When you make a mistake and flub something, what do you do? Do you stop and start over? Or do you just keep going?

Whatever you do, it’s been my experience that most people always do the same thing no matter the context. Today I write to say we need to consider how we recover from mistakes and choose the right approach based upon the context.

For example, I was doing dry-fire practice working on drawing my pistol from a concealment holster. Typical ways to flub the draw are the shirt doesn’t get out of or remains in the way, or your strong hand gets a poor initial grip. What do you do? As soon as you notice the flub do you stop and start over? or do you acknowledge the flub but proceed and work to recover from it to still reach your end goal? I used to stop and start over, but now I want to keep going. My reasoning? If the day comes and my life is on the line, I could well flub things. In a situation like that, what should my ingrained response be? Recover and move on? Or go “damnit! I screwed up!” reholster and ask for a do-over? I don’t think the latter is reasonable for the situation, so the only option is to recover and move on. Thus I must train myself to acknowledge the flub (must know what went wrong so I know what course of action to take to recover) then immediately recover from it, keeping my cool the whole time. This is the response I would want to have if my life depended upon it, so that’s how I must train.

Let’s consider my martial arts practice, specifically working on forms. If I was working on a form because I was entering a competition, I’d probably want to train myself to recover and move on. You’re performing, and the show must go on! But these days I do not participate in martial arts tournaments, so if I’m working on a form it’s because I want to get it correct, because there’s something in my own body and soul I wish to feel. Plus I’ve been away from Kuk Sool for almost a year and I admit some things are slipping my mind. Thus stopping and fixing is fine for me here because the context may dictate it (i.e. I forgot) or perhaps because I came to a point in my practice where I realized something and wish to focus on it. My goals here are different, and how I contend with mistakes must serve the end goal.

This reminds me of when I was in undergrad and played in a rock band. We were doing some basement recordings. We only had so much tape, so when we’d screw up I’d tell the guy running the board “Rewind and erase that.”  But he never listened to me and kept tape rolling. In my mind there was no point in keeping bad takes, especially when we had a finite amount of tape. However I’m glad he kept the tape rolling because it captured some gems. Looking back I can say we should have handled it both ways. When we’re working out a new song, sure we have to stop when mistakes are made because we’re still learning. But once the song is known, when we’re doing rehearsals for gigs, just keep going… unexpected things could happen during the gig and we wouldn’t come to a halt on stage, so practice accordingly.

Be clear on your end goal(s) and ensure you work towards it. One part we overlook is how we handle our mistakes. The way we handle our mistakes may need to change based upon the context, so be sure to analyze, figure out the plan, and behave accordingly… especially as you practice. Train yourself to handle your mistakes as the context dictates. Your life may depend upon it.