I recently came across something I found really interesting.  It was an article that talked about how you can keep fish apart in a large tank without any actual barriers.  First you put up glass partitions. After a little while the glass partitions can be removed. The fish swim to the edge of where the glass partitions were and return.  They made a commitment that that’s as far as they can go.

That last line really caught my attention,

“They made a commitment that that’s as far as they can go.”

Wow, how often do we do just that? Without ever being consciously aware of it we put up mental barriers and then tell ourselves this is as far we can go. And so we find ourselves in a self fulfilling prophecy. The reality of the situation and our perception of it have little to do with one another.

It all boils down to our beliefs. If we think we are not capable, we are not.  But is the opposite true? If we think we are capable, are we? Well once upon a time when I was a little girl I was convinced I could fly if I only tried hard enough.  I would go up high and then jump over and over again. As you might guess, it didn’t quite work out as I had hoped but one thing is for certain, our chances of success increase dramatically when we think we can.

What we perceive to be true may in fact, be completely false.  There was an interesting study done along the same lines in India.  When they train their elephants, they take a baby elephant and tie it to a large tree with an iron chain.  Then they start reducing the size of the chain and cutting down the tree. Eventually, you can tie the elephant which now nearly fully grown with a flimsy rope to small tree but the elephant is unable to escape. It’s made a commitment in its body-mind that it’s imprisoned! That is a pretty powerful example of how perception and reality can have little in common.

How often in our lives are we held prisoner by our own beliefs?  How often in our martial arts training do we tell ourselves we cannot go any further and so limit our own abilities? Do we commit to failure?  Surrender needlessly when the reality is we are capable of so much more?

Over the past few months, my confidence in my abilities has been waning.  I keep telling myself I need to practice more and that is true. Yet maybe, I need to tune into my inner voice. How much of my recent lack of development has to do with practice and how much of it has to do with my growing belief that I am just not good enough? Am I that fish that swims to the edge and returns because it thinks it can go no further? Responding to a barrier that only exists in my mind?

I will think of those fish next time I am convinced I have reached my limitations and try to remember that perception and reality can bear little resemblance to one another.

Keep swimming!