Special

BERKELEY HEIGHTS, NJ: I don't believe that I'm owed anything in life because of some gift by design.

It's not that I'm overly tough or that I lack empathy for others. I simply believe that much of what someone becomes has to be earned.

People aren't made special simply by being told they're special.

It's the effort they put into living that helps make them special.

But I do believe we're all different.

And perhaps that's another kind of “special.”

Sometimes You Discover How Differently Another Person's Mind Works

I remember one day when two friends of mine were in the car with me and I experienced this idea of “different” and “special” all at once.

Jeff was driving, I was in the passenger seat, and Todd was sitting behind me.

For whatever reason, we were looking at a large sign looming up on our right.

Todd and I started laughing because something about it was instinctively amusing to us, but neither of us could quite read the entire thing.

Jeff glanced over at the sign as he drove and started laughing too.

Knowing how quick of a reader he was, we asked him what it said.

He told us.

And then something dawned on me.

How the did he read that while going 70 MPH with a single glance?

This wasn't something simple like:

“EAT AT DENNY'S.”

There were at least three lines of text on a large billboard.

So I asked him:

“Jeff, how could you read that in exact detail after we passed the sign?”

His response was simple.

“I took a picture.”

Mind. Blown.

Sometimes Knowing Someone Means Learning How They See the World

When Jeff explained how he saw the world, it was like suddenly being able to read the code in *The Matrix*.

His mind was beautiful.

And that conversation changed the way I've looked at other people's minds ever since.

What you don't know is that, at that point, I had known Jeff for more than a decade.

And yet I had never understood that this was how his mind worked.

Suddenly, certain things about him made more sense to me. His brilliance in college and on Wall Street. His ability to seemingly absorb information in ways I couldn't.

And his intelligence wasn't the only thing that made him special.

He also had a huge heart to go with that big brain of his and was seemingly always willing to help someone who asked.

I'd known my friend for years.

That day, I got to know him a little better.

Then I Met a Child Who Learned Movement Differently

Years later, I encountered another remarkable example through the son of one of my black belts.

Michael started class at six years old.

I'd known him since he was born, so it was especially enjoyable watching his excitement for karate begin to blossom.

His father, Sam, is a hardworking and successful businessman who puts his full effort into whatever he does.

But martial arts training didn't come any easier to Sam than it does to most people.

Michael, however, was different.

After Michael tested for yellow belt, he received a booklet containing a series of still photographs showing a form he would eventually have to learn.

There were only twelve photographs.

The actual form contained closer to thirty movements.

The transitions weren't shown. The changes in footwork and hand position weren't shown. The pictures essentially provided only the endpoints.

Michael received the booklet on Thursday night.

By the end of the weekend, he could perform the entire movement set.

Without his father even knowing he had been practicing it.

Michael had filled in the gaps.

He Wasn't Simply Memorizing What He Saw

You could dismiss that as diligence.

Maybe he was simply an unusually hardworking kid.

Except there was more.

Most children took considerably longer to develop competence in this particular form.

Michael had learned it in three days and was performing it remarkably well.

Then something even more interesting happened.

Sam arrived for his weekly private lesson with me one day with a smirk on his face.

“I have to tell you a story about Michael.”

Michael had discovered his father's black belt DVD, which contained video of Sam performing his forms, sparring and other material.

Without telling his father, Michael watched the DVD and taught himself a form containing more than seventy movements.

In about a week.

Michael wasn't simply remembering isolated movements.

He appeared to have an extraordinary ability to see movement, understand it and reproduce it with his own body.

His mind and body communicated in a way that fascinated me.

Every Student Gives Me Another Mind to Discover

That's one of the things I've come to appreciate most about teaching.

When a new student steps into the dojo, I don't yet know how that person's mind works.

I don't know how they process information.

I don't know whether they learn best by seeing, hearing, doing, questioning, repeating or struggling with something until it finally makes sense.

I don't know what will come easily.

I don't know what will be difficult.

And I don't know what ability may be hiding there that neither of us has discovered yet.

That's exciting.

A dojo, or “way place,” gives me an opportunity to get to know another mind and another kinetic body, and then help that student learn how to make the two work together.

Not every student will learn a thirty-movement form in three days.

They don't need to.

The interesting question is:

What can this particular student do, and how do I help them discover it?

Everyone who walks through the door gives me another opportunity to find out.

Now that's something special.

I'm game if you are.