Imitation is the Foundation

Imitation 1:

Imitation 2:

Real Thing:

For anyone unfamiliar, the white guy getting knocked out is attempting, and failing, to do the “Philly shell” or "shoulder roll" which is a style in boxing. The Philly shells been around forever, but it was made popular because by Mayweather, and now, like everything that’s become popular, people are trying to imitate it.

There’s nothing wrong with imitation, in fact, we as Christians are called to imitate Christ, but after watching this video, it occurred to me, that imitation is a long, and often painful process. There's a lot of factors that go into imitation, and part of it, is failing. I use the Philly shell (I started it decades before it became popular) because I was trying to imitate my favorite fighter, James Toney, and I failed, A LOT. Thankfully, I didn’t get knocked out, but I went home with my fault share of headaches, bloody noses, bruises and cuts. 

Finally, after about two or three years, I started looking less and less like the imitator and more and more like the real thing, and one of the constant criticisms I got was,  “you’re just trying to copy Toney” or “come up with your own style.” 

Side note: There’s an entire arc on Hajime no Ippo about imitating. It’s phenomenal!

Ultimately, I developed a style of my own, since imitation can only take you so far, but decades later I realized there’s nothing wrong with imitating. Why reinvent the wheel? Imitating will bring you kto a certain point, and eventually, since all humans aren’t identical, you’ll end up creating a style of your own.

There’s nothing wrong with imitation, you should imitate good people, but since you can never be that person, you’ll never be identical to them, the imitation becomes a foundation for you to build your own style.

This is why children imitate their parents. That imitation becomes a foundation, but because children aren’t their parents, and imitation can only take you so far, it simply becomes a foundation for the children to build on. This is why, it is imperative for parents to be good role models, because the children are imitating their parents, and they need a strong foundation.

Finally, this is why we are called to imitate Christ and I suspect why we are CHILDREN in Christ, because, we should be building a foundation based of our imitation of Christ.