Hell Born

I train under the adage "The finest blades are forged in the fires of hell."

I approach each workout with the intent of diving into hell and seeing where I end up.

All to often, I watch people test the waters of Hell with just one toe. And quickly snap back the digit before it is ripped away by the savage currents of hell. Then they run down to StarPete's. Sip their lattes as they talk about knowing kung fu, or yoga, or crossfit, (or just insert your personal hell here.) And they prove it by waving their scarred digit for all to see. They just do not get it.

To be one of the finest, you must dive into hell. You must struggle against the flow and ignore the easy path. You must stand strong as your skin peels back, your eyes bleed, your muscles turn to concrete and your lungs feel like steel wool. You have to force Hell to puke you back out cause it can no longer stomach you.

People are to ready to "dip their toes" in my hell. They just don't get it. Hell is personal. My hell is a cake walk for some people. You have to face your own hells. And here are three concepts for you to face your hell, in no particular order.

FEAR: What do you fear? Injury, looking stupid, failure? Fear is one of the tools to lessen your greatness. It takes true honesty to name your fear. Once you can name your fear, create workouts to face it. In facing your fear, you study it, you learn about it and then...you learn it takes faith to dispel it.

HATE: What do you hate? Injury, looking stupid, failure? Hate is another tool, it clouds your vision. People hate doing pushups. Why? "I will never be able do a hundred every day." Why would you? Do a hundred pushups is a challenge, yes. A discipline, maybe, but they eat up time. I know people that can do 3000 pushups at a go. This also requires the help of three supporters for water and food. Pretty much eats up an afternoon. I can appreciate the skill and dedication, but I have a bajillion forms to do. Study your hate with clear vision and then focus on these areas during your workouts. Learn to love (insert hate item here).

DESPAIR: What causes you despair? (you guessed it) Injury, looking stupid, failure? The most common battle cry of despair is "I'll never be as good as you." I should hope not Eyore. I would hate to think I am wasting my time training you to be as great as your potential. Despair is the loss of hope according to the accepted definition. I like to think of it as a smokescreen covering up our faith and our spirit. As long as I have a heart, I have hope. Contemplate the areas of your life that require so much energy and leave you depleted. How can you modify these? A true warrior has already determined the outcome of the conflict before they draw their blades. More often, changing our attitude about work, family, friends and etc, is the way to go. Sometimes, we just have to remove the cause.

Hell is not to be feared, not to be hated, nor even despaired. It is to be defied.

By now you have figured out Hell is about the loss of self. My workouts are designed for me to fail. In failure, I can truly see the three agents of hell and learn what caused me to tumble. Covered in Hell Vomit, I then crawl away from the workout and go to StarPete's. Mocha and an apricot croissant never tasted so sweet.

Plus, I get the entertainment factor of the "toe dippers". "I know kung fu!" They just don't get it.

Time for you to go "get it".

Good Luck!!!

Gotta lub da Newbies.

Newbies are a great source of inspiration, learning, and yes, amusement.

Watching their legs shake like a newborn Colt after holding Horse Stance for a record breaking 15 seconds.

Trying to swing the dreaded Nunchuks as far away from their bodies as possible.

and yes, sparring.

I give a great spiel about how sparring is not deathmatch combat, but rather an exercise in strategy. Everyone nods in agreement and then...the clobberfest begins.

The newbies grab, elbow, claw, stomp and when I see the kitchen sink go flying by, I yell "TIME!" They drag themselves away from the carnage saying things like, "I thought I was in shape", and "I gotted stomped" and etc.

I stand there with my instructor's face impassive, but giggling hysterically on the inside. There will be tales at the water color how they valiantly fought with every ounce of their skill against that savage black belt. I can see their perspective, but what I saw was their own struggle against themselves.

Black belts will often face lower ranks at half speed or even quarter speed to practice new strategies. We realize that anyone we face in a "fight" will defeat themselves quite easily. We do not have to do much, maybe a little stank eye to make our opponent more edgy.

When I look at newbies, I see myself. I see the first time I suffered in Horse Stance, the first time I sounded the musical key of G off my elbow with a Nunchuk. And of course, the first time I sparred. At the time it was not funny, but I can now see the humor in my actions, and reactions.

A long time ago, I had the opportunity to train with the Grandmaster of the Shotokan system. Grandmaster Oshima told us then, "One should always train with the eye of a Grandmaster, and the heart of a White Belt."

I took this to mean that every day, I should learn something. Everyday, I need to challenge myself in some way. And wonder what if the school is attacked by Ninja. Yeah, I know you think this. I don't mind saying though. I'd lay some chopsocky on them that would make anyone think twice about attacking a kungfu school.

When we approach each day with the mindset of a white belt, we expand our horizons. If we shield our self in our cloak of greatness +5, we stop growing and begin to stagnant. I prefer being the beginner, nowhere but up from there.

Good sparring to you,

DarkArashi

my anniversary

Today, marks my anniversary or maybe I should say birthday.

It was one year ago today, that I was laid off from my "real" job.

I had explored a few options from networking to nanotechnology. Nothing seemed to pan out. And to make matters worse, I am too over-qualified to do anything else but design buildings.

The one area that is doing well, is martial arts. I have been growing personally by being able to more focus on my skills and training. I also have a growing student base. So many students, I had to jump from room rental to building rental.

I know quite a few people who also have been laid off. They sit back, waiting for things to turn or their ship to come in. I realize things will change, I'm just impatient.

I remember the words of my old Sensei, "The time is now." I strive to live up to those words, train everyday, learn everyday and sometimes, just be.

So my words of wisdom to everyone is simply, "What can you do right now?" For work, for training, for just being.

Do not wait for 2010 to happen, rush out and grab it by the throat.

Good luck
DarkArashi

Big? Fat? Other?

You can not swing a skinny person around with clobbering a topic based on big, fat or other.

We have so many experts on being fat, I believe this is why we are the fattest country in the world. I can not begin to list the reaons people are fat, or can I?

The reason someone is fat, is they chose to be that way.

Wait, before you burn my effigy, continue on.

I realize we do not wake up in the morning and decide, "I'm gonna be fat" or "I'm gonna be sick". That is just plain stupid, right?

But how we decide to live, this is what causes are body to change. Using the Olympics as an example, gymnasts, contortionist, swimmers. They all look the same. Swimmers, every one is 6'4" and 190 pounds and cute. Look at Michael Phelps (bastard). And the sprinters, tall and leggy. And don't get me started on Caster Semenya. You go girl, er boy...You just go and getum Killa!!!

My roundabout point is, each event has a specific body type that has advantages. And this specific event, will cause the body to modifiy itself for greatest efficiency.

As an experiment, we can take an epitome of human evolution, body builder, yogi, gymnast, crossfitter, whatever; and place them in a stressful desk job. I mean a job with tight deadlines, erratic schedules, varying hours, something us every day people have. These folk being the top of the healthy food chain would naturally perform better in the beginning, A year from now, they have lost any edge they had in the respective endeavors. Two years, they will have developed a nice layer of protective fat.

Why? The body adapts. The body stores fat for many reasons. The most important is for protection. When there is food, we eat to build up stores of fat for when there is going to be a shortage of food. Fat insulates and keeps us warm. It also protects us from minor illnesses.

Being stressed at a job, we need to protect ourselves. Awkward hours make it difficult to eat right and train. So the body adapts. Has this experiment ever been done? Yes, me. Ten years ago, I was in prime fighting shape at 150 pounds. I decided to get a real job instead of teaching martial arts. I became a CAD designer and sat at a desk. Odd, long hours and the challenge of eating right, but the weight on.

Five years later, I weighed 207 pounds. My iron bones, now tin foil. Reflexes, that of a zombie. Running? maybe for the donut box, before that young dumb whippersnapper got the last apple fritter. I was everything I railed against...and it was my decision.

I then made the decision to go back to my old ways. My first year of training I dropped 42 pounds. And then proceed to gain back 10. Most people watch the scale and stress seeing the weight bounce around. Scales are not as important as the way your clothes fit. This will give you for more feedback. And the best, is how you feel moving through the day.

True that muscle mass weighs more than fat due to the fiber density. (well, fat does not have fiber, more like globules). As a person trains, the body will shed what is not necessary and build up what is.

As you train, you will shed fat and gain muscle. Each level has different demands so the weight may go down for speed and stamina, or may rise for strength and durability. This makes scales unreliable as measuring devices. And the martial artist will develop denser muscles than other athletes. Another example, when you go in for physicals, the techs tell you to stand on the scale. They are masters at guessing a person's weight. I am often told to take off my shoes and empty my pockets. I point at the pile I have already created. Then I have to weight 3 or 4 times to make sure the scale is correct. I weigh 175 pounds but only look 160.

The martial artist is an athlete in a class by themselves. Every other sport is specific and attacts that "perfect" physique. The demands the martial artists places on their body is comprehensive; strength, flexibilty, coordination, stamina, agility, power, toughness, hand/eye coordination and lung capacity.

I have watched great athletes try martial arts to boost their own skills...and fail at it. I have watched martial artists go into other sports and do well. They may not play in the big leagues, but people will notice them.

So do not worry about if those Gi pants make you look fat (They make everyone look fat). Concern yourself with the training. The body will adapt and keep up. It is more about feeling good, than looking good. If your goal is to look good, you'll stress about what you see in the mirror. If you feel good, you can not help to look good.

I use Sammo Hung as model. He is a big boy, and he does kung fu. He is happy, so he looks good. Let us work together to be happier and healthier.

Good training.

Lessons to be learned

So here I am driving through downtown to go work on drywalling. I am sitting at red light and notice a older dude off to my right. He is sitting on his tricked out bike, with gorilla handle bars, sissy bar in the back, looking pretty cool. He is even wearing a bicycle helmet with sweet flames on the sides.

And he is just sitting there waiting at the red light. On a whim, he crosses in front of me in his unhurried way on his bike. I notice he has a smoke in his right hand. Then I spot a open container of beer sitting in a cup holder, duct taped to his right handle bar.

When he was half way across, the light turns green.

At this point, my thought is the bicycle helmet seems way out of place. This dude has the survival instincts of a slug in a salt mine.

So I sit at my green light pondering the lesson this meandering individual is teaching me. I try to live a safe, healthy life. Or do I? My calm demeanor hides my aggression. I use caffeine as a sedative. I practice iron bone to strengthen fist, arms and shins, and then see what kind of stuff I can break.

What do we use as a "safe" shield to feel safe? And what do we still do that we know is harmful to ourself? I think these are valid questions to always be asking ourselves. Do we really need that Quad Venti Mocha so we can spend an extra five minutes on the treadmill? Part of inner exploration is to see what is necessary for our growth and what is harmful. My T'ai Chi training is more like unearthing a lost civilization. ME! Bit by bit, the layers of defense and bad habits fall away to reveal me.

I strongly recommend a reasessment of one's self and finding the tools necessary release yourself from yourself.

How much for health?

Raising my cane up for another common sense THWACK across the forehead. I was watching a debate over the projections of health costs in 2010. The final agreed number is that we Americans (no foreigners allowed in this equation) will be spending 6.5 trillion dollars next year on health: insurance, doctor trips, surgeries, band aids, legal and illegal drugs (I can not keep up with these potheads and their legal stuff), and aspirin.

So using my cane to do some ciphering, that comes to $26000 a year per person in the USA. WHAT?! Seriously?! Holy Fu… This also includes the 25 million of us out of work. And those on Welfare. And those not legally in this country.

I am thinking I need a serious rebate due to being healthy for the last five years. Yes, it was just over five years ago I was really sick. It was a combination of Migraine/Flu/anthrax or some biological agent. I woke hurting and went to work. Within two hours decided to make out my will, because I was dying.

I left work and dragged myself to my doctor. There I was measured poked, pricked, elbowed and prostate checked by some battering ram device. Doctor said I just needed rest and it would pass. Then I ended up paying the exorbitant remainder that insurance would not cover. Health system gang-rape complete.

So I went home, took to aspirin and went to sleep, for about 36 hours. Yes, I was out for that long. Usually, if I am asleep for more than 4 hours someone needs to check for a pulse. I am determined to never get sick again. Being sick sucks.

My martial arts training has taught me to listen to my body. It has this cute little squeal when I am jumping off cliffs. No really, but adjusting my training, my rest and my diet, I have avoided serious illness. I tend to get slight headaches (lack of water), stuffy nose (over training or too much heavy food), stiff neck (taking little things too seriously).

I do have empathy for problem suffering from various ailments, just not a lot of sympathy, (none really). I put my time and effort into staying healthy. I feel most people put their time into whining and avoiding responsibility. This is where my cane tip comes off the ground and rises overhead.

We are all born unbalanced, some of us more than others. It just means this person has a greater challenge and a greater chance for greatness. The folk born with genetic difficulties are excluded for this rant. I speak about the normal folk that choose not to accept responsibility for their knees going bad, or their weight spiraling upward, or their whatevers getting worse each year.

So I do have empathy for your condition, just no sympathy for it. You have spent your entire life developing this imbalance through non-decision. Now is the time to decide to learn the tools for listening to the body and learning how to balance the body for a long healthy life.

The two biggest excuses I hear are that there is neither money nor time to train and be healthy. Well, 2010 people will be spending $2150 a month for health care. Even a snobby gym is not that expensive. First excuse solved.

You make a choice that you do not have time to train everyday. Your body will eventually make the choice for you. Then you will have time to be sick and suffer.

To me, a half an hour investment everyday to train is small beans compared to being sick for a week.

It is your life, you choose or not choose.

Swine Flew?

Nothing gets my cane tapping in agitation than reading about the latest rage in Flu’s. Swine flu this year. Another year or two, probably be mad cow flu.

Ever since I was old enough to read, I have heard about the yearly flu epidemic. And, OH NO, there is not enough vaccine to go around. This just boggles the mind.

So there are two problems to point out here. Number one, we need to hire someone capable of advanced math ciphering to deal with the lack of vaccines. For example, last year we had 40 million vaccines and we were 10 million short. OK, by my reckoning, let us make 50 millions vaccines (plus 5 percent extra). That is some right powerful arithmetiking.

So the lack of proper planning is causing these epidemics. Sounds easy to solve, and the vaccine makers get a hefty return on their investment. But this lack of preparation goes down to the base level, us. We rely on medicines to cure us of the winter ills. Huge mistake on our part. We believe medicine is available when we need it, but what we really take is drugs. Drugs cover up the symptoms until we eventually recover. These items have their time and place, but only under extreme conditions.

Worrying about your health while you are sick is like checking the lights in your home during a blackout. Kinda useless, kinda dumb…well really stupid. Health is a state of being we need to consider ever time we work out, rest, eat, and play. I see people in great shape, with six pack abs, running all day, and even some kick-ass yoga instructors, succumb to the flu. There is no way I can compete with them in their arena, and yet, one little virus knocks them to their knees.

Lemme repeat myself, health is a state of being. We need to learn our rhythms and adapt to changes so we can maintain our health. We have to be vigilant on a physical, mental and spiritual level. Any one of these items go out of balance and we open the door to illness.

In training the three aspects of self; body, mind and spirit, we develop awareness. Awareness of self only comes from constant training, expanding our boundaries and listening to our aspects. In this way, we can sit back from the incompetence of the whole and rap our canes against the floor in disapproval. Knowing, that we are healthy and whole as individuals first.