The weakness within the strength

A few days ago, at our Aikido adults class, something caught my eye. At one point, it was very clear that almost every one of the students were using their main strength; the physically strong were very forceful, the strong-willed were stubborn, the agile were moving way too fast, and the heady were thinking a lot. I thought it was interesting to see how we choose to use what we feel we are good at, as much and frequent as possible.

I noticed that none of this was working very well. Almost all the students were overdoing it and faced difficulty in their practice; there was a lack of connection, sloppiness, or just a poor application of techniques.

What we consider ourselves to be good at may be misleading. Is our strength really a strength, or is it also a weakness? Obviously, we need to use some judgment about when, with whom, and to what extent we utilize our natural tendencies. Let's take the agile person, for example: if he is going too fast, working with a slower partner, there will be lack of connection. An agile person, who is slowing down and working on controlling his speed, is actually practicing "out of the box". Working only within the talent's limits keeps us in our comfort zone. Trusting our strengths alone may be a curse. Navigating into what we consider to be "a weakness" may unravel some great discoveries about who we really are.

We should acknowledge the strengths we were blessed with, yet remember that other blessings may be found on the other side as well.