Vulnerabilities

Give me the gift of your vulnerability and I will galvanize you into something undefeatable

I heard this from a very influential and well-known teacher with international influence.  He had a lot of good information.  He also had PowerPoint slides—so many of them.  My brain had a lot of time to think about this while I tried to pretend I was paying attention to the material my workplace had paid for.  My thoughts did what they tend to do when left unsupervised—they led me down strange paths.

“Ok, then,” he said.  “Go get your gloves.  Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”

His words flashed a spark of anxiety from inside of me.  I knew how good he was and I knew how good I was.  I knew he was better than me—a lot better than me.  He was an elite coach and fighter with a great reputation.  I would have never dreamed of asking someone of his caliber for help, but he was also a personal friend to one of my coaches who had made a phone call. 

I had shown up at his academy like I had been told to do.  I walked in and introduced myself.  I told him I was here because my coach (his friend) thought he might be able to give me some pointers about the way I fought.  He had already talked to my coach.  He didn’t need to know why I was there, but I guess it made me feel better to tell him.

“First I have to see how you fight,” he told me.

That made sense.

“Ok, then,” he said.  “Go get your gloves.  Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”

I did as I had been told.  I  grabbed my sparring gear and walked onto the mats.  He gave me just a few minutes to stretch and warm up before waving me over.  It was time to get to work.

“What are we doing?” I asked, just a little (a lot) apprehensively.

“Fighting,” he said simply.

We got to work.  No timers, no rounds, just work.  I pawed a couple of jabs toward him, followed by a light right cross.  I was doing my best to spar with control.  I kept my hands open in my gloves, working my light-contact punches and kicks.  That’s when he stopped me.

“I said that we’re fighting,” he glowered.  “I’m not sure what this dance class stuff is, but it’s not fighting.”

“I’m trying not to be the guy who trains without control.”

“Well, I need you to be the guy who fights me like I told you to,” he countered.  “If you don’t fight me, I don’t get to see how you fight and I’m no good to you.”

My mind has an annoying ability to write scripts into the future for things that haven’t happened yet—or might not ever happen.  I knew he was a lot better than me.  If I escalated our pace and he returned in kind he was going to hurt me.  I knew that he could hurt me easily.  He was that much better than me.

But I was here so he could make me better.  I had been told that he could change the entire trajectory of my career.  But he could only change it if I did what he told me to do.  I had to be willing to fight him.  I had to take a risk and believe that he wasn’t going to injure me or hurt me.  I had to believe that he was going to keep his ego in check and act as the teacher I was told he would be.

I can’t pretend that the idea of actually fighting him didn’t terrify me, but I made the choice to do what he said.  I started throwing.  I added intention to my punches.  I snapped kicks with authority.  I set up takedowns and worked my ground game with precision.

Of course, he destroyed me.

He was better than me, a lot better than me.  It scarcely took him moments to exploit my vulnerabilities.  He was timing my movement, slipping my punches, and stuffing my takedowns.  He put me on my back and finished with punches and submissions.  He proved how much better he was.

He could have ruined me.  He could have hurt or injured me.  That wasn’t his purpose in our session.  As we trained, he began to identify my weaknesses—the way I carried my left hand too low, or how I allowed my chin to come off my chest when I jabbed.  He would start to verbalize my errors—"keep that hand up, get your chin down”—then he would touch me with punches when I failed to heed his advice.  He hit me just enough that I got the message but never so much that I couldn’t stay in the fight.

I started to learn, almost by accident.  He applied just the right amount of pressure to force me to hear what he was telling me.  It wasn’t a painless session, by any means.  He pretty much beat me up, but he beat me up with purpose.  When we were done, I was a better fighter than I had been at the start.

I had chosen vulnerability.  I had chosen to trust him as a coach and I had reaped benefit.  I had chosen to let him shape me as a fighter and trust that he had my best interest at heart.  Over the years to follow, I would keep choosing to trust him as a coach, and as a friend.  Over many more years my choice would continue to reap benefits.

Better an open reprimand than concealed love.  The wounds of a friend are trustworthy, but the kisses of an enemy are excessive. (Proverbs 27:5-6) 

A few days ago, I was asked to identify significant moments in my recent life history—ones that changed my faith the moment they happened.  I put a little thought into it and realized that the most pivotal instances were all moments when I had chosen vulnerability.

Honestly, I am not good at vulnerability.  It’s not something I do naturally.  I have a hard time trusting other people with my safety—spiritual, emotional, or physical.  I tend to curate who I choose to be vulnerable with and how I choose to be vulnerable in those relationships.  I work hard to expose just enough of my weakness that I won’t lose respect or, maybe even more importantly, won’t earn pity.  I hate the idea of being pitied, but I want compassion as much as anybody else.  I share only enough of myself that I can engineer the results I think I want to receive.

I build up facades and walls so that I can present a pretty picture of who I am—someone recently told me that they sensed me to be calm on the exterior but in turmoil in the interior.  They were almost perfectly right.  Honestly, I think I’m good at the façade.  I present an excellent forward-facing meme of the person I really am.  I’m like a drama kid playing a version of myself on stage.  I have a pocketful of canned lines I can speak so that people believe I’ve got everything together.  I hide my pain behind a smile, my hurt behind movement, and my struggles behind disguise.

Since you put away lying, Speak the truth, each one to his neighbor, because we are members of one another. (Ephesians 4:25) 

I strive to hide my true self from others because I’ve been injured by others so many times.

My younger days as a martial artist were much different than they are now.  In my youth, MMA and BJJ were new on the world stage and the idea that I might someday compete professionally wasn’t even real enough to be a dream.  I was training in a Filipino martial art that involved fighting with sticks.

This wasn’t the kind of art that my training partners and I drilled maliciously.  Sticks hurt and sticks injure.  They cause pain that makes people not want to train anymore.  We worked flow drills of a sort and dance moves of another sort, streaming through simulated battles and routines that allowed us to perfect our movements with minimal injury.

One of my instructors didn’t think that was good enough.  He was a renowned almost-famous teacher—the sort whose name appeared in magazines and instructional videos.  I had started training with him when my Guro (that’s what we called instructors in the Filipino martial arts) partnered with him to start a new academy.

I arrived for class one night and realized that nobody else was there—it was just me and my instructor.  He popped out of his office and looked around, recognizing that it was just the two of us.  I think I ignored it then because I so badly wanted to believe the best about him, but I know that he was drunk at the time.  He had a thing for the strip club down the street.

He waited a few minutes to see if anyone else was going to arrive, then said, “get your sticks.  Let’s stick spar.”

I wasn’t really into the full-contact stick-fighting thing.  It hurt. I was young and poor and didn’t have insurance.  But I was also the sort of person who did what his instructors told him to do, so I got my sticks.

We saluted in the way that stick fighters salute and we started moving through some of the patterns and movements that I knew.  It wasn’t too bad at first.  There’s a certain flow to fighting with sticks that I truly enjoy.  I was intercepting and countering, moving my feet and finding a groove.  For a moment I was having a good time.

That changed abruptly.

He wasn’t satisfied with flowy movements.  He wanted to fight.  He wanted to fight with sticks.  He started rapping at my knuckles with the tip of his weapons (we wore hockey gloves when he sparred).  Whenever I made a mistake, he would hit my hands.  The gloves only protected so much, but they covered enough to dull the pain so I could keep sparring.

Before I understood what was happening the pace accelerated.  He was firing strikes with an intentionality that made it clear we weren’t playing.  He was far better than me and I was not ready for this speed.  Before I could defend, he lashed out with a hard strike to my left elbow that sent shocks of electricity all the way through my fingers.  My hand involuntarily spasmed opened and I dropped the stick I was holding in that hand.

This would have been a place for a good instructor to pause (that place would have been much earlier, actually).  But he didn’t see it as a place to pause.  He saw it as a place to attack.  He came at me on that left side—I had no stick to defend and my arm was numb.  I tried to use my right-hand stick, but I hadn’t been training long enough to learn how to overcome pain enough to defend in a situation like that.  He cracked the meat of my thigh with this next strike, then whipped the tip of that stick toward my head, causing me to stumble back to the floor where I turtled into a fetal position as a couple more strikes rained down on my defenseless body.

I didn’t like sparring with sticks anymore.

He hadn’t been there to teach me.  He’d been there to hurt me.  He’d been intoxicated and out of control (It’s worth noting that he has very much matured over the years.  Like most of us, he’s not the same person he used to be).  I had given him the gift of my vulnerability, and he had treated it with contempt.

I know how it feels to be betrayed by someone I trusted with my vulnerability.

At my first defense, no one stood by me, but everyone deserted me. May it not be counted against them. (2 Timothy 4:16) 

There are so many times on this life journey of mine where I’ve tried to convince myself that I can get better, grow, and heal without the benefit of sharing my life with others.  I try to sequester and isolate, holding myself away and out of sight of those who might do me harm.  I don’t necessarily sit myself in a dark room and stare at the wall, but I hide myself away behind routines and excuses.;

Others are the face of God on this planet.  They are what He has given me as a reflection of Himself, flawed though they may be.  I know full well that every one is a fractured reflection that can only reflect the love of God in the most misshapen of ways.  Despite being a reflection of God, their imperfections can still cause damage.

I eschew vulnerability because I know there’s risk of being hurt, harmed, or injured.  I know there’s a chance that I might be taken advantage of.  It’s possible that I might give the gift of my vulnerability only to have that gift treated as refuse.  I become very uncomfortable with the fact that, if I truly become vulnerable, I’m going to cry.  When I cry, I feel weak. 

But that doesn’t mean I should stop choosing vulnerability. 

White belts are interesting to roll with.  He had come to visit my academy with his professor, who was a friend of mine.  It had been a good open mat with some hard rounds.  As the session was winding down, I beckoned him over to get a few minutes of sparring.

He was still new, so I wasn’t going hard.  I kept the pace slow to give him room to work.  I maneuvered myself into an open-guard and began applying pressure lightly to encourage movement.  I knew I was better than him, but that wasn’t important.  I had nothing to prove.

I had a grip on his collar when I heard his coach from somewhere behind me, “hey, you’re going to have to do something about that grip.”

It was good advice from a good coach.  I saw his student’s eyes flicker toward him, and I knew he was listening.  That’s a skill of it’s own—learning to listen to your coach.  I loosed my grip just a little bit to give this young white belt a chance to follow the instructions given by his professor.

With a nuclear sort of force, that he grabbed my hand with both of his own, ripping the grip from his collar.  I had relaxed my grip to allow him space, but I had loosened it only just enough that my finger was still caught in the fabric of his gi.  He ripped at my hand with far more force than necessary (I was giving him the technique), yarding my hand away while my finger remained trapped by the fabric of his collar.

I felt ligaments stretch to the point of tearing.  I’ve been injured enough to know what the future of that finger held—it held a lot of pain.  I felt it begin to swell.  I had chosen to expose myself just a little bit and now I was going to pay for it with several weeks of recuperation.

Hurt happens in community.  That’s the nature of community.  I’ve hurt plenty of people myself.  I’ve treated their vulnerability with contempt, whether knowingly or unknowingly.  Just a few days ago, I found out I had recently offended someone without knowing.  I hate being the guy who has done that to someone, probably because I know how it feels to have it done to me.

I’m not here to give advice to anybody.  This is simply a place where I tell myself the things that I’ve been hiding from myself.  This is one of the things I had to tell myself.  I have to tell myself to choose vulnerability, because vulnerability is not a thing I choose easily.  Vulnerability, however, is the only place where I am going to grow.

I recognize that I must be judicious about who I choose to give my vulnerability to.  After all, my vulnerability is a gift that could be misused.  It could be used to hurt me.

Just the other day, while all of this was spinning in my mind (funny how that works in God’s economy), I was approached by one of the white belts who trains at my academy.  He was sweaty after a morning of hard work.  I was sweaty, too.  It was a good morning like that.

“Can I ask you a question?” he queried, just on the edge of being out of breath.

“Of course.”

“How do I get better at this stuff fast?”

I really had to think about that for a minute.  How can we get better at this Jiu-jitsu stuff faster?

Pay attention during class…sure.  Do what your Professor says…sure.  Train the technique to perfection…sure.

But then it struck me.  What do all the greats have in common?  What have I had when I was able to get better faster?

“It’s about your training partners,” I replied after a few moments.  “If you have the right training partners you will get better in a fraction of the time.”

The right partners push me—always hard enough but never too hard.  They keep me right on the edge between success and failure, never pushing so hard that they injure me but never so little that I prematurely think I’ve figured it out.  I give them the gift of my vulnerability, and they treasure it in a way that burns like a fuel that jettisons me forward faster than I could ever achieve alone.

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The urgent request of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect. (James 5:16) 

Vulnerability is hard.  It’s really hard.  It makes me uncomfortable because it makes me feel weak and exposed.  I hate both of those feelings.

But it’s the only way—yes, the only way—that I’m ever going to grow closer to the target of who I’m supposed to be on this planet.  I can’t do it by myself locked in a room, locked in a routine, or locked in a space where I get to control every variable of the human condition.  I’ve tried all those things.  They don’t help.  They all hurt.  They all injure.

My brain is a liar, and it will always choose the easiest option.  I wasn’t made for the easy options.  There’s no growth in easy options.  If I choose to hoard my vulnerability I will get exactly what I deserve—absolutely nothing.  In vulnerability I find invulnerability with the allies I acquire along my vulnerable journey. 

Not too long ago I found myself sitting in a circle of seats in a small group of wonderful people.  I friend of mine had convinced me that I needed to become part of this group and I had decided to embrace something outside of my norm—I had decided to listen to someone else’s wisdom. 

This group was a group of people I probably would never have sought out on my own.  Every one of them was way different than me.  When I started meeting with them I made a deliberate choice—I decided that I was going to be completely vulnerable, no matter how much my mind resisted.  I chose to choose vulnerability.

Here I was, a few weeks later, wrestling with all kind of challenges in my current state of life, when one of those beautiful allies began sharing her own vulnerability.

It wrecked me.

I began sharing my vulnerability, because her vulnerability triggered a deep vulnerability in me.  Someone else shared their vulnerability and we couldn’t stop.  Our vulnerability burned as it expanded and we bared our hearts.  Yes, I cried.

We all left that place stronger and better.  In our shared vulnerability we found a strength beyond imagination.

Therefore, God's chosen ones, holy and loved, put on heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, accepting one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a complaint against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. (Colossians 3:12-13) 

It wasn’t quite a fight, but it wasn’t not a fight.  We were moving through positions and transitions with defined intensity.  He was giving me just enough resistance to keep me honest, but not so much that I couldn’t stay in the fight.  He managed to land some solid blows, and I managed to touch him with a few of my own.  It was almost a perfect match—the perfect pace, the perfect resistance.  He was exposing my weaknesses and forcing me to address them. We were both learning from one another in the most active ways possible.  It was exhausting, but it was beautiful.

When it was finally time to be done, we both let out a simultaneous sigh.  It had been a tough session, but it had totally been worth it.

“We’ll have to do this again soon,” he said.  “I learn so much from you.”

“I learn a lot from you, too,” I replied.  “I really needed this today.”

“Then let’s do it again soon.  Like, maybe next week.”

“Definitely,” I agree as I pull out my wallet to pay for lunch.  “Let’s do Mexican next time.”

Carry one another's burdens; in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. (Galatians 6:2)