I was reading earlier about friendship and came across an interesting article in a psychology paper.
The thirteen essential traits of friendship. The fact that people have decided that exactly 13 traits are required for a good friend is quite fascinating, or at least it is to me (you of course are free to think otherwise). So I have decided I will share this fascinating information with all of you and show you how it relates to all of us (including you of course) here at MAC.
The First High 5
These ones I think are a great start to mention martial arts, I realise I haven’t told you them yet though so please just bear with me. An extremely important word in martial arts, as is evident from the fact that it is written in big grey letter on the wall in every MAC academy:
INTEGRITY
The first 5 are:
- Trustworthy
- Honesty
- Dependable
- Loyal
- Trusting
If any of these are missing from a friend can you really class them anything more than an acquaintance? would you honestly like being around someone you couldn’t trust? All adults know how difficult it can be to unravel a truth from a lie. Imagine having to do this every single time you met a particular person. That precious energy could be used elsewhere, for example, (and this is a suggest straight from the top of my head) training on the mat with friendly people.
The second set
The word that covers these isn’t written on the wall, but it’s the only word I can think of that covers these well (unless you can think of another word, and I’m more than open to suggestions).
CARING
These traits need discipline, a word of which is written on the wall.
The second set:
- Empathy
- Non-judgemental
- Good listener
- Supportive in good times
- Supportive in bad times
Let’s face it, if you train martial arts you really do need these. It’s always nice to have support along the journey to anything, and of course the journey to the black belt is no exception.
‘The journey to black belt is your own, but it doesn’t mean you have to travel it alone’
Last but not least
People need to be around positive people. If you have spent more than 2 minutes with people that can only be described as an energy drain (and once again think where that energy could be going instead), you will understand.
The final trinity of friendship:
- Self-confident
- Seeing humour in life
- Fun
Fun people are fun to be around, this of course does not mean foolish people. Not every situation in life needs to be looked at in a negative way. It’s good to have someone there or be there for someone else to see the funny side of some situations. It also helps deal with those too.
Me personally, I have taken all my black belt gradings with 3 other people, and the last one was rightfully the hardest but also the most fun. They made it fun to do it, and so it made that belt much more important for me overall.
So find yourself friendship in training at MAC and that will inevitably bring you much more moments of happiness and so much more of your training will be with you for life.