Singleness

If your eye is single, your whole body would be full of light.

I once heard about the story of a young man who had just one arm - the right one. The guy very much wanted to learn judo (a form of martial arts). His desire to become a world class judoka made him seek out a world class judo coach. He told the coach of his desire to learn judo and contrary to his expectation of discouragement or rejection due his handicap, the coach agreed to train him.

From the first time the training started, the coach began to teach him a particular “throw” technique aside from the basics of judo. Everyday and every training opportunity, he taught him to learn only that same technique until he perfected it. After a while, the young man began started wondering when he’d be taught another technique. All his other colleagues at the judo school were taught several other techniques but he wasn’t allowed to learn any other. He soon began to feel left out and complained to his coach about the issue. “If you want to learn to be a great judoka, just listen to my instructions and obey them.” said the coach in response to his questions.

A little while later, the young judoka started to compete in in-house matches and he started to win engaging the only throw technique he had learnt. One after the other, he won all his matches and entered into the local area competition. He won this event and qualified for the regional, state and national competitions respectively still using and honing the single throw skill he had been taught.
At the nationals, he had it a lot tougher going against experienced judokas armed with only one skill. He fought gallantly though unimpressed with himself and his coach that he could only engage one option of challenge while his opponents displayed several techniques. He literally fought for his life to counter all the techniques thrown at him. Then came the finals. This opponent he was going to face was the current world champion in judo and had been for a few years. He knew there was no way in the world he’d beat this guy with knowledge of only one throw technique. Discouraged by this inferiority mentality, he went against his opponent and lost the first two rounds after many frustrating efforts at trying to remain on his feet against such a great display of throwing techniques from his opponent.

Just before the final and deciding round started, the young judoka expressed his disgust and pain to his coach at why he wont be able to win the championship because he was not only handicapped, he also lacked the array of skills needed to win the match. Then his coach looked at him and said to him “When you came to me without a left hand to learn judo, I knew you didn’t have a chance. The only reason I didn’t reject you was because your handicap was unique. The throw technique I have been teaching you is just as unique. The only way it can be countered if executed properly is by your opponent grabbing your left arm which you don’t have.” He paused for effect and continued “All other throw techniques you execute regardless of how complex they seem can be countered effectively by your opponents but this one, so I knew that all you needed was to perfect and nobody would be able to beat you because the medium for countering it (your left arm) is missing.”

The young judoka motivated by this revelation went into the ring for the last round, executed his throw and won the competition. If only we understood how handy our handicap can be when we focus on turning it into a strength, we’d be amazed at how much we can achieve. Have you tried to look at two different things with each of your eyes at the same time? What details would you be able to observe properly? Have you also noticed that the eyes don’t see each other or stay together? Yet, they achieve the ability we call seeing by LOOKING AT THE SAME THING AT THE SAME TIME. Even a broken down clock, they say is right or correct twice in a day. That is you have a better percentage of success taking on ONE thing and PERFECTING it than doing everything in sight without committing to any (a good working clock, one minute late).

What am I doing that I should commit myself to more than ever before? I ask myself. I am probably LEFT-handed in that meaning that I could only do RIGHT in it if I committed myself to it. Any medium by which one can be counter attacked should always be LEFT (the young judoka didn’t have a LEFT hand) behind if we want to get it RIGHT.

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