curse for those that have found themselves in the way of my will. When I was in college and I was giving everything I could to understand a behavioral statistics class the prof asked if I thought being a psychology major was “overextending myself”. I remember shrugging, leaning across the desk and telling him, “life is about overextending yourself”. He was of course may have been right… but, I would disagree because I would have never found myself sitting in his office talking about college had my mother not forced me out of my comfort zone and made me overextend myself.

T H A N K

Y O U

M O M

“In the order of nature we cannot render benefits to those from whom we receive them, or only seldom. But the benefit we receive must be rendered again, line for line, deed for deed, cent for cent, to somebody.”

- Emreson

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too:

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—-and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—-and not make thoughts your aim,

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same:.

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings,

And never breathe a word about your loss:

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings—-nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much:

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—-which is more—-you’ll be a Man, my son! 

Rudyard Kipling