Our lives are governed by several factors. Two of those are our gender and our race. The third and possibly most important is personality. The yin-n-yang of personality is the spectrum of introversion to extraversion. Where we fall in that spectrum says a great deal about such things as choosing our friends and mates. It governs how we make conversation, resolve differences, and it affects what career's we choose - mostly.
Our personalities have a lot to do with how likely we are to exercise, function well without sleep and I suggest when subjected to adrenaline dumps and emotional effects. It can have great effect on how we learn from our mistakes, become a leader, and ask such questions that are "What if" questions. One third to one half of people in the west are introverts. Introverts are known to embrace the inner world of self.
Do introverts make good martial artists? Introverts posing as extraverts may actually be the most dedicated and long term practitioners of not only martial arts disciplines but most disciplines of human kind. The difference is they tend to be more involved in the smaller close-knit groups often referred to as the back yard dojo with three to five participants.
The introverted karate-ka tends to avoid self promotion and fall into a "thinker" category. They can and do take on an extraverted model but you may find them also seeking out a more reclusive state to recharge, to build up the batteries of energy depleted by extraversion activities.
It can be important for personalities to take stock of their own talents and no more so than those who are introverts. It does not mean extraverts don't have a need to take stock but it is important to understand how that part of personality affects all the things we do.
Is it possible that deescalation may be better suited to the introvert vs. the extravert? Introverts as inner thinkers may have a unique approach to things like negotiations. They tend to practice and prepare more than the seemingly gifted extraverts.
Introversion and extraversion spectrum of personality can provide many answers to not only the individual practitioner but the leaders as well. A good example is for extraverts conducting larger group driven practices may benefit them more while the introverts will in all likelihood do better in much smaller individualized type practices.
2 comments:
Hmm ... Being an introvert and 2nd Dan in ChangMuKwan/WTF, I'm going to step out on my limb and state IMHO, but with very high probability, that you will be very hard pressed to find an introvert running a MacDojo.
MacDojo's probably require a lot of Extroverted Thinking, Interaction, & Execution especially in locales with direct competition from other MacDojo's, and especially now with MMA in the Martial Arts Soup.
I recently read that Chojun Miyagi typically would only have a few students at any given time.
So, can we can assume Chojun Miyagi was an Introvert ?
On the other hand, what I've read about Choki Motobu leads me to believe he may have been an Extrovert.
Sokon Matsumura ??? Probably an Introvert who developed and exercised highly effective leadership qualities.
I think most people would describe me as an introvert but I'm happy to train in a large class. I suppose when you are doing solo work such as kihon or kata you are on your own anyway however big the class is and when you are doing partner work, then, by definition, there's only two of you! What I'm no good at is team games but I suppose that fits your theory....
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