Reflections

Most of my fighting career was spent travelling the Northwest with my friend Joey.  We trained with—and against—each other almost every night.  We travelled to gyms and academies all over, attended seminars, and competed in the same events.  When I look back it’s not hard to identify that he was the training partner I spent the most time with, traded the most blows with, a shared the most blood with.  He was there for my first fight (a disastrous endeavor) and still there throughout my professional career.  I have lots of pictures with the two of us.

We were both active competitors when I met another fighter—one who would become a great friend in time.  He was highly skilled—a legitimate world champion with a terrific resume.  I started training with him a couple times a week and learning whole new concepts on the mats.  I had the idea that I needed to connect my new friend with my old friend because it would be like having the best of both worlds at the same time.

The three of us met up for a Saturday morning open mat and sequestered ourselves away from the rest of the grapplers—we were the only three black belts on the mat and my coach thought we would get the most value of working directly with each other.  We started a 3-minute timer with short breaks so that we could run Two-and-Out rounds, which meant each grappler fought for six minutes against the other two, 3 minutes at a time.

It was a great morning.  We hammered for almost 90 minutes.  Rests came in three-minute increments, and the intense work came six minutes at a time.  When we were finished, we were all a sweaty but smiling mess.  My new friend had proven, in the most friendly of ways, how much better he was than both of us.  The three of us were chatting as we recovered.

My new friend glanced back and forth between Joey and I, then said, “the two of you roll almost identically.  It’s like fighting the same grappler both rounds.”

I kind of paused for a moment to consider.  By that time Joey and I had been training together for nearly ten years, and our training had been actively intense.  We both participated in each other’s fight camps, attended the same seminars, and had been coached by the same instructors.  We almost always matched up for drilling and logged more mutual sparring hours than I had with any other training partner.

Whenever I learned a new technique or combination I would try it on Joey.  When I found some success with my new technique, he would first steal the technique from me then learn how to defend it.  When he defended it, I would have to learn how to counter his defense—usually by asking him to show me how he was defending.  We completed this cycle hundreds of times over our respective careers.

Years later, we were nearly clones of each other.  So much of our learning time was spent in close proximity—learning how to defend against and attack each other—that we couldn’t help but become more like the other.  We were reflections of one another.

One of the greatest compliments I have ever received was to have someone tell me they were trying to do something the way I did it.  It happens on the mats from time to time when somebody approaches me and asks if I’ll show them how I set up my D’arce, or how I throw my lead uppercut.  It’s happened a few times at work, too, when I’m asked to conduct some kind of training or debrief around the way I handled something particularly effectively.

Of course, it’s not always a positive experience.  Sometimes it’s the opposite.  I’ve been responsible for a few safety briefs in my time—possibly because I handled something the way it shouldn’t have been handled and someone who saw me do it that way thought it was a good idea to repeat my process.  Anybody who has kids—or has spent time around kids—knows exactly how that goes.  We all inwardly groan when we see that child—or hear that child—do that thing they saw us do that we wish they had never seen us do.

I wish I could find a way to only reflect the best of me all of the time, because the best of me is the reflection of God in me.  My God is my source and my destination, and the very essence that I am built—designed—to reflect.  The light of God shines in me and on me.  I was created to reflect that light so that the world can see God in me because of His light in me.

No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, and it gives light for all who are in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:15-16) 

Sometimes it’s the damage that shines through.  I’m a terrible reflection of God, but for some reason He chooses to entrust me with His image.  I don’t get it.  It seems like a strange choice.  I don’t think I can be trusted with the glory of His image.  It’s too heavy a weight for me to hold on to, let alone distribute to others.  I am, at best, a cracked and distorted mirror that reflects a cracked and distorted version of the God whose light lives in me. 

Fortunately, God doesn’t think like me.  He knows I have lots of work to do, and He’s here to do it with me.  He knows that I’m a very shadowy reflection of all the things He is.  He’s not going to make excuses with me, but He’s full of grace for me.  In the meantime, while we’re doing the work, He’s going to keep shining His light on me so that I can reflect it to the world around me.

We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18) 

There are so many cracks and distortions in the way I reflect the light of God in me.  Reflections are contagious, unfortunately.  As I strive to reflect the image that God has given me to safeguard, I have a tendency to pass my flaws on to others.  I share my hurts as much as I share my light and far more than I share God’s light.

“Where did she learn that?”  I heard the voice of my coach and saw him just out of the corner of my eye.

He had made his way over to a match where I was coaching a student I had been working directly with for several weeks.  She was a good student and eager to learn.  She had decided to push herself by committing to a tournament and asked me to help get her ready for the day.  We worked hard, training technique and sparring frequently.  She had absorbed nearly everything I had to offer, including my bad habits.

I hadn’t realized that until now when I saw her surrender top position to set up a guillotine choke.  It’s something I do a lot.  I tend to give up dominance to chase a submission rather than maintaining the position.  She missed the guillotine choke—because that happens sometimes—and now she was on her back fighting defensively.

“Interesting,” my coach commented.  “That looked familiar.  Did you teach her how to escape from here?”

I hesitated.  “I hope so.”

It would be easy for me to decide that the reflection of God in me is not worthy to be seen by others.  It would be easy because it’s true.  I have little to offer the world around me.  My righteousness is but dirty rags—the image of God reflected in me is severely distorted.

I can’t help but demean the nature of the reflection of God that is in me.  I minimize it because I can’t help but know how flawed and imperfect it is.  A flawed and imperfect reflection is the only thing I have to offer.  I can’t be perfect.  I can’t be unflawed.  But maybe I can strive to be a little bit less of an imperfect reflection.

God is willing to work within the confines of my many flaws.  He knows they’re there.  I’m not fooling Him.  It’s easy for me to want to condemn myself for inadequacy, find a place to hide, and keep myself sequestered away where I can minimize the harm I do.  Buy maybe—just maybe—the harm I could do could be outsized by the light I might bring if I moved out of the shadows I have imposed upon myself.

Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self. You are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator. (Colossians 3:9-10) 

He’s become one of my favorite rolls.  He started training with me when he was in grade school.  Over time he has developed as both a grappler and as a young man.  At the age of 16 he started wrecking advanced divisions and black belt brackets.  For several years he was a student that I worked with, then, almost suddenly, he was a sparring partner helping me prepare for competition.  He knows everything I do—he does most of what I do, but he does it better.  He has taken everything I taught him and drilled it into near perfection.

But there’s more to it than that.  He’s using the things that I never taught him, too.  He and I have sparred with each other so many times that he has absorbed my best techniques and made them his own.  Now he’s running them against me.  It’s a beautifully frustrating thing to get tapped with the moves I do best.

In so many ways he’s the best sort of reflection of me.

Certainly, there are times when I reflect better than others.  Often those are the moments where I am under pressure or stress or dealing with something that has caused me an extreme measure of anxiety.  Strangely, in the times when I am the most fractured, I seem to have the opportunity to reflect the purest version of the image of God in me.  If I can somehow get in touch with the me that is who I am supposed to be—the vision that is God in me—then I might be able to reflect hope, peace, love, and all the pure things that originate in the image I reflect…even if I reflect it poorly.

In truth, the image of God is not dependent on the reflection that I manifest.  I’m simply not that important.  I don’t have the power or authority to tarnish the image of God.  It’s too big.  It’s too vast.  Because the image of God in me is not dependent on me, the image is dependent on its own self—a source that is mysteriously perfect in every way.

(Colossians 1:15)  He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

I can’t harm the image of God, but I can turn myself toward Him—toward that perfect source—in such a way that I might reflect His image in just a little bit purer of a form.  I was created to project the image of God when I was created in His image.  At the very heart of me lives that purpose, that drive, and that desire.  I long to be a perfect reflection of the perfect God whose image dwells inside of me.

(1 John 3:2)  Dear friends, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him because we will see Him as He is.

But I’m not there yet.  The ambition to perfection is an unattainable and unreachable standard in this lifetime.  Yet, still, it is an ambition that I must strive for, because the closer I move to the image I am destined to reflect, the more that image—not my version of the image, but the source of the image—will be reflected in the world around me. 

It’s going to be a long and difficult journey, because the image of God in me is being reflected on a cracked, broken, and severely damaged surface.  But none of those damages intimidate the original bearer of the image that I yearn to reflect.  While I reflect, those flaws begin to find healing because it’s impossible not to heal when reflecting the image of God.  God’s image is healing by nature.  The healing is going to be a process—the process of a lifetime.

The closer I find myself to the image of God, the brighter my own eyes begin to shine.  When my eyes are brightened I can see better and I can see more.  What I see is more of the image of God because I am just a little bit closer to it.

For now we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known. (1 Corinthians 13:12)