I made a mistake
Published: Sat, 10/05/13
I made a mistake last week. I was fitting skirting board in a new
build extension and working from the highest point on the concrete
floor. I fitted the board dead level but this meant that by the
time I got to the door frame it was nearly an inch too high. So on
Monday I will have to adjust the skirting board by cutting a
section out of a significant length of the board so that it sits
low enough to be level at the top and meet the floor both sides of
the door frame. Of course it would be nice if the floor had been
laid level in the first place. However I should have expected it
to be uneven and worked out that the door way wasn't the
highest point. There is a way of doing this using a datum line and
that should have been my starting point rather than expecting the
floor to be even.
I had someone un-subscribe from my opt in list last night too. He
complained that my emails were too frequent and rather trivial.
His choice, I always say right at the beginning that opting out is
even easier than opting in. However if one has set up an opt in
list it is a bigger mistake not to mail to the subscribers
regularly than to be afraid of having people un-subscribe if you
do. It is the same with the Facebook group, people do remove
themselves quite often, but that is good, at least there is enough
going on that the group is hard to ignore.
Mistakes are interesting in a martial arts context. From a
self-defence point of view exploiting a mistake made by an opponent
is often your best chance whether they have left their guard down,
lost their balance or simply underestimated your determination to
fight back. When teaching Stav it is important to pick up
people's mistakes and correct them before bad habits develop in
training. Sometimes I know what is going on without even directly
looking at what a student is doing. I can pick up an error from
the corner of my eye and know immediately what is happening.
Another time I might have to give or receive several attacks before
I can see clearly what is going wrong and correct it. The main
benefit of an experienced teacher who can see the lines of the web
is that they can not just show you training techniques but correct
the errors which come with not yet seeing the web. As your ability
to see the lines develops you will have more chance of exploiting a
mistake an opponent makes should you need to defend yourself. But
what if your opponent is so good that they don't make mistakes?
Well, if they are that good they should have better things to do
than going around making trouble, at least one would hope so anyway.
Anyway, what is the expression? "He who has never made a
mistake has probably never made anything." I am afraid I
can't remember who is supposed to have said it but I am going
to risk making the mistake of annoying you by giving a final
reminder that this is your last chance to join Ice and Fire at the
reduced rate of £15 per month. http://www.iceandfire.org.uk/join.html
regards
Graham
PS Next week I have a story which I often find helpful for avoiding
some basic mistakes. It does involve an animal, but not
electricity.