Click the picture to see Joshua Grove's Favorite trick from #28trickslater
Joshua Grove // @JoshuaFlowGrove // Sweets Kendamas Team & Co founder of Kendama Institute
Why did you choose to do 28?
I did 28trickslater because I love a challenge. To me 28 tricks is a commitment to my higher potential and entering a month of increased accountability, patience, creativity and perseverance. In a nutshell I do 28 tricks later because I believe that we are capable of the seemingly impossible and this month for me is dedicated to setting aside uninterrupted time to film and get creative. I know my life is happier and more enriched when I consciously set aside time for myself to play and practice kendama.
- What does 28 tricks later mean to you?
28 means a lot of things for me. Fun, Adversity, excitement, extreme challenge, physical and mental exhaustion, extreme gratification... What you put into it is what you will get out of it. Its going to be a roller coaster.
Yet, this challenge is different than your average workout challenge or healthy eating challenge. To me #28trickslater is about pushing yourself not only physically but mentally. We all want to put something out that we feel proud of, and when it’s not working out or even after hours later of trying we can become discouraged and potentially want give up.
That’s where the mental chops come in play, pushing your mind to believe, even at your most discouraged of moments. When we think we can’t get it or don’t have anymore ideas to pull from, we become right. Yet.. if we can positively train our mind and our subconscious conditionings to believe that we can do it, and to believe in the infinite potential that we harness, we begin to push ourselves both physically and mentally and will to continuously surprise ourselves in accomplishing unimaginable goals.
- What type of characteristics / benefits did 28 Tricks later show you about yourself? How did it push you?
This challenge provides an opportunity to push your creativity which I believe is a crucial quality in life happiness. It pushes you through adverse situations, and your ability to not give up, it sharpens your sword of perseverance and shield of patience. This challenge really pushed my patience at times and I definitely felt overwhelmed in moments especially when I got to the two-three hour filming marks. Frustration is a super real and difficult experience to deal with at times but when I recognized I was getting to that rage point, I gave myself permission to take little breaks to just breathe, drink water, reset the camera, change the song, etc. this helped me immensely. focusing on Quality Reps over the Quantity of Reps. Tricks came faster this way.
When I have to film a trick every day know I need to plan my day out accordingly especially if I am feeling like going for an extremely challenging trick. I noticed in myself that when I am managing my time super efficiently my overall wellbeing feels much better and I feel much more satisfied overall with my day.
- Do you see failure as beneficial? why or why not?
A quote that I truly believe in comes from the professor of psychology and Flow states Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi at Chicago state university. He says “Of all the virtues we can learn no trait is more useful, more essential for survival, and more likely to improve the quality of life than the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challenge.”
Failure to me is a practice of perception. Yes maybe I missed the mark, or totally botched a task, and yeah those moments can bring up sensations of anger or frustration. Yet I focus to practice seeing and engaging with failure in a way that transforms those sensations into opportunities to learn, grow and improve. Each time I fail, it is not a failure, it is an opportunity to make mindful observations about what happened and then make changes to my approach. Failure as Steve Jobs once said can be the most powerful tool in our lives.
- Do you feel like you leveled up as a player? why or why not?
I definitely feel like I leveled up. I wanted to focus on consistency lines during the challenge but found myself exploring creative variations of single tricks more frequently. I believe my mental abilities continued to level up. Seeing so many people posting from around the world was a never ending feed of inspiration. During each day I found myself Jamming kendama and then I would end up finding a trick that inspired me to grind for it and would just commit to it. I feel like over all its nearly impossible to not level up in someway doing this challenge.
-Was it worth the grind? Always and forever
If you could give one "Mindset" tip to those looking to take on the challenge, what would it be? Commit yourself fully to your goal and go after it. If your trick isn’t working out don’t get completely fixated on it, just switch it up then maybe come back to the original idea. Give yourself some grace, you don't need to land insane bangers everyday or at all. Just commit to pushing your own boundaries, your own abilities. Don’t give in, and push beyond what you may think to be unobtainable. You are infinite in potential. Commit to it and you will grow mentally, physically, emotionally and will continue to push the bar of life.
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