Reaction vs Action

I always believe that lessons in martial arts should be applied to life, so bear with me and my observations. I was watching one of our athletes sparing in the ring, and even thought he was doing fine, it wasn’t what I was looking for. He would wait for his partner to attack, than attack afterwards. He was pretty good as a counter fighter, sometimes even using Bruce Lee’s Attack By Drawing method really well, but unless my athlete knocked out his opponent, he would lose by Judges’ decision. After a few modifications in strategy, our athlete was more aggressive and with both tools under his belt, aggressiveness and counter fighting, he did well, recently winning all fights. Being reactive in the ring will barely win you the gold. You also have to know how to push the action, force your opponent into a difficult position, and make them commit to a mistake. This is something that also has to be done in life. You can coast through every day, “REACTING” to events around you, never achieving your goals and dreams. Just like in the ring, you also have to be more active in life. After all, just like Anderson Silva stated “The toughest opponent is life”. Jd