Ozbots

Filipino video? Check. Lit paper? Check. Math orals? Check. English Research Paper? Check. Reflection Paper? Uh……

In our world today, it doesn’t matter what walk of life you come from, we all face tedious jobs, mind-numbing assignments and exhausting projects. And to add to that, each have their own ticking time bombs waiting to blow up in your face any minute. These bombs clog and block our well-planned weekend and instead of being able to visit the local mall, we end up visiting the local bookstore to buy paper, glue sticks and glitters for our project. After that field trip to the bookstore, we are detained in our rooms, typing, editing, solving till the wee hours of the morning. And once we’re done, we end up wondering, “How do other people end up having better creations than mine without even having to break a sweat?

I believe, that answer to that question that they have heart. And no, I’m not saying that we are ice queens or kings, rather the main difference would be that they treat their tasks as gold while we look at ours as coal. They treat their works as their lovers while we look at ours as our masters.

There have been many times in my past when I have discovered this love, though I always end up letting it slip from my memory and my heart every single time. As I write this paper, I feel that it is calling back to me once more; I feel that love once again trying to set me free.

When I was a still young boy in high school, I was recruited by my then classmate and friend to join the high school Judo team. At first I was a little apprehensive since Judo was a rough and tough sport and I did not want to hurt my fragile body but in the end, with an eager heart and an agitated body, I made my way to the Dojo. I was a little shocked at first with the bone-crushing and backbreaking drills and exercises but I just told myself to endure these pains and hardships and that all these would pass. But I was wrong, dead wrong. Training became harder and harder but I also felt that someway somehow little by little I was beginning to adapt. My body was becoming stronger but my heart was becoming weaker. I was losing the interest that I possessed at first and slowly I was distancing myself away from the sport. I trained and stayed not because I wanted to, I hanged on to be able to save face and not be called a ‘wuss’ by my team mates. But even though I stayed, my game was slowly starting to decline; it did not even reach a high level but because of my lack of love for the game, I was becoming worse and worse at it. All these happened when I was in third year.

Summer came and we had summer training which I rarely attended due to many different reasons. They ranged from a family dinner to a dentist appointment to an injured back mid-section to a review class. Some of which were true and some invented to be able to escape the claws of training. Summer went by and I only attended about two or three our of almost thirty training sessions.

 Fourth year arrived and I must admit that I missed training. I missed the intoxicating smell of the mats and I longed for the feel of the rough and bumpy feel of our ‘gi’. I missed being thrown down on the floor with a thud and throwing other people around as well. I counted down the days till training day came. Months turned into weeks and weeks into days. Finally, the day of reckoning has come! The moment I stepped onto the mats and gave my respects to Jigoro Kano, the founder of Judo, and my coaches, I wanted to blow up and explode with all the emotions that filled me. I felt happy, sad, excited, scared, anguished for not training in the summer and most important of all I felt the love. I felt the love that I lost a year ago and I felt the sport calling back to me once more.

With that love present in my heart, training for me became a breeze. It did not become easy on my body, in fact it got a lot more intense than before, but I just did not get easily bothered with the stinging pain. I looked forward to the next training session even if my body has not yet fully recuperated from the beating I took the night before. I became better and when the day of a big tournament came, I was not nervous at all. I trusted in myself and believed that I had enough skills that would enable me to perform and be the very best that I could be. When the dust settled down, I was the champion for my weight class and I give most of the credit to my love of the sport.

Love for Judo made me realize that to be able to achieve excellence, not only in sports but in almost anything, one must be able to do it with love and passion. Without that love, you would only feel burdened by the task at hand and it would reflect on your performance. A life without that love for living could be compared to a pen without ink, a rose without its scent, a sky without its stars, a beach without its sand, and to a person without a soul.

If a person loves to do one thing, he or she will not feel the negative effects of that action. Instead, only the positive effects become evident and these would be the only things that person would feel. There might even come a time when loving something so much removes the do in doing.