In the Quiet, There Is Awkwardness
Maybe good isn't good enough
I’ve been training a long time.
About 16,770 hours—which comes out to roughly two years on the mat without stepping off.
For many people, after that much time, the goal becomes clear.
They want to feel good.
Or look good while training.
They want their technique to be flawless.
I have a different goal.
My goal is to feel my awkwardness—and to grow from it.
To me, that is very different from having a goal of being better, stronger, prettier, or faster.
Those goals feel more aligned with jutsu than with do.
I use the word awkwardness intentionally.
Not wrongness.
Awkwardness.
Wrong suggests something to fix—a discrete problem that can be refined and overcome.
It also suggests there is a right.
Awkwardness suggests something to feel.
A kind of awareness that lets me know there is still room for growth.
As I continue to train, my awkwardness does become less.
But it never disappears.
I keep finding it—in smaller and more subtle places.
That’s the point.
If I stop finding it, I’ve probably stopped looking.
I’ve created an engraven image.
To stay in contact with that awkwardness, I have to find quiet.
A kind of quiet that lets me notice what is actually happening, instead of what I think should be happening.
In that quiet, awkwardness is not a problem.
It becomes a guide.
And in following it, there is growth.
Scott, your mentioning of staying in contact with that awkwardness, you have to find quiet. "A kind of quiet that lets you notice what is actually happening…In that quiet, awkwardness is not a problem. It becomes a guide. And in following it, there is growth."
This quiet zone, as I would term it, reminds me of the biblical passage, (1 Kings 19:11-12). In this passage, God tells the prophet, Elijah, to stand on the mountain, where in quick succession a powerful wind, an earthquake, and fire occur. And yet, God, the Creator of all, is not to be found in any of them. After the subsidence of the chaos, what remains is a "still small voice" sometimes described as "the gentle voice of conscience." This is understood to be God's omnipresence; that God often communicates to us through the quiet moments, and not through loud and raucous clamor.
This is something current leadership in multiple countries has yet to learn.
This reminds me of yet another biblical passage, Proverbs 15:1. It reads as follows, "A soft answer turneth away wrath." This suggests that a calm, gentle response can de-escalate anger and prevent conflict, whereas harsh words intensify it. Further, the "gentle voice of conscience" from which we 'hear' the Divine voice, and thereby cultivate humility, we become a "roScott, your mentioning of staying in contact with that awkwardness, you have to find quiet. "A kind of quiet that lets you notice what is actually happening…In that quiet, awkwardness is not a problem.It becomes a guide. And in following it, there is growth."
This quiet zone, as I would term it, reminds me of the biblical passage, (1 Kings 19:11-12). In this passage, God tells the prophet, Elijah, to stand on the mountain, where in quick succession a powerful wind, an earthquake, and fire occur. And yet, God, the Creator of all, is not to be found in any of them. After the subsidence of the chaos, what remains is a "still small voice" sometimes described as a "the gentle voice of conscience." This is understood to be God's omnipresence; that God often communicates through the quiet moments, and not through loud and raucous clamor.
This is something current leadership in multiple countries has yet to learn.
This reminds me of yet another biblical passage, Proverbs 15:1. It reads as follows, "A soft answer turneth away wrath." This suggests that a calm, gentle response can de-escalate anger and prevent conflict, whereas harsh words intensify it. Further, by the "gentle voice of conscience" from which we 'hear' the Divine voice, and thereby cultivate humility, we become a "rodeph shalom" -- one who pursues peace.
I really appreciate this reflection, Scott.
-It’s surprising as I read it.
I made some short notes as I read it over a few times.
And your photograph feels like an angel of sunlight visiting the tree. You might consider an Instagram page devoted just to your photography.
But
What Stands Out Most to me is
-your distinction between wrongness and awkwardness.
So many people carry shame around awkwardness.
We want to look competent, smooth, composed. It makes sense that the place we least want to look — this shadow of awkwardness — may actually be where growth of skill lives.
Wrongness implies correction.
But Awkwardness here implies Contact.
Relating.
Awkwardness feels like the lived sensation of reaching the edge of our current organization — the moment when prediction and reality no longer seem to agree.
In training, that edge is precious… and uncomfortable, so we shun it.
But awkwardness can only be perceived in quiet, or best noticed there.
And quietness here does not mean absence of action.
-It is not passivity or withdrawal. It is the absence
Or a less of
self-interference — the moment when we stop getting in the way of experience through judgment, correction, or the need to perform and look good.
Without that quiet,
-we tend to replace perception with “management”.
-We can rush to fix, explain, or present ourselves correctly in real time.
But With it, something different becomes possible: we begin to actually listen.
Quietness allows awkwardness to be felt before it is interpreted.
It lets experience arrive on its own terms.
Many people assume skill feels the same as it looks. From the outside, refined movement appears calm and effortless. Yet internally, developing skill often means becoming more intimate with uncertainty.
As sensitivity grows, one does not escape uncomfortable feelings — one learns to make friends with them.
Balance improves because imbalance is felt sooner.
Timing refines because hesitation becomes visible from within.
Skill does not eliminate awkwardness; it reveals it in smaller and more honest places.
The moment awkwardness disappears completely, learning may have quietly given way to performance.
And performance often appears when fear enters unnoticed.
When we feel observed, evaluated, or at risk of being wrong, something in us tries to stabilize the image of ourselves. We stiffen. We try to look competent. We try to remove uncertainty before it can be seen.
But in doing so, we also remove sensitivity.
Fear does something even more subtle in partnered training: it breaks relationship.
What was once a shared field becomes two separate problems to solve. The other person is no longer experienced as a partner in movement, but as an obstacle, a threat, or an object to manage.
The living connection collapses into strategy.
And when relationship collapses, perception narrows.
What we often see in training is not a finished solution to conflict,
but an environment designed to safely reveal these edges of perception — a laboratory rather than a demonstration of dominance.
Awkwardness is where awareness wakes up.
-Quietness is what allows us to hear it.
-Fear is what usually interrupts both by turning relationship into control.
Not knowing is awkward-
This Not knowing allows
Knowing to be.
Perhaps the aim is not to become less awkward, but to remain capable of discovering new forms of awkwardness — subtler, quieter, closer to the heart of experience.
In an interactive art — where we continually relate to another human being — this awkwardness may be what we are truly seeking.
But almost nobody says this out loud.
This elusive obvious.
We spend energy presenting the art, explaining the art, inviting people into the art.
Yet the deeper truth — that progress often feels vulnerable, uncertain, and unfinished — is difficult to market.
It has little appeal until it is lived.
Which may be why it remains ineffable.
Awkwardness is not a flaw in training.
It may be the compass.
Quietness is what allows us to follow it — not by doing less, but by no longer getting in the way. And fear is what makes us forget we are even in relationship at all.