Spirit Challenges: Planned or Not, How we Meet Them Define Us

from the April, 2009 issue of Kiai!

by Pat Broughton, Chair of the TW Board of Directors

Spirit Challenge: A difficult and sometimes seemingly overwhelming event or circumstance, either pre-arranged or spontaneous, that is physically, emotionally, and/or mentally taxing.

Some people seem to be genetically drawn to spirit challenges. They walk 220+ miles on the John Muir Trail. They ride their bicycles across the state of Iowa. They swim in the Arctic Ocean. They delight in pushing beyond their perceived limits. They appear to experience an unadulterated joy in confronting a spirit challenge head on.

There are others (like me) who don’t like particularly spirit challenges. We don’t like being pushed out of our comfort zone, and we don’t like being taxed beyond what we perceive as our limits. And why, we wonder, would anyone deliberately and willingly plan and take on a spirit challenge? Life seems quite challenging enough, thank you, without intentionally adding to the difficulty.

My time at Thousand Waves has brought me answers to this question. For one, I have come to understand that life gives us spirit challenges, whether we welcome them or not. (Some might even say that life itself is a spirit challenge.) Those spirit challenges take many forms: for one it is breast cancer, for another the sudden death of a parent, for a third the loss of a job. For martial artists, a spirit challenge might be an injury that keeps us from training vigorously, fear that threatens to derail our sparring, or competing demands that make it difficult to find time to train regularly.

Since we are inevitably faced with spirit challenges, our choice becomes whether we accept this reality, and what we do to prepare ourselves for them. Because we can deliberately take on spirit challenges that will train and strengthen our body, our mind and our spirit so we are more prepared to face life’s unanticipated spirit challenges.

Right now Thousand Waves members and supporters are invited to participate in our 3rd annual Spirit Challenge – a series of physical challenges paired with the fiscal challenge of raising money to support Thousand Waves’ mission. Here is an opportunity to test ones limits and to discover the satisfaction that comes from pushing past those limits.

The past two Spirit Challenges have given me the opportunity to discover a new love. For Thousand Waves’ 2006 Spirit Challenge, I took on the 30-mile bike challenge. I’d never ridden more than a few miles on my bike – certainly nothing close to 30. I joined the Evanston Bike Club. During my summer training rides I discovered the joy of riding with a group. And I discovered enchanted places in Chicago I didn’t know existed. Even before I did the final 30-mile ride, I felt rewarded.

In 2007 I decided to tackle the 50-mile Spirit Challenge bike ride. Over the course of four months I rode 360 training miles, mostly with the Evanston Bike Club. One carefree sunny day, about a month before the actual ride, I took the day off from work, and hopped on my bike. I rode south from my Evanston home along the North Shore Channel Trail, and then turned west and north to ride the North Branch Trail through the Cook County Forest Preserve all the way to the Botanic Garden and home again – 41 miles in all. I delighted in the freedom I felt on my bike, and my ability to cover that many miles. My final 50-mile ride was exhausting – and exhilarating.

This year I’ve taken on the challenge of training for the 3-mile run. Some (particularly those who run regularly) say running three miles isn’t difficult. But I’ve never run even close to a mile, never mind three. So once again, I’m a beginner. My first training “run” consisted of jogging 60 seconds, followed by walking 90 seconds, for a total of 20 minutes. So I actually “ran” only 8 minutes. But you know what? It was a start. Most recently I ran for 3 minutes – progress!

So here’s my challenge to you: Take on something in Thousand Waves’ 2009 Spirit Challenge that you’re not quite certain you can do (or maybe are convinced you can’t do). That might be running 3 miles – or six– or nine. It might be engaging in 50 minutes of sparring or pre-sparring and conditioning. It could be 45 minutes (or an hour and a half) of continuous kata. And take on the fiscal challenge of raising $200 – or $1,000 – to support Thousand Waves’ mission.

Because here’s another piece of the truth I’ve come to understand: our character is forged during the spirit challenges of our life. Those tough times temper our rough edges and knit together the ragged pieces of our souls. They make us a little stronger, a little more resilient, a little more confident. So it behooves us to willingly take on Spirit Challenges, to willingly push ourselves to our physical, emotional and mental limits, so that we can discover reserves of power and strength and stamina and determination that we didn’t know we had.

Osu!