Reflections of the 30-for-30 Challenge

We’re one week into the 30-for-30 swordplay challenge and here are a few things I’ve been reflecting on:
The appeal of swordplay is broad. Participants who have been reporting to our group have been from all over the world including Russia, Serbia, Germany, France, Spain, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, N. Ireland, Brazil, and all over the US and Canada. There are participants in their teens all the way to their 70s. A strong representation of both men and women as well as fitness levels ranging from high level athletes to people rehabilitating from significant injuries.
Timezones are confusing. When you’re trying to have everyone report on a particular day’s progress, it’s challenging when half of them are already on tomorrow!
Accountability is powerful. (And it doesn’t require punishment to be effective.) Simply the act of telling someone else your goals, and then checking in with them regularly, can have a big impact on keeping you focused and moving you forward.
It’s important to forgive and forget. Roland Cooper summarized very nicely in his Day 6 post when he said “Worry less about making up lost time, and more about gaining momentum.” It’s easy to get mired in your failures instead of learning from them and moving on. The goal is to train everyday, the challenge is to keep training even when you fail.
Daily practice is a powerful thing. It’s a tired cliche, but only because it’s true enough to be repeated a lot: “Every great journey starts with a single step.” Every journey of mastery, every completion of the 10,000 hours of required practice, is done only through a consistent rhythm. Take a step everyday, enjoy the rhythm of those steps, and you’ll find yourself a long way down the road before you know it.
For those interested in solo drilling, we are posting a drill a day throughout the month of January. They’re going live to our youtube channel DuelloLearning and into the sidebar on Duello.TV. Feel free to share them with your training partners. If you have any requests let us know in the comments!
Good training everyone! See you at the end of week two.