Changes

Hello everyone!  

This is not the first time things have been quiet here for a while, but as some have suspected, it's different this time.

You all deserve an explanation and details, but first... this sure has been a ride, and I can't thank you all enough for being a part of it.  I have always been acutely aware of the caliber of martial artist who pay attention to Martial Journeys, and that has kept the bar very high.  Your intelligent and thoughtful comments and questions constantly inspired me to make better content.  I will always be grateful for that.  Thank you so much for your support, and the time and attention you've given to Martial Journeys.  My world has been better for it, and I hope yours has as well, in some small way or another.

So what's with all this mushy stuff?

Over the summer, I made the very difficult decision to shut down Martial Journeys and return to a (gasp!) desk job.  As it turns out, it's pretty much the coolest desk job ever, but that's beside the point.

I naively hoped I'd be able to keep Martial Journeys going in some form once the dust settled from all the changes.  Which is kind of like thinking a zombie apocalypse won't make you late to your anniversary dinner.  Laugh all you want--I hoped.  

Okay, but after this chase I REALLY have to get to the steakhouse. photo credit

Now that the dust has settled, it's clear that continuing my local school and the online seminars is not realistic.  There won't be new blog posts or podcast episodes, but existing blog and podcast content will remain available.  I'll still be reachable through the Martial Journeys group on Facebook and on Twitter.  And of course, I'll still be training.

As for why I'd make such a dramatic career change, there are a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that it is hard and not any fun to teach martial arts during a pandemic.  It's also hard to pay the bills when all your students' programs are frozen and you can't bring yourself to charge them for remote classes.  And even in better times, even though I love teaching martial arts, I did not enjoy running a business.

So what am I up to, then?  

Story time:  

There are lots of version of this story out there--who knows how many of them are actually true--but we all know the sort.  Some young, unassuming, beginner, usually a girl, shows up to class on her first day.  Some arrogant higher rank responds with something like "Aw, cute, a girl wants to learn to fight."  But when they spar, she unleashes everything she's got, and the arrogant upper belt doesn't know what hit him.  She faces down an extreme challenge and wins not with size or strength or experience, but with a bold heart and the right attitude.  Like I said, you've no doubt heard a version of this story before, or maybe even been in one.  Keep your version of that story in your back pocket for a minute.

Bring it.

When the pandemic hit and we were all stuck solo training, online games became my primary social activity.  In particular, I started playing this weird little co-op game called The Blackout Club, which just happens to be the most criminally underrated game of all time.  

I don't talk about it much in martial arts circles (notable exception here), but once upon a time I was a video game programmer.  I can play a game and get an idea of how it was made.  In The Blackout Club, I saw a small team attempting to create something so ambitious that even a team of ten times the size would never even have tried it.  But like the beginner in the story, they came out punching with everything they had, and against all odds it worked.  It was inspiring enough to reawaken my desire to create.  I dusted off my resume and started checking job boards.

Because life is crazy, that small team that inspired me is the one I've landed on.  I work at Question.  While closing the Martial Journeys chapter of my life is incredibly heavy, I'm excited about the new chapter.

Again, I can't thank you all enough for your support over the years.  Blogs and podcasts are nothing without readers and listeners, just like classes are nothing without students.  You've all made this a fun and rewarding experience for me, and I hope it's been equally fun and rewarding for you.  Take care, keep training hard, and have fun.

Podcast Duel!

Click Here to help the Martial Journeys Podcast win!

Click Here to be a traitorous folly-ridden lout!

Friends, I need some help. The Martial Journeys Podcast has been challenged to a duel! What villainous ruffian of a podcast would do such a thing? Why, none other than the Accidental Podcast Or Something Like That by Les Bubka. I think we can all agree that this injustice cannot stand.

The stakes are very high, since whoever loses this duel must commit the great shame of posting a video of how to use hikite to generate power.  Astute podcast enthusiasts may note that my enemy has already created such a video.  I think we can all agree that this is because the Accidental Podcast has no honor, and not because Les is hilarious.  In any case, my sworn enemy has promised that should he lose the duel, he will post something even more ridiculous.  And of course, if I lose, I will disgrace my brand new YouTube channel with an appropriately embarrassing video.

How Podcasts Get Into Fights

So, friends, my fate is in your hands.  The duel will last for the month of June, at the end of which we will compare the Martial Journeys post against the Accidental Podcast post, and see which has more likes/reactions.  So all you have to do is like this post, and stay far, far away from this post.

May the best podcast win!

The Physics of High Blocks

What is the optimal angle for a high block?

Very often high blocks are really strikes.  But getting your arm over your head to intercept a blow is not an insane thing to do, and that's what we're looking at today.

First, let's look at the physics of something you probably don't want to do.

Louvre material, for sure.

At 0° your forearm is parallel to the ground.  In this scenario, you're taking the full force of the blow on your arm that would otherwise hit your head.  This is usually a pretty good trade, but it could be better.

Once your arm is angled, there's the potential to let the blow slide off the arm.  In terms of physics, part of the blow's momentum will go into your arm (ouch) and part of it will be deflected harmlessly away (yay).  

I did math so you don't have to!

This all boils down to two equations:

momentum transferred into the arm = momentum x sin (90° - arm angle)
momentum deflected by the arm = momentum x cos (90° - arm angle)

Or more simply:

Ouch = 100% x sin(90° - arm angle)
Yay = 100% x cos(90° - arm angle)

Traditionalists are welcome to adjust their glasses, pull a pencil out of their pocket protector and tap this into a calculator.  I'm going to just ask my phone because I'm a hip young whippersnapper and not cringey at all, bruh, YOLO!  Also you just lost The Game.

Here's a nice little chart:

The percentages don't add up to 100% on all of them because adding vectors doesn't work quite like adding plain old numbers.  But the math is sound.  If you multiply those percentages by how hard you're getting hit, that will tell you how much momentum is going into the arm and how much momentum is deflecting the weapon.

So, from this chart, it looks like the best angle is 90° because ALL of the momentum is deflected and NONE of it goes into the arm.  Which sounds great until you think about what a 90° block actually looks like:

"I could have blocked, but the stupid author insisted on a stupid
90° angle."

So at 90° against a blow coming straight down, you're not protecting your head at all.  At 80° you're covering a tiny part of your head.  If you do manage to line it up just right, you're deflecting almost all of the impact and taking very little damage to the arm.  But that is extremely risky and ill-advised in the chaos of a situation where you need to deflect a blow to the head.  At the other extreme, a 0° angle covers the most head area, but you deflect nothing.  And it's a good idea to deflect SOME because then the attacker's body can follow along to the side as you deflect, giving you a little control over their movement.  

What's the best angle?  The best angle is the steepest angle that actually catches the blow.  But in high-stakes situations there are no guarantees, so some margin for error is a good thing.  Also, in the spirit of recognizing that there are no guarantees, there are no guarantees that the blow is going to come straight down.  

So ultimately, the optimal angle isn't even the right question.  Better questions are, did you deflect the attack?  Did you take serious damage?  Can you still fight?  With all that in mind, happy training!

Why Are Left-Handed Fighters Called Southpaws?

Spoiler:  It's not baseball.

There's a popular story--and it IS just a story--that the term "southpaw" originated in baseball.  According to the story, old baseball diamonds were built with home plate to the west, so that a pitcher's right hand was on the north side and the left hand faced the south.  So any left-handed pitcher used his southern "paw" to throw the ball.  

This idea has been thoroughly debunked, but if you ever heard it and believed it, don't feel bad.  This myth has been around since at least 1908 when baseball writer Tim Murnane had to explain that he used the term "southpaw" because players were left-handed, not because their left hands sometimes faced the south.  To say nothing of the fact that baseball diamonds didn't all face the same direction in the first place!  Moreover, in the mid 1800's when the term started to appear in baseball, it was used to refer to any left-handed player, not just the pitchers.

There are slightly older accounts of the term being used in boxing than in baseball, and that may very well be where the term "southpaw" began to be used to refer to a person. But before that, the term was more widely used to refer to a person's left hand, with the first recorded usage being in 1813.

No one is really sure why a person's left hand became known as a south paw.  The best guess out there is that it's because south and left were associated with the devil and/or general badness.  Traces of this remain today when we might describe a person's uncharacteristic poor decision as having their judgment go south, or refer to the devil on our left shoulder when we're not proud of our motivations in a particular decision.  

The stockiest of stock images.

For us as martial artists, the difference between left-handed and right-handed students tends to be small.  A right-handed student may have an advantage when it comes to forms, because most of them were created by and for right-handed practitioners.  In a similar vein, there is this disturbing suggestion that being left-handed significantly increases your chances of dying in combat, because the tools that can save your life are made for right-handed users.

On the other hand (no pun intended but I'll go with it), a left-handed student may have an advantage in sparring other martial artists because both lefties and righties tend to get more practice against right-handed sparring partners.  Left-handed people only make up about 10% of the population, so statistically speaking, 90% of the partners and 90% of the practice will be against right-handed opponents.  Which explains why left-handed fighters are so dramatically over-represented at the professional levels in combat sports.  17% of professional boxers and almost 19% of professional MMA fighters are left-handed--they're almost twice as common as they are in the general public.

So being left-handed can make a fighter just a little bit more dangerous than their right-handed counterparts.  For combat sports like boxing where the term may have originated, more dramatic language can translate into ticket sales.  All those devilish connotations could have been to a fighter's advantage.  It's not hard to imagine a clever wordsmith playing up a left-handed fighter's devastating and maybe even diabolical "southpaw" power shot.

But imagination aside, we know that calling an athlete a "southpaw" didn't come from baseball but rather from a term for an actual left hand.  And if you thought otherwise, well, that myth has been duping people for over a century, so I guess we're in good company.  But let's not propagate it!

Should You Train Both Sides Equally?

"1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10!  Switch feet!  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10!"

    - Every instructor ever

The most common way to train basics is to practice a technique for some number of reps on one side, then switch feet and do the same number of reps on the other side.  But there are a couple other schools of thought out there.  And which one is best depends largely on what your goals are.

Approach #1:  Train Your Side

One school of thought is that you should prioritize the side that you are most likely to use.  You see this a lot in sports.  If you're an elite sparring competitor, you've probably come across this idea quite a bit.  Almost everyone has a "strong side," which is especially easy to see in, say, boxing.  Fighters are known for being orthodox or southpaw.  If you're not likely to switch your stance, you'll get more benefit for your training time if you practice from the stance that you're going to use.  

And while that is a great idea for winning, it's not such a great idea for overall health.  When you train asymmetrically, you condition your body asymmetrically, which can lead to muscle imbalance, posture problems and injuries.  This phenomenon is especially obvious in fencing, which is an extremely asymmetrical sport.  Fencers typically hold a weapon in one hand without ever switching.  They also spend a lot of time in what is basically a back stance.  If you think about where you're sore after some intense stance work, you can imagine why elite fencers tend to have larger calf muscles on one side.  But often they'll also have more developed muscles on their entire back leg and on their weapon arm, and even on one side of the torso.  Muscle imbalance, besides looking kind of freaky, can give you some pretty significant joint pain and even interfere with your movement.

Which is why a lot of martial artists, including myself, prefer...

Approach #2:  Train Both Sides

If your conditioning is symmetrical, your body will develop symmetrically.  (This is kind of a lie.  There are other things that can cause muscle imbalance, and in fact most people have some minor asymmetry, but for the most part this is pretty safe to say.)  

So if you throw the same number of punches on both sides, you'll stress the muscles on both sides of your body equally and strengthen them equally.  Same deal for kicks and throws and stance work and anything else we do.  

But there's one downside to this, which is why some people prefer...

Approach #3:  Train Your Weak Side

Very few people are truly ambidextrous.  You probably have one side that's more coordinated than the other.  If that bothers you, the natural solution is to give the other side a little more practice.

And there are some good reasons to do that!  But here I would caution people to be careful and think about what exactly you NEED your weak side to do.  If it's just a dislike of the idea that one side is more skilled than the other, maybe consider that it's not that big a deal.  No matter how much you train, you're unlikely to ever have exactly equal skill on both sides of your body.  And if you try, you could end up training your weak side disproportionately enough that you develop some of those muscle imbalance problems.

One way to get around this is to work your technique in an easy, relaxed way.  You can fix very many technical details without physically working all that hard.  And since you're not pushing the limits of your strength/speed/flexibility/etc., you're not forcing your muscles to adapt.  Don't get me wrong, you need to stress those muscles some.  But doing some very light finesse work and then blasting a target 10 times on each side will cause a lot less muscle imbalance than blasting a target 500 times on one side and 10 times on the other.

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Good luck with whichever approach is right for you!

Knife Hand Blocks and the Carotid Sinus

 Among many things that martial artists have named badly is the knife hand block. 

If you try to block something with that front hand, well, good luck with that.  There is a block involved, but the larger, more obvious motion of the front hand really only works as a strike.

There are a lot of style differences in knife hand blocks, so depending on what exactly you study, the specifics are going to be a little different.  But in general, the BACK hand is the block (or trap or grab) and the front hand is a strike.  And while there is a lot to explore in that back hand, this article is about the striking hand.

There are a few interesting points to notice.

1.  Your weight is on the back leg.

Knife hand blocks are almost always done in a back stance, with the weight predominantly on the back leg.  This is to facilitate what is going on with the back hand.  Many applications involve pulling the enemy forward into the strike , so that back-foot weight distribution helps.  But the downside is that the strike has to be effective without putting a lot of weight into it.  One way to reliably do that is striking a vulnerable area like the neck.

You have a lot of important things in your neck, and hitting any one of them hard enough can ruin your day if not your life.  A committed strike anywhere on the neck is serious business.  

Bringing that oh-so-famous Martial Journeys wisdom.

2.  The carotid sinus is a prime target for the strike part of this technique.

Your carotid arteries are the main way that blood gets into your brain.  At the base of each carotid artery you have a squishy spot called the carotid sinus.  They have a lot of baroreceptors, which have the job of monitoring blood pressure in the artery so your brain can make sure it's getting the right amount of blood.  Too much blood pressure in your brain or too little is very bad, but fortunately your body is pretty good at getting it just right.

image credit

While it's certainly not the only potential target for damage in the neck, the carotid sinus is certainly an interesting one.  I should digress for a moment to point out that it may or may not be a viable target, depending on what exactly the back hand is doing and even just the chaos of combat, the enemy's neck could be rotated any number of ways.  You might not have a good angle on the carotid sinus.  Maybe you'll  hit the wind pipe or vertebrae.  That is not any less serious, but again, that's beyond the scope of this article.

I'm focusing on the carotid sinus for this article because there seems to be a perception (which I'm sorry to say I may have contributed to) that short of a blood choke technique, an attack to this area will be painful but have limited effect otherwise.  Actually it can be much worse.

3.  This technique can end a fight.

The idea of striking a pressure point and having the person just keel over sounds like some weapons-grade bull.  And when something sounds like bull, it's usually bull.  Lean into your black belt level eye roll technique and then go hit something to try to blot said bull out of your brain.  But it turns out that some interesting and awful things can happen from a strike to the carotid sinus.

I know my audience, and you are not fans of bull.
image credit

If you really want to understand it, I recommend this article by Brian Sagi, which explains how a strike to the carotid sinus can cause the brain to freak out about changes in blood pressure (I mean, you did squish it pretty good with that strike, and that will definitely affect the pressure, so your baroreceptors are kind of right?) and respond by rapidly decreasing blood pressure in the brain until the person falls unconscious.  Lights out, from a strike to the neck.

I would hope this would go without saying, but THIS IS NOT SAFE TO PRACTICE.  Although getting hit with this is usually not lethal.  Usually.

If you really, really want to practice disrupting a friend's brain function and evacuating blood out of their brain, I have the following recommendations.

1.  Don't.

2.  Watch this video before trying it out.

3.  Seriously, don't play games with this stuff.  

You can safely practice a knife hand block by striking air, or by your partner keeping a hand up in front of the neck.  Hit the hand or arm instead.

2020, Martial Arts, and Personal Responsibility

Unpopular opinion time.

Yes, 2020 was a uniquely awful year.  A global pandemic, social isolation, livelihood challenges, a distinct lack of slow news days...  hopefully 2020 will be an anomaly that we can all look back on as a weird time that we all got through.

I have gone all-in with the meme that 2020 has been a malicious abomination that is actively out to get us.  It has amused me during a time when amusement is a much-needed salve.  And I'm not going to stop.

But.

Real talk time.

We made 2020 what it was.

Think about the things that went wrong this year, all the lowest of the low points, and you'd be hard pressed to think of one that wasn't a direct result of--or exacerbated by--decisions made by humans.  

Pandemics are governed by science, but humans chose to make it political, to listen to the experts or not, to make one less trip to the grocery or give in and buy the comfort food, to sacrifice one holiday season to save lives or not, to spread misinformation or fact-check diligently, and so forth.  

Photo credit.

With various parts of the world in government-mandated lockdowns, and other parts of the world leaving it in the hands of the people to make the best decisions to balance necessity against the spread of the disease, a lot of martial arts schools are closed.  Very many of us have found ourselves without our classes, instructors, training partners, and sometimes livelihoods.  Which, besides being painful, it has also been a test of our ability to adapt, to persevere, and to do what is right even when it is hard.

Isolation has been its own awfulness, and without our classes and training partners, we martial artists have lost a major avenue for social connection, which is no better or worse than the garden variety isolation blues that non-martial artists are facing.  It's just easier to go unrecognized, since most of us don't show up to class because we're eager to chit chat.  We go to train, and the social component is a less-visible side benefit.  2020 gave us an opportunity to recognize our dojang friendships, casual though they may be, and either do right by those friends or not.  After all, those friends have also lost their martial arts classes and social connections.

Photo credit.

Looking back on 2020, I can think of many decisions I can be proud of, and just as many things I could have done better.  And the problems of 2020 aren't going to magically dissipate on January 1st.  It's going to take a lot more than a turn of a calendar page to meaningfully improve humanity's biggest problems.

But, we're up to it, right?  We, as martial artists, who proudly say we are physically and mentally strong, that we value character and character growth, that we want to be leaders in our communities (or at least positive influences on those communities), and that we are good people who strongly believe in the power of martial arts to make the world better?

Let's walk the walk.  2021 will be exactly what we humans choose to make it.

Let's do it right.

Karate Lotion!

Like much of the world, I have been doing a lot more hand washing lately than I used to.  Which in turn has caused me to go through a lot more hand lotion.  And this leaves me with a bit of a problem, which is that I really dislike most hand lotions. 

The main thing is the smell. 

• I don't want to smell like food.
• I don't want to smell like a delicate flower.
• I don't want to smell like a hospital.

And there's surprisingly little left over when you eliminate all of that.

But today I conjured up some vague recollection of a friend of a friend making their own lotions.  Maybe I can do that!  Maybe I could launch a whole line of Face Punch Lotions and name them things like Roundhouse Kick and Legendary Warrior.  I bet I could sell like two jars.

But most importantly, I could have hand lotion that smells however I want!  What does Roundhouse Kick lotion smell like?  What does Legendary Warrior lotion smell like?  Actually most martial arts things just smell like sweat, but I don't need any help smelling like that.  And I do need hand lotion.

So, then, with my perfect lotions, I don't have to smell like a food, a flower or a hospital.  But what DO I want to smell like?

• I want to smell like a mighty death punch walking the earth in human form, confidently striding amongst mere mortals.
• I want to smell like ten thousand cuts of a samurai sword.
• I want to smell like the goddess Athena, so clearly in a mood after being momentarily inconvenienced by destroying an opposing army, that it only takes a sidelong glance to silence the next mortal who tries to explain warfare to her.
• I want to smell like a flying side kick so powerful and precise that it can rend an entire forest into perfectly cut makiwara materials in a single blow.

Yes!  I will finally have hand lotion that I love!

I tracked down directions for how to make hand lotion, and scoured the internet for ingredients.  And that is when reality came crushing down on me.

It turns out, making lotion is hard and expensive.  It would cost me hundreds of dollars to even give it a try.  Well.  I can repurpose that old bottle of body cream under the sink for free.

I know you're crushed, but Face Punch Lotions was just not meant to be.

Form Name or Metal Song?

Recently Iain Abernethy pointed out that some kata names sound like death metal bands.  For most martial artists this would elicit a smile and a nod, but this blog is weird and you're weird for reading it.  So for all my favorite weirdos, here is a fun little quiz.  I'll present two phrases.  One is a translation of a form name, and the other is a metal song.  Guess which one is which, and see how many you get right!

(Quick side note:  Some of these translations are disputed.  Don't shoot the messenger, just have fun.)

Which is a form name, and which is a metal song?  Click your answer to find out if you were right!

Round 1:

Attack and Destroy or Seek and Destroy

Round 2:

For the Greater Good of God or Might for Right

Round 3:

Your Body is a Battleground or Internal Divided Conflict

Round 4:

Emperor's Crown or King's Eyes

Round 5:

Rest Calm or Tranquil Force

Round 6:

Power of One or Ancestors

Round 7:

Rise and Fall or Gazing Heavenward

Round 8:

Fighter to the East or South of Heaven

Round 9:

Center of the Universe or Heaven and Earth

Round 10:

Temple Sound or Spirit

Bonus Cheating Round:

13 or 13

Solo Training Resource List

In the face of a global pandemic, martial arts instructors all over the world are looking for ways to help their students train at home while classes aren't being held.  My own tiny school is doing this as well.  But that does little for the instructors who are also stuck training at home.  During these trying times, we have an opportunity to come together and support each other.

In that spirit, I'm offering up the lessons that I created for my students for anyone who wants to try them.  Those who read this blog tend to be more advanced than the students these were created for, but you may enjoy them nonetheless.

If you have created exercises or workouts for your students to do at home and want to share them with a wider audience, please leave a comment on this post with the link.  I will add them to the official list as quickly as I'm able.

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The List:

Martial Journeys of Madison At-Home Training
Leigh Simms Progressive Karate
Clubb Chimera Martial Arts Shadow Sparring Workout
Karate Nerd 10-Minute Karate Workout
IMOK Karate Class Video
Iain Abernethy's Applied Karate Kata Bunkai App
Taekwon-Do Senior Instructors Class
Solo Training Dos and Don'ts

Happy Life Martial Arts Home Workouts
Northampton Martial Arts Online Classes

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Fine print for those contributing links:
1.  Please, only one link per school.  If you want to offer multiple workouts, please use a link to a tag or a playlist or some other format that will allow for a concise single link.
2.  Please only submit your own content.  That way I know I'll only post links with the permission of the person who created it.

Martial Movement Seminar

Hi everyone!

Most of my seminars are part of the 50 States Challenge, and I teach at them for charity.  But this one is something different.  I've been invited to do a joint seminar with fellow martial arts blogger Pat Bolton of IMOK Karate.

And you're invited, so save the date!

Saturday, March 7, 2020 from 1:00 to 3:00

We'll be at 55 South Gammon Road in Madison, Wisconsin, which is the Lussier Community Education Center gym.

If you'd like to come, drop Pat an email at imokkarate@gmail.com.

We're trying hard to make the seminar style-agnostic, so it doesn't matter what kind of martial art you do--just bring your enthusiasm.  We're going to cover biomechanics, joint health, power generation, applying forms/kata in self defense, and conditioning.  And just because it seems somehow impossible or just morally wrong for me to be involved in a project like this and not introduce a little Martial Journeys weirdness, we're also going to do some of this nonsense.

Here's the official flier, which you're welcome to print out and display if you like:

Please come!  I would love to meet you in person.  Email Pat to register here.

Two Approaches to Mental Strength

Like most martial artists, I've been punched.  Aside from a few that were particularly hard or unusual in some way, most of those punches were pretty forgettable.

But the other day, I got a punch I will never forget.  The kind that has you standing in line at a grocery store two days later pretending everything is okay when it Definitely. Is. Not.  This punch came in the form of four words:

"I canceled my chemo."

My instructor proceeded to tell me about how he had to work outside in the cold this week, and if he had his chemo treatment, it would be too painful for him to complete the work.  He explained that he couldn't take the time off because he needed the money, so he canceled his chemo appointment instead.

So that was my punch, and I'd trade it for a dislocated jaw any day.  But as hard as this is for me, it is obviously much worse for him and his family.  I have the mental strength of a martial artist.  I can be everyone's rock, right?

How To Maximize Mental Strength

When we talk about physical strength, having a strong body can mean being able to lift heavy things, excelling in physical workouts, being resilient to illness, and so forth.  Mental strength also encompasses a lot.  It's the discipline to crank out those last few reps, the motivation to force yourself to go to class even if you'd rather stay home and relax, and the focus to keep your mind from wandering when you need all your attention in order to get a job done.

Just like a serious physical ailment can destroy all aspects of your body's strength, hardship can kick your discipline, focus, motivation, patience, and so forth, to the curb.

The good news is, mental strength trainable.  The even better news is, martial arts can be a great vehicle for training mental strength.

So what do you do when you need all your mental strength?

1.  Reframe your stressor as a challenge. 

If you never challenge yourself, you'll never improve.  If you're never failing, you're not challenging yourself.  So as insurmountable as your stressor may be, in some ways it's not so different from the heavy weight at the gym, or your nemesis sparring partner, or whatever other physical challenge you're trying to overcome.  Just like those physical challenges, if you've chosen a goal that is so easy that you have no chance of failing, you have chosen a goal that will not help you improve.  And just like practicing martial arts will make you better at martial arts, practicing with your problem will make you better at dealing with your problem.

Once you understand that whatever situation is giving you a beating is ultimately not that different from your regular training, you can approach it with a healthier mindset.

2.  Let the little stuff go.

There's science behind it, but it's also just common sense that when you are enduring hardship, it makes no sense to make it even harder on yourself.  If you put a lot of your mental energy into the proverbial deck chairs on the Titanic, the actual sinking ship is going to be that much harder to face because you're mentally fatigued.  Focus on what's most important, and cut yourself some slack if you're not perfect in other areas.

3.  Train your mental strength.

Hopefully you started this one before you need it.  Just like your physical conditioning, it takes time.  Very hard training that makes you dig deep to find the strength to finish will condition your ability to finish things you don't want to finish.  Ignoring distractions in your training space will condition your ability to control your focus and direct your mind back to the task at hand when it wanders.  Focusing on your next technique when some corner of your brain is telling you to feel embarrassment or pride about the last one will bolster your ability to spend your effort on things that can actually affect the outcome of your struggle.

4.  Manage your energy levels.

As trite as it sounds to include "self care" in a list like this, it's a cliche because it's true.  Taking care of your health and getting quality sleep will absolutely help your mental strength.  Beyond that, whatever boosts your energy is as individual as you are.  Spending time with friends, cuddling pets and getting lost in a book, splurging on a snooty dinner out, watching a movie, getting to class... all of that has a cost in time, money, or both.  But if it gives you the energy to jump back into the fight with gusto, it also has a lot of value.

So that's my toolbox.  Here's how I've used it lately.

I put on the biggest lie of a smile for the students who come to train.  No one is going to get the class they need if I'm not strong for them.  Focus now, despair later.  Make jokes about stances so that everyone is laughing while they're pushing themselves to improve.  Don't give the elephant in the room even an inch.  Make sure no one uses a particular 6-letter C-word.  Model excellent mental strength for students who still need to learn those skills.

Everything is just fine.  Actually, that's an old picture, so everything really is fine.

Off the training floor, I do everything I can to help out financially and logistically.  Try to give him a little more freedom and means to focus on his health.  That requires a measure of mental strength, too.

But that's me.  I'm not at the center of this turdnado, and the person who IS at the center has trained a lot longer than I have.  I wondered, does a lifetime of martial arts make you strong enough to face this?  So I asked.

Here's what he had to say.

1.  Stay positive.

"When someone hears you have cancer, they always say, 'I'm sorry.'  But I don't feel sorry for myself."  He then proceeded to talk about some good things that have come out of his experience with cancer, like learning from the experience, being more connected to the people around him, and increased spirituality.  He emphasized how important it was to stay positive in order to have the mental strength to keep fighting.

2.  Maintain self control.

It's easy to imagine what he's going through and think that he must be stressed out, irritable, in constant physical discomfort, and on the edge of despair.  But interacting with him, you'd guess none of those things.  He credits his martial arts experience with giving him the skill of calming himself and maintaining that calmness, for the mental strength it has instilled in him, and the physical strength as well.  Because, as he put it, "You can only build so much of your mind without considering your body."  I'm sure no doctor would disagree.

3.  Keep learning.

He specifically mentioned "drawing strength" from learning from the experience.  He talked about how the experience has made him more aware of the connection between his mind and body.  He says he has also learned to open up as a human being, and is now more conscious of his own feelings and the feelings of others.

4.  Keep being you.

Actually what he said was, "Always remember to keep giving."  But he has a GoFundMe, and I was afraid it would sound really self-serving, so I changed it.  But "always keep giving" is such a pure reflection of who he is as a person.  This is someone whose generosity has exasperated business partners by giving away so much for free to people who couldn't pay.  Someone who has given so selflessly to his students and to the community that there's not enough left for himself, a martial arts retelling of It's A Wonderful Life.  This is someone who swooped in like the mentor figure in some saccharine after-school special and helped me regain my footing after my own really awful story.

And I'm one of his less dramatic stories.  I know about ex-felons who turned their lives around because of his help.  I know of at-risk kids who he put on the right course.  I know of kids who were bullied to the verge of suicide who pulled through in part because of him.  His life has been a series of Quantum Leap episodes, minus the time travel.  How many of us see our lives that way?  If we could travel to the past, we say we'd try to make small changes that had heroic consequences for the present.  But who tries to make small changes in the present with heroic consequences for the future?

I've lost track of how many times I've heard him say some variation of, "I didn't train for X years so I could keep it, I learned it so I could give it away."  That variable X has increased over the time that I've known him, and is now up to 47 years as he said it to me again today.

Friends, I don't ask for much.  Sure, I appreciate the likes, shares and subscribes, but I don't have a Patreon, a paid content section, DVDs or books or supplements or snake oil for sale.  Even my seminars I do without a paycheck.  But right now I'm asking.  If you can help, please do.  https://www.gofundme.com/ken-bent-cancer-fund

7 Tools for your New Year's Resolution

It's New Year's Day, so it's time for all that "new me" stuff that tends to fall by the wayside before February 1st.  Personally, I have never really done the New Year's resolution thing.  I am constantly working toward goals, but they seldom line up with the calendar year.

To be successful in your goals, it mostly comes down to a whole lot of "wanting it."  That said, having the right tools can make it a little easier.  So with that in mind, here's a list of my favorite tools for pursuing challenging goals.

1.  A good goal.  

Look!  A metaphor!

Aw, you thought I was going to recommend a bunch of things you could go out and buy, and here I am leading with an abstract concept.  Sorry dude, none of this is going to be easy.  If it were easy, we'd all be 10th dan Olympic athlete rock stars with multiple PhDs.  If that's you, congratulations.  You can stop reading now.  You obviously have a good grasp of setting and achieving goals.  If instead you're scarfing down microwave ramen while watching cat videos and trying to decide whether you want to spend the rest of your evening studying, training, or playing video games (don't laugh, we've all been there) then this is for you.

Some goals fail before you even get started.  Want to get better at stuff?  That's not specific enough to work toward.  Aiming to get better at sparring?  How will you know when you get there if you can't measure it?  Hoping to flying side kick the moon out of the sky?  That's not achievable.  Want to run a 4-minute mile because the bragging rights would be cool?  Like I said earlier, most of achieving goals is a matter of really wanting it, so pick something relevant to what it most important to you.  Want to win a national championship someday?  If you can put it off until later, you probably will, so you need a deadline. 

There's a popular mnemonic to help you remember this:  SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound).  Setting a SMART goal helps set you up for success.  There's more on this topic in this episode of Iain Abernethy's podcast.

2.  Glucose.  

Willpower magnified by a power of a hundred billion or so.

Glucose is basically what powers your body.  Doing just about anything requires glucose.  Anything that requires effort will deplete your glucose a little bit, even just exercising your willpower.  Actually, this is a bit of an oversimplification, and more research is needed (you can read more about the science of willpower here) but for our purposes we can just consider willpower to be made out of glucose.  So getting out of bed, climbing into a really cold shower, saying no to the free cookies in the break room, being nice to that coworker who ignored your advice and "fixed" a bug by breaking every other similar feature in the project and then acted surprised when it did exactly what you said it would, getting your butt to class when you're really not in the mood, etc., all expends glucose. 

Some people refer to this concept as "spoons."  The idea is that you have a finite number of spoonfuls of energy, which you spend throughout the day.  I prefer to call them magic points or mana, because in my nerd brain, spending mana sounds way cooler than using spoons.  But whether you call it glucose, spoons, willpower, or mana, the important thing to remember is that you don't have an infinite supply.  When you run out (and you will!) you are done.  Your willpower is gone, and you'll snap at the obnoxious coworker, or you won't say no to the cookie, or you'll go to bed instead of to class, until you get your energy back.

You can make your goals easier to achieve by managing your glucose.  Don't waste it on things that won't help you achieve your goal.  That's also why it's so important to work on only one goal at a time.  If you want to ace your upcoming belt test, but you also want to publish a novel, pick the one you want to work on, and let the other wait.  This might hurt!  Setting aside something else that is important to you is just another really hard thing you'll need to do to achieve your goal.  Because trying to split your glucose between the two is a good way to fail at both.  Ace your belt test.  The novel will be there right where you left it, when you have the spoons it deserves.

The other thing you can do is replenish your glucose.  You do this by eating.

But what if you have the very common goal of losing weight?  If you run out of glucose by willing yourself to avoid calories, and you can only replenish that glucose by saying yes to calories, what do you do?  This is why dieting is hard.  So, acknowledge that it's going to be hard.  It's extremely important to not waste the glucose you have, because if you're dieting, your glucose will often be in short supply.  Don't use it to force yourself to practice guitar or clean the garage.  That can happen after the weight comes off.  Second, you can manage how and when you replenish your glucose.  Eating a healthy snack right before you know you'll need to expend willpower can help.

3.  Tracking software.

If your goal is to look unnaturally organized...

When a goal is important to you, you probably don't need to be told to track it.  You probably think about it all the time.  Give those thoughts a place.  If you're a pen-and-paper sort of person, you can try a training diary.  If you read that sentence and adjusted your glasses while saying, "That's not very efficient because it's not searchable or customizable and will not automatically calculate my progress," I'm sure you'll have no trouble setting up an elaborate spreadsheet.  (Weight loss spreadsheet people, try The Hacker's Diet.)  If you've got money to throw around, you might find a wearable fitness tracker that helps with your specific goal.  Or there's my personal favorite, which is goal tracking games like Habitica or SuperBetter.  Or even better, use some combination of trackers to suit your specific needs.  What you use doesn't really matter so much as just having a place to track your progress.  See that it's working (or that it's NOT working, so you can adjust your plan) and keep yourself motivated.

4.  Video games.

Eat my fire attack, monster.

Hear that?  That's the sound of a thousand martial artist rolling their eyes.  But bear with me.  Video games are something I enjoy, and your thing might be something else.  But if I just threw 8 quadrillion roundhouse kicks, you can bet that Dracula is about to get pwned.  After your 8 quadrillionth roundhouse kick, maybe you treat yourself to a good movie, or maybe you mosh to smooth jazz.  Whatever.  You do you.  But reward yourself.  And dieters?  Reward yourself early and often.  'Cause let me tell you, when the fate of the Koprulu Sector lies in the balance, and I'm building up my zerg army, and my base just got cannon rushed, I guarantee you I have no idea how hungry I am.

5.  Accountability buddy.

This picture both delights and terrifies me.

Having someone to keep you accountable can be huge.  Maybe your instructor does that for you, or maybe you've got a great training partner, friend, or significant other.  It's more fun when your accountability buddy is working toward a similar goal, but really it just has to be someone who is invested in your success.  Having access to that encouragement, having someone to vent to when the going gets rough, and knowing that someone else will notice when you persevere or slip up, all makes you more likely to succeed. 

That's one very good reason to line up your goals with the calendar year.  It's usually easier to find accountability buddies when so many people are enthusiastic about their New Year's resolutions.

6.  Plans.

Tear this ship apart until you've found those plans!

I don't have a whole lot in common with Darth Vader, but we both want those plans.  Schedule time to do the things that will set you up for success.  Try something like this:  Sunday at 4 PM is time to create a meal plan and grocery list to stick to my diet.  That 15 minutes immediately after class is when I'll work on my flexibility.  The first thing every morning will be forms practice.  Whatever your goal is, having the time to do it is essential.

7.  Luck.

I roll twenties!

Like I mentioned before, achieving your goals mostly comes down to wanting it badly enough to do the hard work of making it happen.  But it's dishonest to pretend that luck doesn't enter into the equation at all.  Even though it's borderline heresy to some, the truth is, there's just too much randomness in the world for life to be a perfect meritocracy, where your success or failure in your goals comes down exclusively to the work you put into them. 

Some extreme examples:  Your goal is to save a certain amount of money from each paycheck, and you win the lottery.  Now you don't have to live frugally to achieve your savings goals.  Let's say you're trying to increase the number of push ups you can do by the end of the month, but the flu takes you out of training for two weeks.  Or you're training for the Olympics when you lose a leg in a car accident.  In those cases, it's really easy to see that your goals need to be readjusted.  But smaller factors can add up and impact your goal, too.

If you've chosen a good goal that is an appropriate challenge level for you, a little luck one way or the other could be the difference between success and failure.  Not so?  That's either because you've chosen a goal that is so easy that you will only be challenged when your luck is bad, or a goal that is so hard that you have no real chance unless your luck is very good.  If you are really challenging yourself, really pushing the limits of your physical or mental strength, luck will get to push you around a little bit. 

The key is to be honest with yourself about your effort and progress, whether you succeed or fail.  There's a fine line between making excuses and knowing when bad luck did you in.  And there's an equally fine line between false pride and knowing when good luck gave you a boost.  If you're completely honest with yourself, you can make the most of whatever hand your were dealt, and go into your next goal with more insight.  "I added 5 reps per set last month even though I had the flu, so I should be able to improve even more this month," or "Having a training partner every day last week made it really easy to get to the gym, but my schedule is back to normal this week so I should plan accordingly," are realistic assessments of luck that set you up for success.

Best wishes to everyone in the new year, and best of luck to everyone in your goals for 2019!

Cat!

I made a flier for a pressure point seminar taught by a cat.

Why would I do that?  I have my reasons.  Those reasons aren't as important as the fact that I now have a flier of a pressure point seminar taught by a cat.

But the main reason is because I just finished a podcast about sexual assault.  I spent a lot of time being bogged down in very important and very serious subject matter, and it has left me kind of drained.  So for this month's blog post, I'm not being serious at all.  I'll go back to being helpful next time.

Lock In What You Learned

From Washington to Arkansas:  A teaching technique from Sensei Kris Wilder

One of my favorite things about the 50 States Challenge is passing on what I learned at previous stops.  After taking some time to process everything I've been taught, I pass along a Takeaway Technique that exemplifies the lesson from the previous school.  Then after I pass it along to the next school, I put it on the blog for all to see.  You can blame Iain Abernethy for this, since it was his idea.

When I was in Seattle, I got a lesson in teaching.

Which is kind of like saying this fish got a lesson in static electricity.

I got a lot of good stuff out of Sensei Kris, but it was easy to choose what piece of it should be the takeaway technique.

I had just finished teaching the oldest group of students about kicking mechanics and pivoting theory, with a digression into two-person forms.  Just as we were wrapping up, he asked each student in the class what they had learned.

Each student in the class had an answer, and those answers were diverse.  Some of them mentioned specific techniques that were new to them.  Others mentioned details of techniques that they didn't know before.  Others came up with observations about life.

Whoooo, that was fun.  I wanna go back.

I instantly loved what Sensei Kris did.  By doing that, each student had to reflect on the class and think of something that was useful to them.  That by itself made it far more likely that they would remember it.  It was sort of an on-the-spot personalized mini review session.  I imagined that once a student has been put on the spot with a question like that, in future lessons they might keep it in mind that they might be asked again.

For example, say a student is told to throw a punch for the thousandth time.  As the class gets busy throwing punches, that student might be just going through the motions.  Until someone points out to him that he could get more power if he adjusts his stance.  The student could file that information away for later, thinking, "There's a good thing to mention if I get asked what I learned today."  And by filing it away to be recalled at the end of the class, it could also be recalled later, say, the next time he was throwing punches.  And he would remember it whether he actually got asked at the end of class or not.  It was brilliant.

Later Sensei Kris pointed out an aspect that I hadn't noticed.  He said that while it's really useful to the student, it's equally useful to the instructor.  He said it gives him insight into his students and how they learn.  He said that some students mention very specific mechanical things, while others mention general feelings of techniques, and others cue off of stories or jokes.  As he said this, I remembered examples from the class I taught.

I have incorporated this into my teaching, and I'm so happy with the results.  I've gotten responses from tiny details like, "I should turn my foot more when I throw roundhouse kick," to grander observations like, "The power isn't coming from where I thought it was coming from."  And, not gonna lie, it's pretty cool as the instructor to hear all of your students articulate their learning and how much they got out of your teaching.  Try to trip over nothing on your way off the mats so your head doesn't get too big.

Is it cool with you guys if I just spend the whole blog post bragging on my students?

If you're interested in trying this out yourself, here's how.

For Instructors:

1.  Don't warn the students that you're going to ask them what they learned.
2.  Ask each student individually and give them time to answer.
3.  Everyone has to come up with an answer.  No sitting out.
4.  No one is allowed to repeat someone else's answer.
5.  If a student can't think of an answer, let them think about it and come back to them later.
6.  You may want to ask the least experienced students first.  It's a little harder to answer last because if someone else gives your answer before your turn, you have to quickly think of a new one.

For Students:

This part is me riffing off of what Sensei Kris taught me, so don't hold it against him if you don't like it.

If your instructor doesn't ask you what you learned, you can still ask yourself.  Do it right after the class ends.  Write it down, if you like.  Just reviewing it in your head will be useful, but having a record is even better.

You shouldn't have any trouble thinking of something you've learned in a class.  If you're consistently having a really hard time, it might be time to take a long, hard look at your training and see if anything needs to change.

-

Full disclosure:  I kind of messed this up when I was in Arkansas.  When I saw the huge turnout, I realized that there was no way everyone would be able to provide a unique answer.  So instead I asked for a handful of volunteers to give it a try.  Even with the smaller group, I didn't leave enough time for it at the end of the lesson.  It was really rushed trying to get answers out of everyone, and on a couple of them I had to let them slide without providing their own unique answers.

Just my luck that the first time I foul this up, it's at a seminar for the 50 States Challenge.

Photo Credit

Photo Credit

Photo Credit

Well that was embarrassing!