Up you game!

There is a type of martial artist out there who will say that all they hope to do is do a little bit, not take what they do so seriously, and when they reach a certain level, be satisfied. In other words, they see the martial arts as something no more than an occasional hit of badminton, or a few minutes of table tennis. A time filler, a nice hobby and a bit of exercise

Well, sure..that's possible. May I recommend a Tae Bo DVD for you to watch at home so your little fantasy world isn't challenged? Because that's the only arena in which all your presumptions are going to be fulfilled

Martial sports like MMA, Jits etc are more like tennis than table tennis. I can pick up a paddle in ping pong and within a few minutes, get the ball over the net with an ugly push shot and my partner can do the same. The learning curve is fast. Tennis on the other hand is different. If you never played it before, it can be immensely frustrating and unforgiving. Just getting a ball over the net is hard, and anything more than a three shot level takes a certain modicum of skill, training and hard work

In other words, you need to commit a lot more than the bare minimum. And martial sports are the same. You always need to 'up your game' otherwise you're not going to see that progress you were looking for, and you won't be able to come close to pulling off those fantastic techniques you saw people like Marcello Garcia do. Because the moment you think you want to stop at being able to hit three shots in a row over the net, your opponent hits four; and you will start losing, and tennis won't be fun anymore. Trust me.

This doesn't mean that you have to be some crazy, obsessed martial arts junkie that lives in a dojo 24-7 (But if you want to, hey, that's your life). It does engender the awareness that it's difficult to set the bar so low that it's ridiculously easy to achieve your goals

My goal in BJJ was to get a blue belt. I thought that was the equivalent of swimming the English channel. Now, I'm gunning for purple, and that is beginning to feel like trying to swim the Atlantic ocean! I once said that I would end my time in Judo at Brown. Black was impossible. Too difficult, too painful etc. Now I'm just working on hanging with the other Blacks and trying to move up the totem pole.

This is not the equivalent of the unhealthy beggar my neighbour manipulation and political skull duggery that you might see in, say, the corporate office. This is healthy co-operative competition. You want to get better, and you want your opponent to get better because then both of you can work for greater heights. And in doing so, new vistas in training and experience open up to you. Everybody wins. Nobody loses.

And finally, now you're actually playing tennis as it was meant to

Crossing the Rubicon

What I am about to post soon almost contradicts what was written in my last post. I previously railed against the training-more-training mentality and argued for a saner schedule. But what did I do today? I trained literally in the morning, afternoon and night.

Yes, my faithful less than a handful of readers out there, I spent the morning in Brickfields doing Judo, then boxing and BJJ in the afternoon. To cap it off, five very hard randori sessions in the evening. I literally lived martial arts today. It was insane, something probably never to be repeated normally, but it was fantastic.

Why? Because every now and then, you have to cross the Rubicon of your training. The body, mind and spirit imposes limits way before it crosses the line. I think it's partly a survival mechanism, but recently, I think it's a product of environment. We seek comfort on our own terms. Thus, we apply the same to workouts similarly - it's got to be 'hard' but we define it as such and we reserve to right to walk away from it if it is too hard

But in real life, sometimes you can't walk away from whatever annoys, pisses you off or is trying to hurt you. It probably means that the only option is to stand and face it head on. This is what the martial arts is all about. It cares less about your self esteem than tearing it down and making you see that you are a whinging, soft, out of shape marshmallow who can't walk the talk. Yes, it's painful. But it does that

Today, I had a crummy session in the morning but the patience of my Judo sensei was almost Nelson Mandela like. He knew that I sucked, but he tried to make me suck less, even though I did at the end. I wanted to leave early, but I didn't and vowed that the best thing for me to do was to bugger this rest of the day and forget open mats; sleep in and feel sorry for myself

A few hours later, I was sparring with some pretty handy boxers at KDTA. You can't think about what a crappy day you have when something is jabbing at your head with GPS like precision. All you can do is react. This went on for couple of hours, by then I was physically and mentally spent. All I could think off was a hot, relaxing bath and a good meal. In the end,I found myself wearing my morning-soaked judogi eating a yoghurt to carbo load for one session of hard Judo randori

Or make that five. Everytime I slammed into the mat, the impulse was to stay down, or get up, sulk and make an excuse to leave. My timing was off, I was beat, and I was sucking more than what I was in the morning. But then suddenly, I started making some throws. Big ones. Not all the time, I was still the group whipping boy..but slowly enough...it was all coming together.

I had crossed the Rubicon.

At the end, I nearly passed out on the floor and the sound of me dry retching definitely was not my finest moment. But I didn't cop out. I stood face to face with the Bear, and God willing, I'll do it again.

You don't cross it once. It's got to be done again and again, until someday, you cross it for the last time. But that's another story

The Silly Season

Currently, I am on holiday at the moment. No, given how porous information is on the internet, I am not going to say where, but suffice to say; it's about as far away from the mats as possible.

But with social networking these days, it's almost impossible not to stay connected even though I may be miles away from everything, and through Facebook updates or Tweets; one is reminded of how much training one is missing out on. This was definitely the case in previous years. If I missed just one training session, there was an implied sense that your 'game' would slip and that things would slide downhill etc, etc.

I am glad to say that I have finally moved away from that silly nonsense in 2010. In other words, I can enforce a break, and not feel guilty about it. Yes, I will gain weight during a holiday because that's what happens on a holiday. No, I won't be training as the body, mind and spirit needs a break occasionally - no matter how good you feel. More importantly, I need to take an enforced break because no matter how much I like doing Judo, Jits etc - in the big scheme of things..and wait for the blasphemy...it's relatively unimportant

We need to challenge the consumerist mindset that says that "more is good". Somewhere along the line, this has been incorporated into the realm of martial sports. More seminars, more training, more sparring. Then you will get 'better'. For what, I might ask?

So that you can spend less time with your family? Or less time at church? So that I can pretend that my problems don't exist by working out like a maniac? As if problems solve themselves by doing one more set of crunches.

The corruption of participating in something healthy like martial sports comes when we use it to escape into a world that is unrealistic and untenable. Bills, problems, issues of life and death do not dissapear miraculously because one has a roll on the mats for a couple of hours. So in one sense, the practice of a healthy sport has become inherently selfish where all you are concerned about is my own self and what I get out of it. Who cares about the outside world?

The Silly season comes when we build our own little world on the mat with training partners who share our view that the world is no more than a 12x12 set of rubber mats. The real world is people dying of malnutrition, disease, wars and neglect out there. And it can benefit from you taking some time out to pray for them, give them money or lend a helping hand. But it will not benefit from you constantly using your God given five senses and perfectly functional limbs in the dojo, kwoon or gym everyday and at all times

What are your goals this year?

I want to wish all my readers of this blog a happy new year. Maybe there are only two of you, but what the heck, I wish you a really blessed New year anyway! :-)

Anyway, I would like to start off the year by asking if you have any goals for the year. You would be surprised at the number of people who look at me blankly when I ask them that. Isn't the aim of martial arts just to train? Well, is the aim of driving just to drive? You got to have a direction

Now I'm number 1 or at least 2 for being notoriously shy about setting goals. Maybe it's because I am scared of not achieving them. But guess what, getting older and other priorities means that I can't keep pretending it's business as usual; whatever that means. I don't know how much time I have to be able to train in the short or long term so I have to set some realistic aims

Hopefully, I can get my shodan in Judo this year. And in Jits, I want to be a solid blue belt 3 striper at the end. Now I know some people balk at the setting of belt or rank goals as not being in the 'spirit' of martial arts. May I contend that it is.

To get to whatever higher rank compared to where you are at the moment - you have to improve. Yes, that means hard work and sacrifice. Like it or not. And so the setting of wanting to achieve higher ranks is an acknowledgement that life is not going to be so easy anymore and one that is to be encouraged

Your sensei is not Dr Phil

One thing that I have noticed in some martial art schools is the not-so-subtle deification of the martial arts teacher into some sort of all around guru is capable not just of teaching a front kick, but also someone who is qualified to give you advice on your love life, finances, career etc. It's as though that person by virtue of the fact that they can move their hands and feet in circular movements, suddenly gains enlightenment in counselling skills.

So my opinion is this:

Your sensei is not a superman. He is not your priest, guru or enlightened noble leader either. He can't do your taxes (or maybe he can if he has a CPA!), he shouldn't be fixing your car and he can't tell your future about who you should marry or not. He's not Dr Phil, Warren Buffet, Martha Stewart or Kobe Bryant rolled into one. He's just a man. Granted, a man with great skills but at the end of the day, he puts his pants on one leg at a time and still gets hungry, thirsty and cranky; just like you and me.

I blame Karate Kid's Mr Miyagi for this wrong impression of a sensei. Come on, one moment this kid is learning karate and suddenly, he's flying half way around the world and ends up in a castle in Okinawa fighting for his life against some guy with a spear. That's the sort of positive guidance and advice he got from his sensei?!?
:-)

You should find less of this deification in martial arts like Judo, BJJ and arts that emphasise alive sparring. That is, against a resisting opponent. In fact, I esteemed my instructors even higher when I saw them take to the mat in randori against all comers. Even when some of them were at seventy years old, they could still pull of their techniques against others. That's amazing stuff. I look up to them and use them as a example of the kind of Judoka, BJJer that I want to be when I get much older. They should be accorded much due respect..

..but I'm not gonna get them to do my tax return next year. :-)

Passing the torch, but keeping the light

One of the recurrent themes in hero based mythology is not just the archtypical journey taken by our main protaganist in search of adventure (and this is a metaphor for examining oneself, but that of the young hero replacing the old. What always follows is a tale riddled with tension and dramatic conflict. Witness King Arthur and Lancelot, Menelaus and Paris in Homer's Troy. Or King Saul and David.

At the heart of this intergenerational warfare is the aspect of an old man who's power and influence is on the wane and there is a young buck rising to challenge the incumbent for the seat of power. It is more or less apparent in the martial arts as well. How many times have we heard ridiculous stories of the Old Master getting more dangerous as he grows older, because his 'chi' or whatever increases proportionately with age

I suspect such tales are generated to secure the position of someone who already knows the plain truth: You will die someday and after peaking, your martial skills are not going to get better. They will only decline as your physical body ages. That's a brutal medical fact

A few weeks ago, I got a taste of this in Malacca when I visited a Judo dojo with a contingent from the Bangsar Judo Club. It quickly became apparent that 40 is not the new 20, or 30 for that matter. The calesthenics blew our best fighter out the water, and he's only 28. Most of us could only look miserably as their young, fit competition fighters did exercise after exercise.

Then when it came to the 'friendly' matches, it quickly became obvious that I was aging too gracefully. After some initial attempts to do judo in a calm, zen sage like way; I realised that this was a recipe for getting my satori butt handed to me in a heartbeat. So I did what any mature adult who has held a responsible managerial position in work did; I unleashed my inner young punk. It worked for a while, except..

I wasn't young anymore

It was as if the ego couldn't take some young whippersnapper intruding in on my territory. Plus, he was making me look bad! No way this old dog was going to roll over and play dead. So, I put my game into overdrive but like most machines when you do that, baaaaaaaad stuff happens

My body knew and wanted to say "No mas!" but my mind refused to accept it. Here's a tip. Mind over matter is B.S. Pretty soon, the body will just say 'Well, fine, you wanna play Mr Macho..I'm not going along for the ride'. And it caves. That's how I fractured my toe.

Of course while the adrenalin was pumping, I was still talking trash worthy of a bratty MTV watching teen. After it stopped..well, the hurt began. And it really hurt. Really.

So I learnt an important lesson that day - you can't stop the tide of time. If you've had a good run, be grateful that you had the chance to do so. It's not your time anymore - it's theirs.

With as much class as possible, accept your new role now as adviser, coach, wise teacher, class comic relief or whatever. Anything except trying to be the World's No.1 bad-ass fighter. That time has pass and you'll never, I repeat - never, get it back again.

And then maybe you'll avoid the nasty endings that befell the various old codgers in mythology who didn't step aside and retire peacefully into the night when the young 'uns came-a-knocking on their door. They either died violently or looked like absolute idiots trying to hold on to power like water in a hand - eventually, it slipped through

I guess in that context, I'm lucky to get away with just a fractured toe :-)

You have to pass the torch to the next generation, but the light that you got from holding that for a while..well, that's inside you now. You can keep that and it's far brighter than the one coming from the torch because this one comes from the Heart

See you on the tatami!

Beautiful Judo Part 3: It really is beautiful!

When I first wrote that article on 'Beautiful Judo' over a year ago, I had no idea what I was in for. There were months of sheer frustration and butt whipping (me being the receiver) and the Judo looked about as beautiful as two slugs wrestling encased in resin. I was really, really beginning to wonder if all this was just a pipe dream and Kano and Co. were smoking the tatami mats.

Then I broke my foot.

This precipitated a real bout of depression where I questioned if I ever even wanted to do martial arts. Let alone Judo. And still further from my mind, beautiful judo.

But when I came back, very oddly, I had no choice. My aching, ageing body couldn't do all the WWF bastardised wrestling moves that I was throwing on the mat (very unsuccessfully I might add). So, I went back to Sensei JAL (remember him?) and worked with him on regaining whatever little form I had before I injured myself. All this while, the monkey on my back kept chattering " You fool! This isn't going to work"

Oh, but it did.

I can't for sure remember when. But it started with me getting some kuzushi (unbalancing) on my opponent when I randoried. Then, these became minor scores. Who cared? I was ecstastic, even with the small scores. Then the minor scores became larger, until finally...

Ippon.

With an uchimata: the hardest, most singularly revered throw in Judo that defines the beauty, grace, power, harmony and lethality of Judo. For ten years, I heard that small men like me should forget uchimata and concentrate on throws like seio nage (shoulder throws),that I was wasting my time. But somehow, I persisted with the big man throws. Maybe there's a big man in this small frame, maybe I'm just stubborn. Or an idiot

But I'm an idiot with an Ippon :-)

I owe it all to Sensei JAL. What a teacher and a man. His advice was secondary. Everyone has some good advice in them now and then. It was his patience, his example as a teacher that I almost revere and totally respect. He knew that it would come, even though I was whingeing like a spoilt brat incessantly but he knew that beautiful judo is painful, and it takes time

And it really is beautiful