Continuous improvement believes that if something is perfect, it can be done better.
Recently, I watched the Olympics, have done so for many years and always made sure never to miss the premier event: the 100 meter dash. In the past, Jessie Owens, Bob Hayes, Carl Lewis and Usain Bolt won Gold Medals and earned world records that, in increments, bettered the standards. They were extra ordinary, the best, and the world expected stronger and faster.
The Games were good for that. Records fell, new heroes climbed the podium and sang their national anthems. These super-like human beings accomplished the impossible, in doing so required talent, dedication, sacrifice and hard work beyond comprehension.
Rewards fed the fever and the Bob Beamons, Mark Spitz, Michael Phelps and Usain Bolts demolished what were the best and achieving performance levels perhaps never to be out done.
This act of self denial and perfection means is that someone will change the world even more.
In my other blog http://www.babyboomersensei.blogspot.com I've logged multiple hits on a post I wrote regarding seniors deciding to take martial arts. (see http://babyboomersensei.blogspot.com/2012/03/baby-boomers-and-martial-arts.html)
I did it right by starting martial arts training when I was in college: flexible, strong, athletic and injury free. Now in my late 60’s complete with artritic joints and old age, I can relate to the challenges of attempting an activity like karate.
Learning or persuing something new as a senior is not that impossible.
It's not as easy as when you were younger. Concepts like Lean Six Sigma on older established companies face similar barriers. Management and employees adverse to change are like the arthritic joints and atrophied muscles in a badly abused body screaming bloody murder when forced to execute unfamiliar movements and techniques.
As a karate instructor, I noticed parents day-after-day would sit by the side and observe classes, making sure their children were being taken care of. I never could figure it out; it's like they can't tell me how to teach or anything. Later I realize that, as bystanders, they were learning techniques as non-participant observers. Japanese karate, compared to other martial arts, wasn't that difficult, few variations with a lot of repetition. Once basic kihons and katas were learned, training was routine and at times boring. So while sitting those many sessions by the side, learning, of sorts, did occur.
As time passed when children become adults, parents transitioned into senior citizens saying it's their time after all those years of sitting on the bench to achieve karate black belts as part of their check on a bucket list.
Anything is possible.
World and personal records aren’t broken by being happy with status quo, it's acheived by believing in the mindset that the impossible is possible, and that unbroken things can be made better.
And please, if something is broken, use the right tool for the right job to fix it.
