About one month ago I invited the students in the dojo to take on a mindfulness challenge.
While going about my day, cleaning and getting ready for our kids martial arts classes, I had noticed a red spot. It wasn’t big, and it was in a curious place. I wondered how it got there. For a moment I thought it was blood, but it was too bright, like the color of a red marker. Then I wondered how long it had been there. I hadn’t noticed it in the 3 previous years; was it new? This spot was a mystery to me. So I decided to give the students an extra credit opportunity: find the red spot.
My goal was to help raise the level of mindfulness and awareness of anyone who participated. In order to help them find the specific spot, I gave a few parameters. I told the students it wasn’t on the mats (on any given day there are spots of every color rubbing off of sparring gear, nail polish from ground fighting, etc.). I didn’t want to drive everyone crazy. I also told them it wasn’t in the changing rooms or hidden underneath something. It wasn’t on a book or wall scroll. It was just a red spot somewhere apparent and permanent in the dojo.
Two seconds after I mentioned the red spot, sitting in line at the end of class, everybody would begin wandering around the room with their eyes. Every single time I talked about it. It never occurred to most people that if they hadn’t found it the last ten times by haphazardly looking around, they probably wouldn’t this time either. A few weeks in, it become clear to me that this was more of a challenge than I thought.
