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

Get out of the gym and onto the mats for a REAL change

I used to be a member of one of those franchise gyms many years ago. It was so way back that it was only one of a two gym franchise, and still, it was the biggest operation then in Malaysia. I liked it, and went quite regularly but never really lost any weight. In fact, I kind of gained some kilos during my time there. This could have been due to the fact that after the workouts, I would head to the Hotel restaurant in which the gym was located, for a buffet dinner. (200 calories burnt up, 1000 calories in; you do the math…)

There are two problems with going to the gym, or engaging in what I would call individual centered workouts. They are:

1) It is too easy to fool yourself. I could lift 40kilos on one day, then 50 a week later and suddenly I have a notion that I’m superman and can do anything, including saving the world, curing cancer and winning the Noble prize. Actually, all it means is that you can lift a cable assisted set of weights 10-12 times over your head in an air-conditioned hermetically sealed environment. Period.
2) I have no accountability. One week I could be as passionate as Sly Stallone in ‘Rocky’ and the next, I’m scarfing Rocky Roads watching Sly Stallone on DVD in my couch. But hey, I can get away with this because no one is checking on me
3) Lastly, and this is the most worrying. I cultivate the idea that it’s all about me. My workouts. My improvement. The ego gets a major workout

One great thing about alive training in a combat sport is that it strips that vanity of the self away pretty quick. And it teaches one very important lesson that the gym doesn’t – that life is unpredictable.

When I spar in my CMD class, the one thing I have to be is switched on constantly. Total awareness. If not, then a 6 foot 2 inch, 90 kg Frenchman called Pat is going to steam roll me, or if I lose concentration, there’s a chance that those heavy hands from Charles is going to take my head off. Or Adrian “the new Randy Coutere” will double leg me on the mats.

So even if I managed to acquit myself quite well in sparring on Monday, come Wednesday and it’s a whole new ball game. The hunter could become the hunted, and in a matter of two days, I could have gone from hero to zero.

But this is the great thing about the combat sports. Done correctly, it’s ego destroying, and well it should be. I should come out learning some new things about myself and what I can’t and can not do. My training partner is my foil. I get immediate feedback about whether what I do works, if I’ve been cheating on my training and best of all, it’s a relationship

In the end, it’s not just about me. My training partner is involved as well, and if he or she is any good, they will know how to run the fine line between pushing you to the limit and going past that. They will also present with an honest assessment of your abilities. And you should do the same with them. A gym machine or inert weights can’t do that. You can adjust them to suit whatever perception you want of yourself. Not so with a live, active training partner

I know some of my friends who have tried both and gone back to the gym. Sometimes, I’m not sure why that is. Maybe the realisation or sudden self awareness is too jarring for them. It could be they don’t like what they see in the mirror and prefer to go back to the illusory world where they feel that they are a god. The ego likes nothing better than that

Hopefully, I don’t come across as someone who sounds like he’s denigrating weights or other non-combat sport activities. I lift weights, run and swim – and love doing it. It’s just that I strongly believe that people could benefit from the mask removing properties in the combat sports done right.

The black? - it means nothing, my friend..

I've been a brown belt in Judo for time immemorial. True, not all of that time was spent training. Some of it was rest for injury, and other moments were filled with inconsistent moments. It happens when one grows older and other responsibilites come in. However, I told myself that I would commit myself to getting my black belt in the near future; and as a result, my training has been more consistent and focussed.

Yesterday, my sensei told me that I was overdue for my black. And my reply was that "well, I don't know. Some green belts still throw me around the place". His reply was amazing

"Don't worry. When I became a black belt, even white belts threw me"

This was a teacher I regard as the sensei of sensei's. A gold standard for everything Judo. And here he was telling me that even if I got my black belt, I would still get my butt kicked?

Of course I would. He showed the greatest wisdom is telling me that, and which brought be back to the heart of Judo; something I had forgotten in my zeal to get that coveted black belt at all costs. In conveying that to me, he was telling me something profound, which was : " It's just a belt. Don't get too hung up over it"

Sometimes, I forget this, honestly, I have to say that the underlying macho philosophy in combat sports can make you incredibly insecure instead of the other way around. Listen closely, and you will hear these phrases:

" I can't tap to him. I'm a blue belt in BJJ, he's a white"

" I can't lose to her - she's a girl!"

" I can't get thrown by him, I'm a black belt in Judo, Why, he doesn't even do Judo!"

" I got hit by his jab? No way!"

..and so on.

The common denominator among all those comments in the pronoun " I can't..". It's all ego and it's all about the person I love most in the world - me.

At times, we need the essence of Judo to permeate what we do in the combat sports. It's called "Jito Kyoei" - mutual welfare. A care for your training partner, teacher, gym, sports and the greater community as a whole. Grandmaster Kano was more interested in the character of the Judoka than the Judo he or she did. In other words, he was all about mutual welfare.

We don't get enough of this in submission wrestling and BJJ unfortunately. Maybe it is a particularly western concept to divorce any philosophy from whatever we do but this is impossible in my opinion. No philosophy means you switch to a default philosophy, which is primal, animalistic and selfish in nature. You want to win at all costs. I would love to see a different spirit in these two sports, which I also really like, where mutual concern for the overall well being of the participants in paramount to just blind physical domination

Which is why I love Judo. It has the same characteristics of a combat sport, but the ideas behind it, the small attempts to introduce concepts like humility, a sense of purpose and character development testify to the real genuius of the founder, not just his synthesization of techniques.