Fight for a Happy Life with Sensei Ando: Martial Arts for Everyday Life

Welcome to Episode #101 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “You Are the Dojo.”

A few years ago, I made a video called, The World Is Your Dojo. The message—that you can learn anywhere, from anyone, at any time—is still a good one. However…

…it’s not the whole story! In fact, I’d say I missed the most important point.

In this episode, I’m going to explain how the lockdowns we experienced during the Covid pandemic not only changed the world, but changed my mind about dojos.

After all, aren’t you a part of this world? So, then it makes sense that you are a dojo, too! The only question is—what kind of dojo are you?

Is your dojo open or closed? Quiet or noisy? Changing or stagnant?

Let’s talk about making sure our dojo is the best it can be and accepting our role as both a student and teacher in the martial arts… and in life.

To LISTEN to “You Are the Dojo,” you can either:

To WATCH the video version or READ the transcript, scroll down below.

If you’d like to support this show, share the link with a friend or leave a quick review over on iTunes. Thank you!

Oh—and don’t forget to sign up for free email updates so you can get new shows sent to your inbox the minute they’re released.

Thanks for listening! Keep fighting for a happy life!

Here’s the video. If the player doesn’t work, click this direct link.

As always, if you’d like to keep the conversation going, feel free to leave a comment here or through my Contact Page.

Howdy, and welcome to episode #101 of Fight for a Happy Life, the show that believes even a little martial arts makes life a whole lot better. My name is Ando and I’m so happy you could drop by.

Today, a correction. Or maybe an update, if you prefer. I made a video a little while ago. It wasn’t a full podcast. It was just a short topic. It was titled The World Is Your Dojo. And in that video, this was the premise…

Every place is a classroom. Every person is a teacher. And every moment is a lesson.

Nice, right? Now, I made that video as a response. It was an answer to all of the students that I have talked to over the years, in person and online, who come up with all of these reasons that they’re not training, that they won’t start training, why martial arts is just not a good fit for them right now.

Top three reasons people don’t train, they would say: not enough time, not enough money, don’t know a good teacher. Next top three reasons, if I had to pick another three: too old, too young, too out of shape, or having some kind of injury that they feel will hold them back.

So, I made this video as a response to that, because to me these weren’t really reasons, they were excuses. I think if you’re a student of martial arts, if you want to be a student of martial arts, you find a way. And let me take another quote from that video, because that’s what egomaniacs do–

What’s your source? Why, it’s me.

So, in that video, if you’ll allow me, I said, if you are a real student of martial arts, a little judgmental there, but I said that–

–if you are a real student of the martial arts, you will learn anywhere, anytime, and from anyone.

You don’t need to be standing in a dojo or a gym. Wherever you are right now, that’s your dojo. Whatever you’re wearing right now, that’s your uniform. Whoever you’re with, that’s your teacher. And whatever you’re doing, that’s your lesson.

Well, there you go. Now, that all sounded great until last year, until COVID. What happened? Well, if the premise was that the world out there, all these places that you can go, is your dojo, well, what happens when that world is closed, when you’re locked down?

The world shrank. Not just for me, but I think for everyone. Personally, not only couldn’t I go to the schools and work with teachers and fellow students, I lost the places where I taught. So that was gone.

At one point in Los Angeles, they also shut down the parks. I had made a ritual of going out to the parks every day and couldn’t do that, off limits. Then there were fires. I’ve talked about this before. So you weren’t even allowed to really go outside because there was so much smoke. And I was living in a very modest, small place, so I was stuck.

There was no world out there. If the world was my dojo, well, the dojo was closed. So cabin fever eventually gave way to the feeling that I was in jail. But that’s because I missed the biggest lesson. That’s what I want to correct today.

Yes, the world is your dojo. That’s still true. But there’s more to it. Because logically, you are part of the world. You occupy a space, do you not? And you are a person, are you not?

Therefore, you are a dojo.

And now I would say, you are the dojo. The greatest dojo, the most important dojo. Not the world out there, the world right here. You.

Let’s break that down. How does that make sense?

Well, dojo is basically what? It’s the place where you study the way, the place where you learn. Common speak, it’s a classroom, a school, a place you learn. Well, where does learning really take place?

Geographically speaking, you drive across town, you go to a school. Is that where you learn? Is that where change takes place? No. The change that occurs is in you.

You are the place where the learning happens. People and places out there are just people and places out there. It’s you that matters.

This was the big lesson that I got from the lockdown. Because the dojo has to be in me, otherwise you really never will learn. I hope that makes sense, because it’s true. You don’t find the way, whatever that way is for you, out there. You have to find it in you.

That might take the form of meditation, of exercising, solo drilling, visualizing, talking to people still on the phone, videos, podcasts, whatever you got. In doing that during the lockdown, I’ve already talked about it, I learned a lot. It was a very fruitful period to be locked down for me, because it really forced me to figure out that I’m the dojo, that I don’t have to go other places. I can do it on my own.

I’m not saying that’s ideal, but because you like the stimulus of other ideas that you get from other people, of course. But again, what good is it if you’re not going to change, if you’re not going to learn, if you’re not getting anything out of it? That’s on you. You are the dojo. So let’s talk about that.

Metaphorically, if you drive around town looking at martial arts schools, as soon as you drive by, you get an impression of them. You get an impression of what’s going on inside. There’s an image right away.

The sign, the way the parking lot is structured, stuff in the windows. You get a feeling, right?

So, looking at yourself through that metaphor, is your dojo clean or cluttered? Are you a bright dojo or are you a dark place? Would you say that your dojo is quiet or is it noisy? A lot of stuff going on in your head?

Is the door, so to speak, to your dojo open and welcoming? Or is it closed, a barrier? Is there a window in your dojo so that you can see outside and be influenced and get ideas? Or no windows, is it all cinder blocks?

Is there a mirror in your dojo so that you can see yourself better? So you can take a look at yourself and be honest and say, hmm, that’s what I need to work on. If you’re with me on that metaphor, I hope you’ll think about that.

If you see yourself as a place of learning and then try to make sure that you’re equipped to learn as much as you can, that there are doors and windows and mirrors, that it is clean, that it is quiet, so you can get the lessons you need to get.

Now, here’s the problem…

Like I said, even if you have no excuses, you find the time, you find the money, you find the style you like, you find a great teacher, if you are not prepared to learn, if you are not prepared to change, it doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter where you go, who you talk to, what you do. Doesn’t matter. You’re stuck in a dark, cluttered, noisy dojo. And I hope that’s not you.

Now, I know this is to be true, not just from my own experience, my own stumbles as a student, but from a teaching point of view. And I’m sure if you reflect, if you’re a teacher on your students or just your fellow classmates, you will see some students having experiences but not learning from them. Am I right?

You see it all the time. Technically speaking, they have left their house and come to a formal dojo. They made the drive. They put on the uniform. They paid the tuition. Now they’re on the mats. They’re sweating. But for whatever reason, they’re having the same experience of failure over and over again, and they’re never changing. They haven’t learned a lesson.

What’s worse is they don’t even recognize their failure as a failure sometimes, whether that’s ego or denial or a fear of change. Whatever it is, they have some issue that’s preventing them from getting better. So they get hit by the same punch. They slip the same way. They get caught in the same arm bar.

For some reason, their game, their skill level just doesn’t change. No change, no learning. That is what I’m terrified of. I don’t want that to occur in this dojo. I don’t want that to occur in your dojo.

So then you have to ask yourself, in your dojo, in you, a place of learning, what is your curriculum? We can talk about the styles and content and drills and curriculum of the schools out there. What did you guys write down? What are your priorities? How do you train? What’s your methodology?

But what about you? What are you willing to change in yourself? In your dojo, in you, what lessons are you willing to learn? Are some things off the table you don’t want to even look at, don’t want to touch? These are important questions.

Now, we talk about being the best student you can be a lot in this podcast. So I’m going to stop that part of this topic right there. I leave it to you to examine yourself as a dojo and really figure out if you are ready to learn and ready to change as much as you think you are. That’s one part of this topic.

I’m going to switch it over to another aspect of this, though. And here it is.

If you’re a dojo– let’s just follow the logic here, because I said if every place you go is a dojo, then where you are is a dojo. And if every person is a teacher, you’re a teacher. Ah, you’re a teacher.

You are a teacher, which means you are a place of learning for other people too. You, your space, your voice, your hands, your movement, your attitudes, your statements, your words. That’s not just an expression of what you’re learning and how you’re changing. It’s also going to be an influence on the people that meet you and that come into your space and hear your voice.

So, what kind of teacher are you?

And you should own this, because you may not think of yourself as a teacher, but we all influence one another, right? And they may never tell you that you’re a teacher or that you influence them or that you change their mind about something. You may not get that right to your face, but you know what I’m talking about. You are influential.

So what kind of teacher are you? This dojo that you have. If someone comes into your dojo, they come into conversation with you. Every interaction you have, this is a lesson that you are putting into the world.

So what kind of teacher are you? What kind of dojo are you running here? I would say the way you spar is the way you live, right? If martial arts is really part of you, then your sparring is just an expression of your personality.

So is your sparring style really rough? Is it really kind of passive? Or do you have that balance in the middle? And now by extension, in every interaction you have with your friends, with strangers, with your family, with business associates, are you kind of rough around the edges?

Are you taking cheap shots? Are you giving up too much space? Are you letting other people push you around? Or have you found that balance in the middle? Are you able to play both roles? Be firm when you need to be firm and let things go when you need to let go.

What about winning? When you spar, you might be the kind of person who wants to just win every time. Every match, every round is a competition. And you’re going for that prize every single time. Well, is that how you act in conversations too? You have a disagreement with someone and you will not let it go until they say you’re right. Of course, they never do, so then you just go away angry or frustrated or you cut off that relationship altogether.

Is that how you roll? Or do you allow people to have their say? Do you let people have their turn? Do you let people share your spotlight? Do you allow people to make mistakes in front of you and to grow and learn the way I would hope people do for you? Or do you punish people for making mistakes in front of you, for saying the wrong thing, for being a little out of control sometimes?

Do you punish them for that or do you point it out to them with patience and understanding and allow them to develop because you’re a teacher, right? If you just punish and berate and criticize everyone that comes into your life, you may not have that many people in your life. Just asking.

Are you the kind of person in your lessons, as a teacher in this world, where it’s your way or the highway? Or can you meet people halfway and help them get to where you want them to go? And if they don’t go your way, can you still be friends? Can you still love them? Accept them?

Do you apologize when you’re wrong? What kind of teacher are you? Do you allow yourself to make mistakes as a teacher? Do you let people see when you’re wrong and then say, you know what, I’m wrong about that? Or you know what, I don’t know. Or you know what, I’m still gonna learn more about this. Let me get back to you.

Do you allow yourself room to develop? Do you forgive yourself for your mistakes? Are you consistent?

These are just questions. This is for your reflection. Any one of these might be a period of crying. They are for me. So play this back until you find one that makes you cry.

Are you consistent in your teaching, in your behavior? Or are you erratic? I’m sad to say I’ve had to cut some people out of my life because they’re erratic and unpredictable, which becomes a cause for anxiety and stress. You never know who you’re going to end up talking to. One day they’re supportive, the next day they’re abusive, and you’re like, what?

Is that how you roll? Is that how you live? Or are you consistent? Have you built up habits that people understand who you are, whatever those choices may be, but are you at least consistent about them? Or are you all over the place, and it just seems like random?

In a recent podcast, #99: You Are a Master, I talked about how everyone is a master of something, not necessarily a martial arts skill, like a kick or a particular headlock, but of an attribute, a character trait, whether that’s patience or humor or creativity, something that you’re just really good at. Do you own that?

As a teacher in this world, do you own and understand that, yes, this is what I’m good at. I accept that, I own it, and I show it. I don’t hide that. I use that tool. Whatever it is that I’m good at, I use it. Everywhere I go.

If you do, then that should lead to a reputation for being good at that. People should know that and be learning from you when you’re patient, when you’re giving, when you’re generous, when you’re forgiving. That teaches them that that’s okay to be like that. And they look at you as a role model.

It’s so important that we understand that. Me too. To own the fact that even people who hate you, they know you. And if you’re behaving in a way, that is real and consistent– Hey, this is who I am– even if they don’t agree with you, you’re in their head that that is an option for living. That they don’t have to always be the way they are. They know that you’re on the opposite end of maybe that spectrum.

So it’s not as if their reality is like, well, everybody’s like this. Everyone’s a selfish jerk. But if you’re not a selfish jerk, and even if they hate you for not being a selfish jerk, at least they know there are people in the world who aren’t selfish jerks. And in that way, you’re in their head, so that at some point they may feel more comfortable changing, because they know they won’t be alone when they are now someone different, behaving in a different way. Just thoughts.

Anyway, the point is, I say all the time that martial arts isn’t or shouldn’t be just something you do. Martial arts is who you are. Maybe it just starts off as part of who you are, but over time it’s who you are.

So that, yes, the way you spar is the way you live. The way you grapple is the way you hold conversations. It is the way you conduct business. They feed each other.

Your strengths are strengths across the board in every area of your life. And hopefully you find with that mirror your weaknesses. So you can polish those things up and fix the cracks and come back as a better version of yourself. That’s the goal.

Well, if it’s true that martial arts is who you are, and I believe it should be, I’m trying my best to live that way, to be a role model of that. That also means that you can learn everywhere, because I just said you can learn everywhere from anyone and you are always here and always you. So, accept that. Own it.

That’s my challenge for you today. Be the best student you can be. Be the best teacher you can be. Be the best dojo you can be. Because you, my friend, are not just a dojo… you are the dojo.

Okay, there you have it. I hope you’ll spend a little time looking into your dojo. If you see something that needs sweeping up, sweep it up. As for me, hey, I’ve got a pie in the oven in case you stop by.

Until next time, smiles up, my friend. Let that smile be your shield and your sword. Keep fighting for a happy life.

The post #101: You Are the Dojo [Video + Podcast] appeared first on Sensei Ando.

Welcome to Episode #100 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “Throw the First Punch.”

That’s right! We made it to Episode 100. I say “we” because if you weren’t here, I wouldn’t be here either, so thank you for your support! 🙂

In this show, I share my thoughts on two very different strategies for living a happy life. The first I would call, “Quiet and Private,” and the second, “Loud and Proud”. Trust me–I’ve tried both strategies and the difference is significant!

Of course, these two strategies can also be applied to your martial arts practice. So, if you want to make the most of your training time, I’ve got some advice for you–

Stop waiting for things to happen and MAKE things happen!

Send that email.
Take that class.
Tell your story.
Ask for help.
Throw the first punch!

To LISTEN to “Throw the First Punch,” you can either:

To WATCH the video version or READ the transcript, scroll down below.

If you’d like to support this show, share the link with a friend or leave a quick review over on iTunes. Thank you!

Oh—and don’t forget to sign up for free email updates so you can get new shows sent to your inbox the minute they’re released.

Thanks for listening! Keep fighting for a happy life!

Here’s the video. If the player doesn’t work, click this direct link.

As always, if you’d like to keep the conversation going, feel free to leave a comment here or through my Contact Page.

Howdy, and welcome to episode #100. Did he say 100? Yes, 100 of Fight for a Happy Life, the show that believes even a little martial arts, makes life a whole lot better. I have now said that 100 times, and it’s still true.

Yes, 100 episodes, cause for celebration, it’s a big milestone. On the other hand, it did take me almost nine years to reach it. But whatever, I am still going to celebrate. I’m going to buy myself a pie. I was going to buy myself a pie anyway, truth be told. So it’s just kind of like any other day.

But you know what? Enough about me. How about you? Thank you for being here. Whether you found this show right from the very beginning, you joined somewhere along the way, or maybe this is the first time you’ve ever dropped by, thank you for being here.

Honestly, I see this whole project, the website, the videos, the podcasts, as a team effort. If you’re not here, then there’s really no reason for me to be here. I would have packed this in about episode number 10. That’s about as much as I would have given it.

But you are here. And I’m still here. So let’s celebrate. Please buy yourself a pie. Will you do that for me? Let’s both have a pie and celebrate. Alright, on with today’s show.

Of course, a few episodes ago, I was thinking, Hey, I should have a special topic for episode 100. And I narrowed it down to a couple. But as these things always go, something else happened that inspired me to talk about something different. So I just kind of threw this together at the last second because it just happened. I thought it was kind of exciting. So here we go.

Now, sometimes on this show, I take something that happens in the martial arts and I try to apply it to the rest of my life. And other times, something happens in regular life and I try to bring that into my martial arts practice. This is a story on that side of the spectrum. This is something that just happened. It’s not even a big deal, and yet, it’s a big deal. Here’s what happened…

It’s probably something that’s happened to you today– I got caught in a conversation. A conversation I didn’t see coming and didn’t want to participate in. But it was someone brand new. I didn’t know this person, and they didn’t know me. We had just met, and the other person just started going. Just too much information.

Now, don’t get me wrong, a good person– a good-hearted, kind person– but someone who is really comfortable sharing every part of their life right away to a stranger. Tragedies from their life, setbacks, obstacles, dreams, goals, plans, in about 20 minutes plus, all of that came just gushing out.

Now, of course, at first, in a world that’s often guarded, certainly my world, I was surprised. You hear someone revealing personal information, and at first, just a little shocked, like, are you talking to me? Do I need to know this? Holy smokes, this is serious stuff you’re talking about. We just met.

But then that surprise starts turning into being annoyed, because I start wondering, Well, if you’re telling me all of these personal things, and you don’t even know me, do I even really need to be here? Isn’t this more therapeutic for you? You’re just talking to hear yourself talk, or you just need to get something off your chest, and you might as well be talking to this tree. Do I even need to be here?

So I started getting a little annoyed, and then a little frustrated, because I’ve got places to go, I’ve got things to do, and this person just kept going. And then it hit me. It was really later the next day, when I remembered some advice that I had heard from a very wise teacher. Oh, wait, it was me.

Okay, I remembered a piece of advice that I had given way back in episode number 39. It was called, The Crazy Critic. And in that episode, I gave a piece of advice which I needed to hear myself, as all good teaching is, you teach what you need to learn. The advice went something like this.

What you criticize most in others is often what disappoints you most in yourself.

I’ll say that again. What you criticize most in others is often what disappoints you most about yourself. Hmm, okay, so what does that mean?

Perhaps I wasn’t really annoyed at her. I was really annoyed at myself. For what? Well, why does she feel so comfortable talking to me, yet I don’t feel that comfortable talking to her or anyone? Why don’t I feel comfortable talking to people in such an open manner?

Now, that might sound a little weird because I’m sitting here talking to you in front of a camera and posting it for the public. So what do you mean I’m not comfortable? That’s totally different because you have the option of either playing this or stopping this. There doesn’t have to be an awkward social moment where I see that you hate my guts, or you think I’m an idiot, or you walk away, or you tell me to shut up. I don’t have to deal with that. You may say those things in a comment or an email, but that’s not the same thing.

In person, generally, I don’t say that much. My wife makes fun of me all the time. We’ll go to a party and someone will say, Well, what do you do? And I say, Oh, this or that, what do you do? I just deflect a lot. I don’t feel comfortable talking about myself.

That’s basically my policy for about the first 42 years of my life. That’s the age when I started the website. When I realized that being quiet in private, that was my policy. Just quiet in private. Mind my own business. Don’t talk to people. It’s just not comfortable.

So I’m annoyed that this person, my new friend, was so comfortable talking to me. Annoying. Annoying about myself. I’d also say it was, I had the feeling that I’m wasting time. As I’m sitting here and she’s talking, I’m thinking like, You’re wasting my time.

But on the other hand, I’m annoyed with myself that I feel that sharing my feelings is wasting someone else’s time. A friend, a family member, anyone. A student, a teacher. Why do I have this feeling? What happened to me in my life where I feel if I share my feelings that I’m absolutely going to waste your time?

That is just not a great way to live your life, I have learned. The same with just the idea of caring. This person is telling me about these tragedies and future goals– and near tears– and why does she think I care? Do I care?

Well, the thing is, on some level I do care. I’m a nice person, most people are nice people. So why am I walking around for most of my life up till now with this belief that nobody really cares? Go ahead, share your dreams. Nobody cares, nobody’s listening, nobody’s going to help you.

But that is a crippling way to live your life. This is what she helped me remember. This policy of living quiet and private, quietly and privately, it just doesn’t get you where you want to go.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t see my 42 years of life before I started the website as a failure. I made progress, I had successes, but they weren’t even close to what I intended to do. Whether it’s in music or writing or acting or martial arts, relationships, friends, anything.

I always felt like, Yeah, this is not enough, this is not what I wanted. I’m happy with what I have, the glass is half full, but I think I should have a bigger glass. Something’s missing here.

Now I’ve realized, and she helped me remember, Yeah, quiet and private at some point should turn into loud and proud. That has to be the new policy if I want to go where I want to go. If I want to see what I want to see, meet the kinds of people I want to meet, learn what I need to learn.

The only hitch is it takes courage to do that. To switch from quiet and private to loud and proud, you got to take that breath and step in there, speak up, and that takes guts. And that’s why I’m so thankful that I met my new friend, because she was very brave to open herself up. That’s fearless to meet someone for the first time and start sharing your hopes, your dreams, your fears, your failures, to just put all that out there.

But here’s what I’ve learned…

Because if it’s true that I think I’m a nice person, and I think most people are nice people, when you tell them about yourself, you’re putting a dot on a piece of paper. And the person who’s hearing you, who receives your message, is another dot. And it’s inevitable that you’re going to connect those dots.

So while she’s telling me her story, at one point I hear, Oh, I’m looking for a rental space to host a certain activity. So immediately my brain starts kicking into, Well, do I have a rental space? Do I know someone who has a rental space?

She says, I’m going to need a printer to get a part of this project done. Now I’m thinking, Oh, I just used a printer. Do I have a printer I can refer to her?

It’s inevitable, even though I don’t know her, I don’t know her cause, it’s just natural for nice people to want to connect dots. It just happens. So on her side of things, by giving out so much information, she’s recruiting me into her cause, whether I want it to be in it or not. She’s going to tap into my advice, my expertise, if she’s willing to listen to it, my experience, because I’m there too.

Connect these dots. This is my advice today. Because this podcast and the videos is an example of me trying to connect dots, one way or the other.

Now, like I said, sometimes it’s martial arts to a life lesson, sometimes it’s a life lesson to martial arts. So let me take this idea of being loud and proud instead of quiet and private and apply it to martial arts.

One memory that came to my head, because even though I don’t like talking about myself much, in my practice of martial arts, I learned earlier that quiet and private was not helpful to learning, that you wanted to act in a way that was loud and proud. So, for instance, there was a time, I was at a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class rolling with a guy from out of town. Always fun to have someone from out of town because they don’t know your tricks, I don’t know their tricks, so it feels a little more like a real fight because there’s a little more surprise going on, right?

So we start to roll. He sits, I’m trying to pass guard. And right as I’m in the middle of a pass, I gave him my back, on purpose. Not even fast, I just started turning, which is breaking the golden rule, basically. That’s like just dropping your hands in boxing. You don’t give anyone your back, right? But I did it. I did it on purpose.

And it was so ridiculous that the other guy actually said out loud, why in the world would you do that? I’ll never forget that because, well, to me, that was a victory. He’s like, why in the world would you do that? And I told him the answer. I just wanted to see what you would do.

What did he do? He tried to take my back, of course. But how? How is he trying to take my back? And then when he got my back, what am I going to do about that?

I put myself out there, purposely, into a bad situation, just so I could learn what to do about it. Isn’t that the point of going to class? Yes.

Here’s an example of the opposite, which maybe you do or certainly you know someone who does. When you’re sparring, some people, you line up, touch gloves, you got a five-minute round, go. And for five minutes, they stay away from you, or you stay away from them.

They keep coming in, they keep attacking, block, block, move, move, around, around, run away, run away… five minutes is up. What did you learn?

Did you really need to come to a martial arts class to learn how to stay away from somebody? To me, that’s the opposite of why you came. When you get the chance to spar with a partner, that’s the gold standard, right?

For me, for martial arts training, that’s the hardest thing– how do you find a partner? A partner you can trust, a partner who’s got skills, a partner who can push you. If you can find all that, you want to make the most of every second of that training time. You lose that opportunity every time you disengage, detach, run away, and decide not to play.

I’ve been really frustrated, I know even black belts, who I go to work with and they won’t do anything because they just want to work on their counter fighting. They just want to see what I’m going to do. And not just once in a while, they do it every single time.

That kind of partner, they’re not even worth practicing with anymore because they’re refusing to engage, which is where the learning is going to take place, right?

So, I would like you to join me in this movement from quiet and private to loud and proud and specific to the martial arts. Make this your policy, throw the first punch.

If you’re going to spar, of course, most people’s instinct is, Oh, I don’t want to get hit. Let me just do something really safe. I don’t want to make a fool of myself. I don’t want to lose.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got it. On the other hand, you’re here to learn. I’m not here to not lose. And learning means experimenting. It means failing. It means trying stuff.

So, ding, ding, go. Here I come. I’m going to throw the first punch. I’m going to be the first one to make a grip. Let me start the action so that something happens. And now I have a chance to learn something.

That’s going to apply to everything in your life. I believe that’s going to get you more out of life.

Let me go back to my friend for a second, because I left that unfinished. Our first encounter, like I said, she just starts sharing a lot. In my head– I’m smiling– but in my head, I’m annoyed and I’m frustrated. Later on, next day, I realize I’m not frustrated and annoyed at her, I’m annoyed and frustrated with myself. I have this revelation. So I won’t leave it there.

The next time I see her, because I did run into her again, I admit to her everything that I’m saying to you. I tell her, It was really overwhelming when you hit me with all that stuff. And at first, I’m going to tell you, just honestly, I was a little put off by it. But you taught me something. You taught me that I shouldn’t be afraid, that people do care, that it’s not a waste of time to talk about yourself.

And she received all that very well and put a cherry on top. Here’s the cherry on top…

Her inspiration to behave like that, in part, came from a teacher she had worked with. She credited a gentleman named Kahu Wendell Silva. He is an educator in Native Hawaiian culture. And the quote that she ascribed to him was the following. She said that he said: If you don’t tell your story, you will disappear.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m a realist. We all disappear. If the pyramids and the Coliseum can degrade and disappear, sands of time cover you up, we’re all going to disappear. You, me, everybody. But how soon is that going to happen? How long will that take? How long will the impact of your life last?

I hope that you will join me in telling your story more often, louder and prouder. I hope that you, like me, I’m teaching what I need to learn, will put yourself out there more often. I hope you will throw the first punch. I believe that is the greatest strategy now, to learn more and to go farther in your life, to get you closer to where you want to go.

Do we ever get where we want to go in 100%? Probably not. That’s life and that’s okay. But if you want to enjoy the journey, and you want a longer journey, you want a more exciting journey, throw the first punch. Make things happen.

I’m not saying it’s easy. Like I’ve told you, I was 42 years old before I decided to start the process of throwing some punches out there, by starting a website. Before I started the website, no real social circles. I don’t go out, didn’t talk to anybody much. My wife and I stay home, home bodies. And that was fine.

Then I realized this has got to change. So I started the website, but here’s the thing. Nine years ago, I only wrote articles. I started off that first two or three months, I just wrote articles. I didn’t want to put my face out there. I didn’t want my voice out there. It felt safe to me to just write.

So yes, I started to tell my story just through words. Cool. In about two or three months, I had about 60 subscribers. I thought, well, this is amazing. Just look at that. That gave me the confidence to then start the podcast.

Episode number one took, I think, three months or so. Three, four months to get episode number one up. I recorded it three different times. I was just so in my head about telling your story.

How are you going to tell it? What should you say? Eventually got it out there. I threw that punch. Boom. Episode number one. And for two years, that’s where I stayed. I just wrote articles and recorded the podcast for two years because that was my level of putting myself out there where I felt safe.

I had a few hundred people listening to the podcast, reading the articles a month. Great. More than I could have ever have hoped for really when I started. But once you get a taste for Hey, there are people out there who are like you and they want to talk and share things… maybe it’s time to try a video. And I did.

Then the videos became more popular than the podcast. And so much more popular than the writing that I stopped writing articles and just started focusing on making videos and the podcast. I’ve been very happy with that.

Now I’m at the point– since the lockdowns closed down the schools and my wife and I have moved and we’re starting over– now this part-time website video podcasting thing becomes full-time. Now this is my next step in putting myself out there. Hey, put up a couple of courses.

Hey, teach some stuff on Zoom, private lessons, seminars. Let’s tell your story even more. Put yourself out there. And the reward for all that– I don’t want you to think this is about money or views or fame– I’ve met so many nice people. My whole world view has changed. I’ve talked about that in other videos.

I’ve made friends, legit friends, through this. Incredible. I’ve been offered opportunities that never would have come my way. Invited to schools, come be on our podcast. Hey, can you teach this? Teach that? Can I make a request? Will you work with my kids? Absolutely I will. But why would you have offered me that if I hadn’t thrown the first punch?

Of course, I’ve learned a lot. The more you put yourself out there, the more dots start getting connected, inevitably, you just are learning more because more things are happening, there are more interactions. Making the most of that role, making the most of that sparring session, the more you force to happen, the more you learn about yourself, the more you learn about the world, there’s no downside to it. It’s just reward, reward, reward.

So here we are, episode #100, almost 9 years, and a lot has happened in that time, good and bad. But the underlying message here is always, life is short. Tell your story before time runs out. Tell your story.

Whatever level that you’re doing that, I’m not saying everyone has to have a video channel, but whatever level that you are telling your story, push it one up. That’s my challenge to you.

I started with the writing, then went to the audio, then went to the video, now hopefully full time endeavor. What can you do? What’s the next step you can take to tell your story a little louder and a little prouder?

If you’re suffering alone, you don’t have to. If you’re trying to build something beautiful in this world, alone, you don’t have to. There are people who will help you. Connect those dots, reach out, put your flag in the sand. Let people know where you are, who you are, and what you’re trying to do.

Don’t keep that private. Knock on a door. Go shake someone’s hand. Step into that room. Stand up, speak up. Take a chance.

If you failed at something, try again. Ask someone for help. Tell someone what you’re trying to do. If you don’t know exactly what you want to do or where you want to go, you can still put yourself out there.

You can still throw a first punch by asking someone else how you can help them. That’s a beautiful way to put yourself out there. And in finding ways to help other people, you will probably find out another way to help yourself.

It’s just connection. Not being afraid of the connection. Dot to dot, person to person, heart to heart, soul to soul. Let it happen. Open that door.

So that’s my big message– episode #100– the episode itself, to reach to 100 is the message. To put yourself out there and keep putting yourself out there.

Episode 1, episode 10, episode 100, episode 1000, 10,000, may I live long enough. Keep putting yourself out there. Turn quiet and private into loud and proud.

Throw the first punch. Make something happen. And then let’s both celebrate, my teammate. Let’s both celebrate a beautiful new beginning.

All right, there you have it, episode number 100. Thank you for being here, thank you for your support. Thanks for being on Team Happy Life.

Until I see you next time, smiles up my friend. Let that smile be your shield and your sword. Keep fighting for a happy life.

The post #100: Throw the First Punch [Video + Podcast] appeared first on Sensei Ando.

Welcome to Episode #99 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “You Are a Master.”

Do you ever feel like a martial arts “loser”? Ever feel like you’re so far away from achieving your goals that you might be better off just giving up?

STOP! I bet you’re doing just fine. In fact, I have some good news for you–

You are already a master…you just don’t know it.

Is that possible? Can you really be a master without knowing it?

Well, that’s the advice someone gave me years ago. To be honest, those words of wisdom made no sense at the time, but over the years, I believe I figured out what my teacher was trying to tell me. If you’ve got a few minutes, I’d like to share that message with you!

Uh–42 minutes, actually. But if you listen on double speed, it’s just 21. 🙂

Anyway, to LISTEN to “You Are a Master,” you can either:

To WATCH the video version or READ the transcript, scroll down below.

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Thanks for listening! Keep fighting for a happy life!

Here’s the video. If the player doesn’t work, click this direct link.

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Howdy, Ando here from Happy Life Martial Arts. Welcome to episode #99 of Fight for a Happy Life, the show that believes even a little martial arts makes life a whole lot better.

Today, what are we talking about today? Well, I’ve got some good news for you. You, my friend, are a master.

Say, what? Yep, surprise, you’re a master!

Now, this little piece of advice came to me years ago when I was starting out in Taekwondo. I mentioned this one other time in an earlier podcast, but I didn’t really go into detail about it. So today, I think I will.

We were at class and we had a guest master come. He lined everybody up and he sparred us one at a time, went right down the line. And to make it even cooler, not only was he kicking our butts, he was wearing one of those weighted vests, all the little pockets with little weight plates in it. So he was carrying around probably another 30 pounds while he was doing all of this sparring.

Now, at the end of the session, we were all beat up, ragged, and he was beating us up, beaming. Sweating, but beaming, and he was looking out upon us and feeling merciful. He just shared a little bit of a pep talk, which ended with the idea of this. He said,

You are all masters. You just don’t know it yet.

I thought that was very encouraging. I thought that was beautiful. And yeah, at the moment, it made me feel better, like I’m a master. I just don’t know it yet. Okay. I am a master.

Unfortunately, it felt good, but it didn’t leave me with any actionable steps to take to keep that feeling going. Because if he had said, Let’s spar again, I don’t think my performance would have changed at all. It certainly didn’t help me with my next belt test. There was actually nothing that it helped with. But yet it felt good.

So I wrote it down because I figured maybe someday this will pay off. Someday that will make sense to me. And I’m here to tell you that eventually I did find a way to make sense of it for me. Whether or not that’s what he intended, I don’t know.

But I was at a seminar recently. I shared this idea, my interpretation of what this idea meant. And it went well. A couple of people said, Hey, I really liked what you said. And I thought, Hey, I should probably put that into a podcast. And here I am. That’s what podcasts are for, right? So let’s break it down.

What does this piece of advice mean? You’re already a master, you just don’t know it.

First, let’s back up and define our terms. Master. What is a master? In its simplest terms, I think we would all agree, a master is someone who can do something very, very well. But it’s important to notice here, a master of one thing does not mean that you’re a master of everything.

If you just master one skill within a larger art, you’re really just a specialist. You’re a master of one thing within a larger category. So say for instance, in martial arts, maybe you’re not great at brick breaking. Maybe your memory is terrible when it comes to forms. But for some reason, round kicks. They just fit your body. You don’t ever remember having a problem with them. You just love round kicks. And despite all of your other failings, the round kick is always there for you.

People even comment on it. They say, man, you’re really good at round kicks. So in that sense, you’re a master of the round kick. And that’s great. You’re a specialist.

Mike Tyson in the world of boxing. We think of him, maybe I do, as a master of the peek-a-boo style. Not of the Philly shell. He’s not a master of all boxing styles, but he was a master of what he did, right? So a specialist within the art of boxing.

And of course, this pertains to everything. If you’re a chef, professional chef, in a professional kitchen at a restaurant, that doesn’t mean you’re great at everything you cook. But maybe you specialize in soups. Maybe you are known for French onion soup. Everybody knows you’ve got the best French onion soup in town, if not the world, and you are a master of it. Not of everything, but of that one thing.

So that will be the first level of mastery, a one skill specialist.

Obviously, that opens the door now to the next level or category, I think, of mastery. You can be a, what I would call, multifaceted master. You’re not just good at one thing within your category, your art. You’re good at maybe two or more things.

You’re not just good at round kicks, you’re good at maybe all kicks. So now you’re a specialist in kicking, not just the round kick. I think that would be our goal. If you’re a martial artist, you don’t go into a martial art thinking, I just want to be the master of the round kick. You want to be a master of the martial art of whatever it is you’re studying, right?

I want to be a Taekwondo master. I want to be a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu master. And that suggests multifaceted skills. I have to be good at lots of different things to really claim that title.

Of course, mastering a skill is the first step to mastering the overall art. And then I think what we’re going to get to is that mastering of an art then leads perhaps to mastering your life. That would be the logical progression. So let’s back this up one more time.

So what is a master? You’re really good at something. Multifaceted master? You’re good at several things. And if you’re a master of life, well maybe you’re pretty good at everything. Everything you need anyway.

Now here’s the problem. The problem is as a student, you are choosing a goal. So you say, Hey, I want to be great at Brazilian Jiu Jitsu or whatever. And then you go take that class, maybe you’re even there for a year or two, but you’re not a master. And you’re just losing all the time.

You’re getting crushed. You’re coming home bruised and sweaty and tired. You are not feeling not just like a master, you’re not even a champion, you’re not even the best in the class.

It’s just a horrible experience that you can find yourself in as a student working towards a very large goal. And that problem is based on the idea that you’re focusing on what you cannot do, you’re not focused on what you want to be.

You’re focused on the here and now– Yeah, I want to be a master. That’s why I’m here. But today, I’m not a master. And that bums me out because then who am I? I’m just this guy who can’t do a lot of things.

That can be really defeating. Of course, it’s unfair to judge yourself like that. We know that and yet at least I fall into that trap of focusing on what I can’t do and letting that define me. And then define my day.

If I go and I get beat up, the whole day it bothers me. I’m not what I want to be. And then what does that lead to? Why is this a problem? Because not only am I having a bad day, but now I’m losing my confidence. I’m not good at this. And now I don’t feel good at anything.

Now I’m losing my motivation. I don’t even want to go back to class. That’s the place where I feel like a loser. That’s the place where I have proof that I’m a loser because I’m tapping out, I’m getting hit. That’s hard to face over and over again.

Of course, if I’ve lost my confidence, I’ve lost my motivation to continue learning, I can even start to forget anything that I’ve ever done in my entire life that was successful. If you’re being dramatic– and I am, I’m being dramatic– that’s the extreme of it.

You defined yourself by your success at a chosen goal. When you failed at achieving that goal right away, you then let that overlay your entire self-image so that you feel like a failure at everything, and you don’t even want to participate in life anymore at the darkest edge of that thought.

Now, all of this is natural, of course. That’s why I’m talking about it, because I’m pretty sure you understand exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve been there or are there.

It’s the ego. It’s just natural for your brain to categorize good/bad. As you start working with someone, your ego immediately is going to tell you, this guy’s better than you, or you’re better than this guy, right away. Even if you don’t want to, even if you’re just chill, and you’re objective, and you’re cool like that, it just comes up.

You’ve never sparred with this person. You just saw them for the first time. You put on your gloves, you line up, and then right away, that first exchange, either, I got this guy, or, Whoa, this guy’s got me. It’s just natural.

The trick here is, though, the solution to this problem of defining yourself by one moment, or one goal, or one failure, is to widen out your judgment. Widen out the categories, widen out the qualities that you’re looking at yourself. Because yes, maybe you’re not so great at this one thing, but I’m sure earlier in the class or earlier in that day, your ego told you you were really good at something else. You just need to remember that.

You need to accept, of course, as a student, what you’re not good at, but at the same time, you can’t stop accepting what you’re good at. The ego can work both ways. It can hurt you, make you feel like a loser, or it can help you and remind you of what you should be proud of, what you are good at, what keeps you going. That’s also part of your identity.

So when you’re feeling low, when you feel like a loser, the trick is to widen out your lens and see yourself in the larger picture.

If you’re a martial artist and you say– I get this email all the time. In fact, that should be my next video, something about flexibility again. I get this email all the time from beginning students, even people in their 60s or 70s, who say– I really want to do a full split, but I’m having such a hard time, and class really sucks because I can’t do a full split.

Now, look– maybe I am here to judge your goals on some level. But why do you want to do a full split? Okay, but that’s a separate issue. Hey, if that’s your goal, I’m all for it. Go for it. Achieve that full split. But at the same time, who cares?

If you’re feeling bad about your progress, you feel bad about your class and you’re losing motivation, well, here we go. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You’re letting that goal define your experience and then define who you are. That’s the problem.

So here’s a fact: You are already a master. Maybe you just don’t know it.

So the first question you have to ask yourself is, what are you a master of? What have you forgotten or have not given yourself credit for being good at?

You might have to think about that for a while. Maybe not, but maybe. I think a lot of people walk around not considering what they’re good at, because we’re all focused on our next achievement. But the fact is everyone– you, me, everyone you see– is a master of at least one skill. That first level of mastery.

There is one thing that you are amazing at. And other people probably recognize it. And maybe sometimes you recognize it, but then you forget it. Or you’re humble, you think, well, that’s not important. Or Yeah, but that’s not what I wanted.

I need you to count those things. I need you to ask yourself, what am I a master of? And use that word. Go ahead. I won’t tell. What are you a master of? What are you not giving yourself credit for being and for doing well?

The next question is, how can you use that skill that you are a master of to help you achieve your next skill?

Presumably one skill is not enough for you. You want to be a multi-faceted master. You want to master life. So once you’ve taken inventory of what you’re really, really good at, you need to figure out, well, how can I use that now? How do I acknowledge that and use it like a tool to get to the next goal?

Now in my opinion, one of the easiest ways to really start nailing down what you’re good at is to exercise the muscle of giving other people credit for what they’re good at. So as an exercise, here’s what I recommend to you…

I want you to look at other people and as quickly as you can, identify what they are masters of.

And I don’t just mean easy people. You can think of your teacher. If you’re a martial artist, you have a teacher. Maybe you call them a master. Maybe they call themselves a master. I don’t know. But what are they good at?

That’s probably really easy to see because there is some skill set that made you sign up. You want to achieve the same thing. So what are they good at? That’s easy.

But what are they bad at? You may love your teacher. But like I said, mastering one thing doesn’t mean you’ve mastered everything. So maybe you have a teacher who is a wonderful technician, but a lousy communicator. Maybe they’re wonderful at building a community spirit in their school, but they’re terrible at marketing the school and they’re always about to get kicked out of their space.

That’s just one way to start looking at qualities in other people, good and bad, so that you can start opening up your range of categories, so you can look at yourself ultimately and have a fairer view of what you’re good at. That’s the idea of the exercise.

So don’t just think of teachers because that’s kind of easier. It’s actually more challenging to look at classmates, your peers, other people who are at your rank perhaps or lower. I already said it’s a fact– so it must be true because I did say it– it’s a fact that everyone you see, everyone you know, is a master of at least one thing, one quality.

So look at the people that you don’t normally think of as masters of anything and challenge yourself, what are they really, really good at? What should you give them credit for? What I did is I came up with a list of people, as my own exercise, people that I know who are not necessarily black belts or teachers. On the contrary, these are peers or people younger than me, people of lower rank, even children, that I know, who I believe exemplify at least one masterful ability in a skill or equality that I admire. And if I’m being honest, I want to achieve.

I don’t care if the kid’s five years old. If they’re doing something better than I am, well, then they’re inspiring to me. They are now my teacher, and I want to be like them.

I’m just going to give you a list of a few qualities that I have to give other people credit for.

First one that comes to mind, there’s a young lady I knew who was incredible at being objective. She was just a young lady, but if you rolled with her or sparred with her and you hit her, you got her in a bad position, choked her, she never ever beat herself up about it, ever.

Where I might be thinking, You idiot! You stupid– what have you fallen for that for? Right? Do those sounds sound familiar? I can be really hard on myself and get angry, lose my temper with myself. She never, ever, ever did that. It was almost robotic, except she was a very warm person, so it wasn’t robotic. She just already had this natural or whatever, somehow she worked on it, masterful ability to just see learning as learning and not get personally involved in it.

So that I would consider a quality. If you have that, then own it. You are a master of just being objective. You don’t take losses or slipping or failing, making mistakes personally. You just say, okay, that’s what happened and you move on right away. No baggage. That’s amazing if you can do that.

I could think of a young man who is absolutely fearless, far more than I am.

If I’m sparring with someone new, maybe a little timid, Oh, I’m going to test the waters a little bit, and I’m not sure if I should pull out my big guns yet. Not this kid. This kid was fearless.

It did not matter if I stuck my fist in his chest or I kicked him back– I’m three times his size– he would just come after me like a monkey. A rabid monkey. A rabid, psychotic monkey jacked up on Mountain Dew. This guy was fearless.

And when I would drive home, I’d kind of giggle about it because I would have to appreciate what he was doing. Yeah, I could back up and say, well, I’m way bigger. I’d still kick his butt. Good for me. But the quality that he showed, that he did not let anything stop him from attacking and you had to deal with him, boy, I would love that kind of spirit– to be that fearless.

I could think of a young woman, actually in her 30s, but younger than I am, not high ranked at all, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, but her posture– I think she does gymnastics, maybe some dance.

But anytime you just catch her just walking around in class, or getting up in between a roll, or in the roll, she just has this amazing ability to find her center and keep it balanced and postured.

Absolutely, that’s a skill. Some people are always leaning and falling and stumbling and off balance, but not her. So I look when I see her, it’s like a little reminder, like, hey, she’s a master of balance and posture. Can you exemplify some of that? Because that seems more achievable right now than trying to choke everybody out.

Can you at least sit up straight? Can you stand up straight? Because she can, no matter what. She does. So that’s another quality you might be a master of.

I just worked with a young guy the other day who is unbelievable. A master. He blew me away with how much he trusts his body.

I just did a podcast, I think the last one called, Tame Your Brain, where you think too much, you judge too much, and it screws up your performance. He doesn’t have that issue. He said it out loud, he said, I trust my body.

That’s amazing– to be a teenager or young 20s and to already have a trust in your instincts, and your feelings, and your guts, and your body, and be able to turn off your brain mostly so that you can just operate and be in the moment. Incredible. If you can do that, well, take credit for it. That’s incredible.

I just worked out with a young woman, probably early 30s, it doesn’t really matter. I’m just trying to give you a range here from little kids to 20s, 30s, older people. It doesn’t matter. Everybody can teach you something.

But I worked with a woman I’d never met her before. It was the first time we worked together. And her accuracy, her control over technique was beyond mine.

I think I’m pretty skillful, pretty controlled. She was just better. She wasn’t higher ranking, been doing the art a couple of years, but she could put her knuckles right on my chin with just enough pressure. She could move me just enough. Not too sweet, not too spicy, right in the middle. Perfect for the drill that we were doing. I had to comment. I said, Wow, you have really good control, because it caught my attention.

Again, when you get into this habit of noticing things that other people aren’t measuring, you don’t get a certificate for that. Best control in the class today, no such thing. Yet there was a quality that she was masterful at. How she got it, that’s a separate discussion. I don’t know, born with it, maybe natural talent, okay. But she has a quality that I don’t have and other people don’t have, and she’s a master of it.

So if you have that quality, own it.

I worked with a guy, he’s about my age, creative. When you work out with this guy, he pulls off these techniques that no one seems to have ever taught him.

I don’t see coming, they’re just in the moment, I guess he’s trusting his body or he’s thinking quickly. I don’t know how he does it, because that’s his thing, but he can just create techniques out of nothing. I mean, what I stick over there, he somehow twists, moves, flips it around so that I’m at a disadvantage.

I just think, What is that? And I’ll say, What was that? What did you do? He’ll just shrug, say, I don’t know. Now whether he’s lying to me and hiding some hidden technology as an alien, I don’t know. But I’ll tell you that he’s a master at it. Other things he’s not so good at.

All these people that I’m talking to you about have other glaring problems with their training. They have things they’re working on. But like I said, I’m just trying to find at least one thing that every one of these people can teach me. And his level of creativity, I find inspiring.

There’s another guy I know who’s incredible with timing. I believe he does some dancing, but he just has a sense of rhythm. So that if you’re learning some combo or there’s a kata, he automatically picks up that rhythm.

Boom, ba-ba-boom, bang, hitting pads. There are rhythms to these things, right? And he just always gets those rhythms right away. While I’m sometimes clunky like, Wait, how does this go? Goonk, shung-shung– How did that go?

So he’s got a smoothness to his moves that I have to work for. And he just has it. He’s a master of timing. A bit of a jerk, so he’s not a master of everything, but of timing, he’s right on it.

I’ll give you two more in this category.

I knew a guy, I worked out with him for a couple of years, and then one day, I was taking a fall and I hit his leg and there was something metal. I hit something metal under his pants. GONK. And I was like, Whoa– what are you wearing there? Shin pads? What are you doing? He rolled up his pant leg and he was wearing a knee brace.

It turned out he had been wearing this knee brace the entire time that I knew him. He had injured his knee years before. Someone took a bad fall on his leg and he didn’t like the medical technology at the time, so he was stalling for a surgery. He kept thinking the technology is going to get better, so I’m just going to wait and wear this brace to protect myself until I’m ready for the surgery.

He ended up wearing it for a long time, decade plus, and now we’ve lost touch. But my point is, he was working through an injury, through pain, without making any drama about it. He never talked about it, he didn’t use it as an excuse to quit, or to not show up, or to sit on the sidelines.

I’m not kidding, for a couple of years, I just stumbled literally into it and went, what’s that? And then it turned out, Oh yeah, he’s working with all of this pain and worry, but didn’t make a drama about it, just got to work, kept moving on, kept learning. Incredible.

Which brings me to the last one I thought of. I worked out with a guy in a wheelchair. There was a student, part of the class, he was in a wheelchair. He had been in a car accident, lost the use of his legs, but came to class to do what he could.

Now, what do you call that, fighting spirit, perseverance, indomitable spirit? I don’t know, but whatever that is, he was a master of it. Because again, he didn’t wallow in any self-pity, he wasn’t dramatic about it, he just showed up, did the work as best he could.

If he fell out of his chair, he fell out of his chair. If he got punched, he got punched. Just like anybody else. Well, actually, no, not just like anybody else. Better than other people. His ability to just move forward was amazing.

Of course, that would make me think, Oh my God. My identity now is so involved in martial arts as a student, as a teacher, as a podcast guy. If I got into a car accident and I lost my legs, would I keep going? Would I be able to show up in a wheelchair and keep working out?

I don’t know. I would say at this point of my life, I’m not sure I’ve proven to myself in my character that that would be an easy transition. Just thinking about it honestly. I’d like to think I’d be back. I’d like to think I’d smile and say, Okay, well, that’s the cards I’m dealt and here I go. I’m going to play them. I don’t know. What about you?

I’m just giving you a wide range of qualities that we don’t measure. You don’t get plaques for, you don’t get trophies for, but they count. These are things you can be masters of– objectivity, trusting your body, creativity, timing, perseverance. These things count.

Now of course, everyone on that list that I just mentioned was a martial artist. These are people I knew in the context of martial arts. But as I hope you can already see, in fact we talked about it, a skill can lead to mastery of an art, but mastery of the art hopefully leads you to mastery of life. That’s the big goal.

This is fight for a happy life. That’s the show. That’s the shirt. So that’s really what we’re gunning for here. I want as many qualities to be mastered in my life as possible because then I’ll have more tools to achieve that next skill and that next goal.

So I’d like you to consider now, if you’ve gone through your list of martial arts personalities– teachers and students, classmates– and you’re starting to warm up to the idea of how to see what they do well, now I want you to widen that out to everyone you know. Because everyone in your family has at least one thing that they are a master of. Could be something you don’t even like.

Oh, they’re very manipulative. Okay, well, are they good at it? Give them credit.

Think of your friends, think of your co-workers, and then the big one, think of your enemies– if you have enemies. I’m not here to create trouble, but I’m literally requesting that you consider everyone you run into as a teacher, and consider what are they a master of, and therefore what can they teach me? What can they impress upon me and inspire me to achieve? And enemies can do that too.

The guy that hurts you, the person that rips you off, they’re doing something well because they got you. So what did they do? How did they do it? Give them the credit for it. You don’t have to like them, but you give them the credit for the skill that they used to get it because you can use the same tool, they’re just tools.

On that list, personally, not just enemies, but now thinking about my family, my friends, what other qualities outside the realm of martial arts have I thought of that you could be a master of? Right off the bat, patience. Are you patient with yourself as you learn these skills, as you develop as a human being, as you make your dreams come true?

Some people are so patient. I’m not. I’m rather impatient. I recognize that, which is why I recognize it when other people are just calm and they move forward piece by piece. Amazing.

Consistency. Do you show up to work out? Do you show up to build that business? Do you show up to constantly figure out ways to make your relationships better? Are you consistent?

Do you just talk about stuff or do you do stuff? And do you do it again and again and again and again to get the results that you want? That’s a talent all of itself, a skill. Something to master, patience, consistency, doggedness.

What about asking questions? Some people are so good at asking questions. Maybe I’m afraid of looking stupid. Maybe I’m afraid of, I don’t want people to know that I don’t know something. Maybe I don’t want to hear my voice. Whatever.

Other people have no problem standing up, Hey, I have a question. They don’t care. They don’t mind. They’ll take that risk. They are masters of getting information through saying, Hey, look at me. I have a question. I admire that.

What about people who can ignore haters? Ignore the critics? That person asking questions, I mean, maybe they’re just not intelligent. They never thought that they’re going to get judged. But let’s presume that they understand that there are critics and haters in the world, but they move forward with their life anyway.

They are able to hear a comment on Facebook that’s not kind and just say, That’s okay. I don’t even know that person. They have a chip on their shoulder. That person must have a really sad life to try to hurt my life.

Some people can do that so easily. I’m getting better at it. I’m not a master of it, though. So when someone else I can see just brushes off the hate, brushes off the critics, doesn’t fear that stuff, just keeps going– awesome. Thank you for that inspiration.

Approachability is one I jotted down. Some people, as soon as you meet them, you just feel like you’ve known them forever or you want to know them forever. The way they talk, the way they look at you, the way they treat you, you just feel safe. You feel comfortable. You want to know them better. You want to be their friend.

Other people know, you might know them for years and never really feel close to them. They’re a little prickly. They’re a little standoffish. There’s always that little bit of a wall there.

For me, I’d rather be a master of approachability. I would like people to feel comfortable coming near me or feeling that they can be my friend. I would love that. That’s a wonderful thing. I’m not a master of it. It’s something I’m working on. But when I meet people who already have it, oh, I love it. I say, Wow, look at you. So welcoming, amazing.

Dealing with loss, how do you do with that? Whether you’ve lost a job– the world changed so much with the lockdowns and COVID. I think probably everybody lost something, if not someone, some money, some opportunities, some freedoms. How do you deal with that?

Did you blame, did you hide, or did you try to find opportunities? Did you deal with it in a way that’s masterful, that you made the most of what you had? That’s a talent, that’s a skill. That’s something I think we can get better at. And some people do it so well.

I’m inspired every time I see someone who’s been dealt a really bad hand and they keep playing their cards. They keep playing, and they wait for the next hand, and they just keep going. You think, Wow, what took that person out of the game just gave you a chance to reposition.

And to that end, the last one I’ll throw out for today, another quality of mastery that I’ve noticed in people I know, change. Just change in general.

I know a guy, he’s older, he’s 70 something. He changes his house. He moves every couple of years. He’s probably, I don’t know, 15 years. I think he’s been in eight houses.

Now, I just moved. After college, I lived in one place, Buffalo. Moved to Los Angeles, stayed there for 28 years, mostly in one single apartment. And I just moved over here to North Carolina. And for me, I’m thinking, oh, that was hard. It was really hard for me to move, picking up new identity, new things, new, I like routines. I like habits.

To me, it’s amazing that he can just pick up and move every couple of years to a new area, new house, start over, pack up, move. It blows my mind. But how wonderful. He’s so resilient in my mind. He’s so unafraid of the next thing.

Instead of hanging on to what he has, he’s willing to roll the dice and try another one. And if it doesn’t work out, he tries another one. Amazing to me.

How about you? How do you handle change? Are you a master of change or do you fear it? Do you avoid it?

Anyway, the point is mastery. You can master a skill. You can master an art. You can master life. You can make a goal of just one skill or you can make a goal of multiple skills. You can be a specialist. You can be a multi-faceted master. These are the choices.

But I will tell you, at least in my experience, that if you choose to be a specialist– I’ve already told you that, in my opinion, everyone is a master of at least one thing, and that includes you– but that’s not enough, in my opinion, for a happy life. I believe you’re going to need to branch out and add additional skills.

The goal is really to be that multi-faceted master and to not just play this one skill over and over again, because it’s just limited. There’s only so much you can do with one tool. The more tools you have in your toolbox, the more you can achieve and the faster and easier you can do it.

So that’s what martial arts training is for, in my opinion. That’s what work is for. It’s to try to add another skill to master.

You have what you have now. You’ve already done work in your life. You’ve gotten this far. You’ve got at least one skill you’re a master of. And now I’m setting a new goal to achieve another one. And along the way, I will achieve certain masteries of things.

Whatever your big goal is– I want to be the greatest chef in the world– well, that’s going to start by mastering smaller things. And, you’re going to have to master the things that don’t look like they have anything to do with being a chef– showing up, asking questions, not being afraid of making a mistake and making a bad omelet. You’ve got to get through all those other character qualities to get to the actual goal that you wanted.

So the sooner you start giving yourself credit for those character skills, the sooner you can start getting towards your actual goal, your specific goals. Right?

So, to wrap this up, the next time that you finish class or you come out of a belt test, check in with yourself. How do you feel? What identity are you walking around with? Did you make a mistake? Did you get passed over at the belt grading?

Did you make a mistake– you blew your kata, you couldn’t break the board, you got beat up sparring, did you not achieve the belt– and now what? You’re going to carry that around, like you’re not a master anymore? No. Be careful with that.

You went to class, didn’t do so hot, they called you up to do a form and you forgot it halfway and you feel a little embarrassed. That new guy who showed up was brand new, somehow got the better of you. And now you’re carrying that around with you all week, feeling like a loser, feeling like I’m not good at this. I don’t even want to go back to class.

Be careful, my friend. Please be careful. You just forgot that you’re already a master. You forgot. Don’t forget the things that you’re good at. That’s the trick.

Don’t get caught up in the qualities of life that we measure but aren’t the most important things. If you’re a martial artist, and you only measure yourself by how did you do at the tournament? What rank is your belt? How many points did you get sparring and rolling tonight? If that’s all you measure yourself by, you’re going to be depressed a lot because you’re not always a gold medalist, and you’re not always tenth degree black belt.

You can’t suffer in the meantime. And then in life, you can’t just measure yourself by how much money do you make? That’s it. That’s the only measure that matters. That’s your happiness right there. No.

You can’t just measure yourself by body weight. You can’t just measure yourself by how many happy photos you have on your Facebook page.

These are measures, but they’re not fair. They’re not complete. They will mess with your head if that’s all you consider. Back it up.

Please believe me when I tell you that the most important skills to master are not measurable. They are all the things that we just talked about. And on that list of things, character skills, you are already a master of at least one of them, if not more.

So if you’re feeling incompetent, stop it. If you are feeling like a loser, stop it. If you feel like you’re never going to achieve your goals, stop it.

Instead, remember immediately, what am I great at? What am I a master of? Now how can I add to that? How do I get back to work and train to achieve my goals? That is what I believe Mr. Barkley, that was his name, meant.

When he told us that you’re already a master, you just don’t know it, he was letting us know that you shouldn’t just judge yourself by how you sparred right now.

Yeah, I beat you in this sparring match, but you’re already a master. This thing that you’re trying to achieve, to be me, to wear this belt and be this good, yeah, that’s cool, but that’s just one part of life. You’re already a master in these other categories. You’re a master of these other qualities. You just don’t know it because you’re staring at the goal and you’re forgetting who you already are.

I believe that’s what he meant. You are already a master. You are already a role model. You are already a leader. You just don’t know it.

So know it, own it, accept it, add to it. Let the mastery of that one thing, or two or three things, propel you to then master more until you’ve not only achieved your art, you’ve not only achieved your goal, you’ve achieved a happy life. That’s what this is all about. Master as many skills as you can.

Give yourself those credits so that you feel good about yourself, so that you’ll have the motivation to keep going no matter what happens. That’s the trick.

And hey, last thing. If you truly feel right now after all of that, that you are not a master of anything, that none of this actually applies to you, you are at that darkest, lowest rung of the life ladder, please believe me, you are a master of something. You are a master of survival. You are alive. And that’s a pretty good place to start.

Wow, okay, well, this one got kind of long. I apologize for that. But if you made it this far, I hope you feel it was worth it. Please don’t forget, my friend, you are a master.

Until next time, smiles up, my friend. Let that smile be your shield and your sword. Keep fighting for a happy life.

The post #99: You Are a Master [Video + Podcast] appeared first on Sensei Ando.

Welcome to Episode #98 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “Tame Your Brain to Win the Game.”

Are you too smart for your own good? Does overthinking get in the way of performing at your best?

If you’re like me, the answer is YES! My mind is so busy judging, worrying, and arguing that it sometimes stops me from learning and growing. Sure, I’ve gotten better at training my brain to help me reach my goals, but the battle to maximize my mind seems to never end.

In this episode, I’m going to share my most recent mental battle, along with some tips on how to tame the brain so you can approach your flow state more often.

Is entering “the zone” or achieving “mushin” a random, unpredictable event or can you balance the powers of your mind, body, and spirit on demand? Let’s find out!

To LISTEN to “Tame Your Brain to Win the Game,” you can either:

To WATCH the video version or READ the transcript, scroll down below.

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Thanks for listening! Keep fighting for a happy life!

Here’s the video. If the player doesn’t work, click this direct link.

As always, if you’d like to keep the conversation going, feel free to leave a comment here or through my Contact Page.

Well, hello there. Ando here from Happy Life Martial Arts. Welcome to episode #98 of Fight for a Happy Life, the show that believes even a little martial arts makes life a whole lot better.

Welcome to the first episode being recorded in Raleigh, North Carolina. My wife and I moved out here to the East Coast, grabbed an apartment outside of town, and except for the incessant fan humming from our neighbor’s apartment next door, everything’s going great.

I have been a little quiet lately, but fear not, I have been very busy mapping out the future. I’ll have a bunch of new classes, videos, podcasts, and courses coming up, and I’m excited to see what you’ll think of all of that. But today, that’s not what we’re talking about.

Today, we’re talking about the brain and how to tame your brain. And we’ll do that by talking about how I tame my brain.

In the past, we’ve talked about kindness, how being nice can actually work against you in the martial arts, particularly in self-defense. Being kind can get in the way. Well, what about being smart?

Are you too smart for your own good?

Now, I’m not talking about intelligence necessarily. Something that you would measure with a test. How good are you at math or reading comprehension? I’m really just talking about thinking too much.

Are you in your head too much? Are you listening to the wrong voices in your head? Is your monkey brain out of control, filling your head with doubts and fears and insecurities?

Mine usually is. I’ll tell you right now. I am a mind-based guy. Let’s say we have these three powers in our bodies, in our lives. Mind, body, spirit, right? So you’re thinking and you’re feeling and you’re driving, okay?

All of us, I think, have a different prime motor. Some people live from their groin, live from their guts and their instincts, and that can get you into trouble if you don’t think a little bit. Some people lead with their heart, and that can leave them vulnerable. Maybe overly sensitive. And in the case of the brain, if you think too much and you’re not in touch with your drives and your feelings, then that can get you into trouble.

So I’ll tell you right up front, the big point of this show is going to be balance. How to balance your mind, your body, and your spirit, so that you’re always growing and learning and having the best shot at success in life.

But specific to this episode, I want to talk about what to do when the brain is out of balance. When the brain is just doing too much, or trying to do too much, and you’re not listening enough to your feelings or your drives. That’s the problem.

So some people, when you get into this zone of perfect balance between mind, body, and spirit, you might call that your flow state. You might call that getting into the zone. You might call that ultra instinct. In the Japanese arts, you’ll hear the term mushin or mushin no shin, mind without mind.

Well, how do you get into these states? How do you find this maximal balance of mind, body, and spirit? I’ll give you a couple tips on that. I’ll tell you about some of my struggles lately with it, and I’ll give you some tips that have been helping me. Okay?

Now, I’ll tell you, I knew early on from childhood that I lead with the brain too much. That I was a thinker. Because just playing around with your friends, you can tell some people can do cartwheels and some people can’t. I couldn’t. Some people were just so in touch with their center of gravity and their body, they could just move. And I was always kind of stuck in my head and worried and analyzing, and it would keep me from moving as naturally.

The one thing back then, I’m not saying you should do this now, but the one thing I found for relief back then was I would climb a hill, particularly in a wooded area, and I would just run down the hill as fast as I could. No path. It didn’t matter if the leaves were slippery or there were lots of branches, that would make it even better.

But the idea was, I didn’t know what I was doing on purpose, but I would find relief just throwing my body down hills or snow banks when the plows would pile up snow up in Buffalo, to just throw my body down these things and let it cascade.

Just tapping into that survival mechanism, trying to live more from my body and my– I don’t want to say groin necessarily, but you get the idea– my guts, of just trying to get down that hill and not die, turned off the brain. There was no time for harmful thinking, only helpful thinking. Grab this, look out for that, that’s fine. But I didn’t have time to worry, I didn’t have time to second guess my decisions or calculate my footing. You just had to go on instinct.

That’s why, eventually, I think, I fell in love with the martial arts. Because martial arts was another experience that can be overwhelming in a good way. Where you don’t have time to think too much.

If you’re sparring and rolling at an appropriate degree, you’re not going to have time to second guess yourself. You’re going to have to test your balance of powers. If you’re in your head too much, you’re just going to get beat up.

By the same token, if you go throwing yourself in, you’re just wild and out of control, you’ll also get beat up eventually. If you are just being overly sensitive and not applying the information that you’re getting through your senses, then you’ll also get beat up.

So again, it kept pointing me back to a balance of powers. However, when you’re learning martial arts, the brain can get in the way while you’re learning the drills and the exercises that you’re going to go then spar and roll with. And I’m telling you the most recent example of this has been right now here in my new home on the East Coast because as soon as I hit town, the first day I was here, I went and joined up with Sifu TW Smith’s group.

You may remember Sifu Tim. He’s been a friend of the podcast. We have a video together here on the channel. If you haven’t checked out his podcast, Kung Fu Podcasts, I’ll put a link below. But he has a really friendly group of people here. They lost their school, just like I had lost my school during the lockdown. But they’re training in the park and finding some space at local schools.

So I was very excited to go and train with this group. And everyone’s been very friendly and patient. And if you ask my mind, are you open? Are you open to learning? It would say yes. That’s why I showed up. That’s why I’m here on the first day possible.

But if you ask my ego, it would say no. No. What these people are doing is stupid. You don’t need this. What are they doing? They look ridiculous.

There’s a fight in my brain. I’m showing up to classes. We’re doing Tai Chi, Bagua, Xing Yi. They have a little Hop Gar and Choy Li Fut on the side. So it’s a complex curriculum.

There’s a lot going on, which means I don’t know what’s going on. These are new drills, new ideas, new terminology. And I’m taking advice from new people, all nice people, all skillful people. And I’m smiling. And I’m there because I have an open mind.

But even as I’m smiling and they are sharing information and they are being kind and patient, inside my head there are other voices.

No! This is stupid! What are you doing? Go home! Do what you know! You don’t need this.

These voices are there.

You look ridiculous. You can’t do this. This is too hard. You’re too old to do this.

Voices. The brain in the way. Overthinking. So I get it. Even though I thought I was kind of over these issues, right? Because I’ve trained in multiple arts. I’ve been the beginner before.

As a teacher, I see students wrestling with this issue. And I’ve coached them through it many, many times. And yet, here I am again. Stuck with the same brain. Attacking my progress.

Now, you, I’m sure, have these same experiences, right? And it doesn’t even have to be just from cross-training and trying something new and tying on a white belt. Within your own school, in your own style.

Have you ever sparred with someone who is a lower rank? Maybe even a beginner. And they give you a tip. How does that make you feel? You’re sparring, they’re new, newer than you, and they say, hey, you should keep your hands up, or hey, you should pivot more.

Now, it doesn’t matter if that information is true or not. Do you not have part of your brain that immediately chimes in like, What? Who are you? Shut up. Do you know who I am? Look at your rank. I’m higher than you.

I mean, I can’t be the only one, right? So it could be from another student. It could be from a peer. Maybe they’re the same rank. They give you a tip. They show you a different way of doing something. And again, your brain jumps in like, I don’t want to hear this. Not from you.

It could be from teachers. I certainly had this experience where you have one teacher who you respect show you one way to do something. Maybe a little movement in a form, a little tweak. But another teacher that you also respect shows you the opposite tweak. Something different. And your brain doesn’t know what to do with that. It’s just confused.

I don’t like this. I like that. I don’t want to do it that way. But he told me to do it this way.

The brain is confusing you.

You could see videos, whether that’s in your style or without your style. And it could be great information. And as you’re watching, you’re just judging so much that you don’t really learn anything. You’re just thinking, Oh, he looks stupid. Oh, that technique would never work. Oh, my style does that better.

These thoughts are not helpful. But they’re there. They’re in your head. At least mine.

Even your body can mess with your brain. You have a shoulder injury from years ago. And now your teacher comes over and says, Hey, when you do this move, you should rotate your shoulder more like this. And before your body even has a chance to try that, your brain jumps in and says, No, no, no, no, my shoulder can’t do that. That’s my bad shoulder. Nope.

Limitations. Closing up. You’re trying to keep that open mind to grow and gain. And instead, your brain is jumping in to stop that process from happening.

I even broke it down to four characters, if you like. Four characters that you’re going to run into at your martial arts school, or that you’re going to end up playing in your martial arts school.

One of those characters, one of these harmful brain characters, I would call the questioner.

I’m thinking of a guy right now. I’m not going to use his name, but I can see his face. Teacher starts showing a move: Okay, A, you’re starting to do this. Oh, hang on now, wait a minute. When you do that, but doesn’t that leave you open for…

Haven’t even finished showing the technique yet. And this guy is already closing his mind. Teacher goes on. Okay, so after A, now we go to B. Hold on, wait, but yes, but you said before the foot should be turned this way. Now you’re turning the foot that way.

Okay, maybe the teacher finishes showing the technique. A, B, C. Now you get partnered with this guy, the questioner. And you don’t even get to practice because immediately, he’s like, Yeah, now when he showed it, did he show it this way or did he show it that way? Why do you have to keep your hand this way? Did he say why?

Just shut up, man. This is an example of your brain not wanting to have a new experience. It doesn’t even want to try something new. It closes up to just stay in its own secure little cocoon where nothing new is going to get in. Brain closed. The questioner.

Another character. The objector.

I’m thinking of a person right now. I can see his face. High level person. Black belt. Skilled black belt. Another skilled black belt shows a technique, however. A, B, C. A legendary type of person shows a technique. Here’s the move, guys. A, B, C.

You get partnered with this guy though. The objector. And he’s going to say, Yeah, yeah, yeah, A, B, C. But here’s X, Y, Z. I like X, Y, Z a lot better. Let’s do X, Y, Z.

What’s that? What are you doing? Again, there’s this fear of the unknown. That brain doesn’t want them to look stupid as a higher ranked guy. Doesn’t want to learn something new. Doesn’t want to experience something different. Just wants to go through the patterns of what they already know. Close the brain. Again, close the mind.

Another character, the Joker.

I’m thinking of another person. I can see his face. And look, sometimes that face is mine. This is a person who is so afraid of looking silly, that they will make themselves look silly first on purpose under their own control.

Rather than try something new and fail, or look ignorant, or make mistakes, they make jokes. They talk about movies. They make snarky comments. They use some sarcasm. They change the subjects. Anything to distract them from actually trying the technique.

You never even get to ABC. It’s all just ha ha ha. And again, that can feel friendly at first, like, oh, this person’s got a great sense of humor. They’re fun to work with. But at some point you say, you’re wasting my time here, man. I want to work. I want to learn. I’m willing to make a mistake. That’s already hard enough for me to do that. And now you’re holding me up, because you don’t want to do that.

Again, closed mind. Closed it with a smile, but they closed it.

One more character. I see a face. And sometimes it’s mine. The competitor.

This is the guy who’s got to win, even when it’s not a contest. Every drill, every exercise, they gotta go fast, they gotta go hard. They gotta shape it to a way that makes sense to them. And that’s that. They win. As if there’s a pile of cash on the table. And if they can just do this drill faster and stronger than you, they’re going to take that money home.

Delirious. I mean, just craziness.

I remember this one particular fellow, who was a great wrestler. Super strong, super fast, great wrestler. And that’s what he did in a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class. Yeah, there’s some crossover, but he wouldn’t do Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. He would just wrestle. And I remember a teacher watching him perform. And he just said, very casually, You know, he’d be great if he actually did what we were doing.

Great comment. He noticed that this guy’s got a closed mind. He’s great at what he’s doing, but his learning has stopped now because he won’t try something that he doesn’t know, that he’s not good at, that he can’t win with yet.

So, do you recognize these characters? Have you played these characters? And let me be clear– this isn’t about laziness here. A closed mind isn’t lazy. If anything, that brain is working overtime to create all of these characters and all of this noise for you.

That brain is working hard to stop your learning process.

And it takes many different masks. It wears different masks. That noise in your head can be ego, arrogance.

Sometimes it comes up as fear, or you feel it as confusion. Sometimes it’s anger, resentment. Sometimes it’s doubt or embarrassment, competitiveness, performance anxiety.

There are so many names for it. So many ways you can find it. But it all adds up to trouble. It all adds up to slowing you down.

Now even though that all sounds negative– and it does, right?– the mind is not your enemy. Again, this is about finding a balance. The brain can help you if you can tame it. If you don’t, it’s just going to keep stopping you from succeeding.

Here’s a parallel that I think makes sense. Have you ever tried to do a full split? If you’re a martial artist, I have no doubt you have tried to do a full split, or you’re trying to do one right now. What happens?

You start off tall, right? You start sliding your feet out. In the beginning, you’re like, yeah, no problem. I have this idea in my head. So you start going down, you go down. Then you start slowing down. And you start thinking like, okay, it’s getting a little tight here, but I’m tough. I can do it.

Your brain’s supplying some positive thoughts. Yeah, you got this. I’ve seen people do this. I can do this. But then your body starts working against you, right? No matter what you say in your head, you start getting tighter. You start worrying about tearing a muscle, popping out a bone, popping out your hip, tearing your pants, looking stupid, failing.

Then what happens? Your body at some point just, ding, locks. You get stopped. Somehow, your body and your brain have made a deal like, we’re not going to let you do that.

Now, biology was a long time ago for me, so I can’t remember if that’s a muscle reaction, a tendon reaction, or the Golgi reaction. But there’s something in the body, built in, senses, sensory mechanisms that stop you because it’s afraid you’re going to hurt yourself. Your body has not seen you do this before, and it’s not going to let you do it right now.

Right? So we recognize that mechanism in the body. But that mechanism, I believe, is in the brain as well. You start off with an open mind. Hey, I want to learn something. Then here comes the new information. Here come these new experiences where you have the room to make mistakes and fail and look stupid.

Now your ego jumps in to protect you, to protect your sense of confidence, to protect your sense of self, your identity. Your brain has done a good job of helping you succeed up to today. Right? You’re not a complete failure.

No matter who you are, you have had successes to get here today because of the way your brain is wired. So when your brain opens and lets in new information and suddenly starts feeling like it doesn’t know what it’s doing and doesn’t have a handle on it, it closes back up to protect you, to make sure you still feel confident and you still have those tools that got you this far.

It feels like you’re going to go backwards if you open up your brain and you lose all your tools. You lost your edge. That’s the problem.

So I just want to make sure you understand, as I try to understand it, the brain and the monkey brain and the fears and the doubts and the insecurities, they’re designed to help you. It’s a positive thing.

But there’s a right time and a right place and there’s a right proportion to all that kind of noise. And we just got to put it in the right measure. Balance it out with the body and the drives, the spirit, so that you are a fully functioning human being. You’re not getting stopped in your tracks. You’re not thinking too much.

Okay, so just to clarify a little bit before I’ve got three tips coming up here to help, I think, tame the brain to win the game. Before I do, I just want to make one quick little point. This idea of mushin, the mind without mind, this being in the zone– sometimes you hear it talked about as if you’re not thinking at all.

So people will talk about their training in a way that it makes it sound like, Yeah, the idea is to train so much that your body just does it all by itself. You don’t have to think. And I just want to be really careful about that thinking– the thinking about no thinking.

Even the term mushin, the mind without mind, mushin no shin, it doesn’t really mean “no thinking”. It means no harmful thinking, no restrictive thinking, no thinking that’s going to get in the way of you succeeding at what you’re doing. It’s getting rid of the monkey brain. It’s getting rid of all the noise that’s keeping you from hearing things and seeing things clearly.

Sometimes I hear it in martial arts said in different ways where they’ll, they talk about this idea of: I didn’t punch them with my fist. The fist punched all by itself.

And that always makes me shrug because I think it’s crazy. That’s, or at least it’s misunderstood. Imagine being in a self-defense situation and you take out three guys and now you end up in court. And when you’re on the stand, you testify–

Well, Your Honor, listen, you know, I train in the martial arts. And I really can’t be held responsible. I wasn’t thinking at the time. Yes, I see the surveillance video. I seem to have killed three people here. But to be honest, my hands and my feet did all of that on their own. I didn’t think about it at all.

That’s going to, you’re going to end up either on medication or locked up or both. The idea here is not to let your body do whatever it wants to, even if it’s well trained on its own, or let your body and spirit run wild because you’ve trained them so well. No, no, no, your mind should always be part of what you’re doing. There should be some strategizing, there should be some analysis, there should be some choosing going on.

That’s the balance of powers, just like in government in the United States– we have three branches of government, so that no one branch gets too powerful. You have another two to kind of check it out, the balance of powers. Checks and balances. Same thing in your body.

Mushin no shin, being in the zone, being in a flow state, does not mean, in my world, should not mean that you’re not thinking at all. It just means that you’ve gotten rid of the thoughts that are holding you back, that are holding you from performing at your best.

So there’s always room for thinking. Don’t let your fist act all by itself. That’s trouble.

All right, so how to tame the brain to win the game. Oh, I do love a good rhyme. Or a bad rhyme.

Okay, tip number one. Train in silence. Train with silence. Train to be silent.

I’ve talked about this one before, but it’s still important. When I was a teenager in Taekwondo, I had a lot of personality conflict with my teacher. And I shot my mouth off. I couldn’t be quiet. And that led to more trouble. And it was a huge growing experience for me to just learn to just shut up.

The questioner, the objector, the joker. That guy had no place in a studio, in a school, because I wasn’t there to learn anymore. I was there to protect my identity.

Of course, a good teacher recognizes that and helps you work through that. But I would challenge you as well. The next time that your brain objects or questions or jokes, don’t say anything. I’m not saying it wasn’t a good thought or you’re not right. But just the exercise of not voicing it, of not saying it out loud, gives your brain a different sense of control over what’s going on.

If everything that comes to your mind then comes out of your mouth, you just keep empowering your brain to say whatever it wants. I would like to put a little filter there just to control it, to tame the brain. To let it know, Hey, just because you gave me a thought here, brain, doesn’t mean I’m going to say it, doesn’t mean I’m going to share it, doesn’t mean I value it.

It’s just there. To me, I’m just going to say it’s noise.

Again, pick your battles. I’m not saying you have to walk around and take a vow of silence for months. But just find a few times in a day where, hey, your friend is saying something you don’t agree with, and you just smile. You just, you don’t say anything.

Now, that could be really hard. Believe me, I know. So, here’s one little crutch that I can give you. If it’s hard to just stay quiet, then give yourself something to sing, like hum, humming a song that you like. Or say the alphabet. Try this, and please let me know if it works for you.

When you’re sparring or you’re rolling next time, and you’re a type of person where your mind is in the way and you’re worried about things and you’re second guessing your choices and you’re hesitating a lot and you’re not really in the zone, start saying the alphabet to yourself. Or give yourself a mantra to say over and over again. Or hum Happy Birthday to yourself.

The idea here has worked for me is to just give your monkey brain– that part of your brain that’s looking for trouble, trying to protect you– give it something to do. And then that opens up the rest of your brain to just get what you need to do done.

It might sound nuts, but just give your brain something to do. Just start humming A, B, C, D, E, F, while you’re fighting and I do believe you’re going to feel different. And as a bonus, even if it doesn’t work for you, if you’re humming, it’ll annoy your partner. They’ll think, What? Why am I not scaring this guy? He’s humming? What is that?

Give that a try. Let me know.

Tip number two, to tame your brain. Train with pain.

I’m not talking about injuring yourself, but again, this is something we’ve talked about before. When I wake up in the morning, I’ll tell you, first thing I do as part of my morning workout is I drop into a five minute horse stance and a five minute plank. I usually wrap it all up with a cold shower.

I don’t enjoy any of those, but the idea is specifically to get out of my head as soon as I can. Rather than start my workout with a bunch of drills and exercises or forms where I can immediately start judging and having memories and doubts and criticisms, I immediately, because I’m a head heavy guy, I start my training by trying to drop my senses into my body.

When you drop into a deep squat and try to hold that or a plank, the first minute or two, your brain is still really active, like, Yeah, no problem. Okay, what am I worried about today? What’s going on in the world?

Your brain’s active, noisy. And then in that middle period, that three to four minutes, then your body starts demanding attention, saying, Okay, up there, brain– that’s enough of that noise, I need help down here.

And that fourth to fifth minute, I’m out of my head. All the monkey brain noise is gone. Other than going, Oh, my God, this is horrible, this is horrible, at some point, you break through. You know how you talk about getting a second wind where your lungs adjust and you end up in a more relaxed state again? You’re not panting.

Same thing with the mind, I believe. You get a second mind. You get through the monkey brain, you get through the criticism, you get through the drama, and it just clears out. Eventually your mind says, Okay, forget it, I’m not going to talk to you anymore. If you’re not going to listen, I’m not going to talk to you anymore. And you say, Oh, good.

Then in that silence, now you’ve got a balance again between your brain and your body. So, train a little pain. However, that makes sense to you. Hold a bowl of cereal over your head for an hour. I don’t care. But find something that makes you uncomfortable and just sit with it for a while until your brain shuts up.

Tip number three. Train to say, okay.

This is an example of replacing judgment with acceptance. Just accept it.

My grandfather was the greatest example of this. One of his little catch phrases, what I remember him saying, he would say, Okay for you.

He’s pouring himself a glass of port– Hey, want a glass of port? No, Grandpa, I don’t drink. Okay for you. That’s it. Wouldn’t try to persuade me to take a drink or call me names for not drinking or judge. No, just, Okay for you. Accepted that I didn’t want it.

Hey, Grandpa, where are you going? Going to church. Mass is at 10. Okay, I don’t feel like going. Okay for you. This was his answer for most things, as I remember. Just, Okay for you.

He made his choices. He followed his path. You’re welcome to join, but if not, Okay for you. I think that’s a really healthy thing.

When I’m being shown exercises that are new, my brain is saying, you don’t need this. This is silly. This is a waste of time. The alternative is just saying, okay, I’ll just do it. No, you don’t want to do it? Okay. I’ll give it a try.

It’s not that you’re not going to judge again. You’re going to judge. Your brain’s going to get active at some point. But I’m basically just putting it off for a second just by saying, Okay, let me have the experience first, and then let me judge it second.

This, I think, is a healthy way to train your brain. If you don’t walk in with that open mind, your brain starts saying, I don’t like this. There’s a problem. But if you say, Okay, let’s go with it a little bit. Then you have some experience and you might end up liking it.

If you don’t, well, here’s the good news, my beautiful friend: You can always go back to who you were before. For all of these tips, you give them a try. You try to open your mind for as long as you can, experience new things as much as you can, smile, throw yourself out there, make mistakes, fail, do all that. And if it doesn’t work, there’s no penalty. You just go back to who you were before.

Don’t forget that. That’s the last little point here. Don’t forget that whoever you are now, the tools that you had to make you this successful and this level of happy, you still have those. No one’s taking those away from you. I’m not. And if anything, your body and your brain are going to cling to them as hard as they can. That’s what all that noise is. You’re trying to hold on to who you are.

But if you want to go a little farther down the road of success, then this is where these tips come in. To try to turn off the monkey, clear away some of that noise, and open up that mind a little bit farther to create a little bit more space to gain something new. If you don’t like it, then spit it back out and walk away.

But you might find out, and I think more often than not you will, particularly because you’re around good teachers, good people, happy world, you’ll find things that deepen your wisdom and deepen your skills.

Okay, so this all makes sense, I hope. We’re talking again about taming the brain so you can win the game. And I’m talking about winning the game of life here.

The secret is to recognize that you are made up of three powers generally, mind, body, spirit. You are a thinking animal, you are a feeling animal, and you are a driving animal. You have instincts. The trick as a martial artist, as a student, as a human being, is to break them up sometimes and work on each one individually and then more importantly, bring them all together and teach them, train them, to work together as a team.

That is how you will be at your maximum level of power. That’s how you’ll make the most of whatever it is that you’ve got. Balance in your thinking, feeling, and driving, taming your brain, taming your heart, taming your guts. If you can do all of that, then you’ll have the best chance at winning this game of a happy life.

Okay, my friend, I hope you’ll give some of that a try, and then let me know how it goes.

Until I see you next time, smiles up, my friend. Let that smile be your shield and your sword. Keep fighting for a happy life.

The post #98: Tame Your Brain to Win the Game [Video + Podcast] appeared first on Sensei Ando.

Welcome to Episode #97 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “Little Pain, Big Trouble.”

Pain is part of life… especially if you’re a martial artist! But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to minimize injuries and avoid trouble. Those should be your first priorities in studying self-defense, in fact!

Even though I KNOW this, I recently caused myself some unnecessary pain while preparing to move from Los Angeles to Raleigh, NC. I’m embarrassed to admit that my arm still hurts even as I type this!

This little pain, however, serves as a great reminder that bad technique (combined with a bad attitude!) only makes life more difficult. I hope that by sharing my story, you can avoid some unnecessary pain in your life.

To LISTEN to “Little Pain, Big Trouble,” you can either:

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Thanks for listening! Keep fighting for a happy life!

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Howdy, and welcome back to Fight for a Happy Life, the show that believes even a little martial arts makes life a whole lot better. My name is Ando, and I’m always happy when you can drop by and spend a little time, especially today, because I think I’ve got a pretty important topic.

Today, I want to talk about pain. Now, I’ve talked about pain before. Usually, injuries, training injuries. I’ve shared some stories from the past, shared my advice on how to talk to your body to get back to your full strength, but that’s not really what I want to talk about today.

Today, I want to talk about chronic pain, the kinds of pain that don’t go away. So rather than looking at managing pains and rehabbing them, I’d like to talk about, hopefully, preventing pain and prehabbing.

I would love if you could have a pain-free life.

Of course, that’s impossible. I’m going to tell you right now, spoiler alert, pain is part of life, not just emotional pain, but as I’m learning as I get older, physical pain. I’m not sure if it’s completely avoidable.

I’m 51 as of today. Today, I am 51. So, I’m here to tell you, life has changed a bit. I never thought about chronic pain in my teens, 20s, 30s, or 40s. Now that I’m over 50, it is part of life.

If you’ve been following me at all, you know that I’ve been dealing with a trigger finger for almost a year now. It’s still not easy to make a fist on this hand. It’s also the case that for several years now, I’ve had increasing pain in my feet because the cartilage has gone on my big toes. So that’s affecting some of my footwork at the very least. That pain is not going away.

I also just got an MRI back last week that confirms that I have a couple of herniated discs. So I’ve got to deal with that.

Now don’t feel sorry for me, I’m still very active, I’m still learning and teaching. I’m a happy guy. But it is a wake up call that things could get worse if I’m not careful. And that’s what I want to share with you today. What I’m learning, if I’m a little older than you, things to avoid, or if we’re about the same age or you’re a little older, what I’m learning about where this pain is coming from. So hopefully again, you can avoid some of it.

Now I will tell you that all the pains that I’ve just described usually had some warning signs. There were usually some clues, but I wasn’t that wise in recognizing them. So I think I’m getting a little better at that. So hopefully you can head off some of this pain by my sharing how what I’m learning.

So let’s talk about how the pains have happened and let’s talk about how to minimize them.

The best way to do it is with the most recent example of a pain that I’ve been causing myself. This is brand new, week old stuff. You might notice as a setup for the story that I’m sitting in an empty room. I’ve been in Los Angeles for 28 years. I’ve been in this apartment for 23.

Over eight years ago, this is where I recorded my first podcast and many since. But it’s time to go. After COVID, priorities have shifted a bit. Economics have shifted a bit. And my wife and I said, I think we’ve had enough of the West Coast. Let’s go back East where our families are actually living.

So for my wife, absolutely for sure, moving back to the East Coast to be near family is what it’s all about. For me, don’t tell her, it’s the barbecue. My number one priority will be hunting down the best pie and the best barbecue possible. All right.

I’m also very excited to be meeting new people. I already know a couple of great teachers in the area, so I know I’ll be able to continue learning, and I’m absolutely going to be teaching. Probably start an online class with Zoom. I have an in-person group and private training, of course, and I will continue online offering. So you’ll be hearing more from me. So don’t worry in case that was something you were worried about.

All right, so now, how did I hurt myself? Well, like I said, we’re moving. And since we both have strained backs lately, we hired movers. The deal we made with the movers was, the package we got, was they would take care of the big stuff, the bed, the couch, dressers, and we would take care of everything else.

Now, like I said, we haven’t moved in decades. So I admit that we completely underestimated how much work it takes to pack. And even though we’re two people and we live, very simply, it still turned out to be, I think, 5,600 pounds of stuff.

Now, in this packing process, we use a lot of boxes and a lot of this stuff, packing tape. All told, the truck, when you go down the log, the list that they make to load the truck, we had 146 items on the truck, boxes. And we’re talking big boxes for some artwork and the television. And we had some smaller boxes, but a lot of boxes.

My job, my wife likes to pack, but my job was primarily to put those boxes together and to seal those boxes up when they were full. And then to stack them as we go. Now, I can’t do the math on this, but if you figure over a couple of tons of stuff and 146 boxes, and you figure how many times that I had to run a strip of tape along the creases of those boxes, the edges, I can’t even tell you how many rolls of tape I went through, let alone how many times I had to go like this.

Now, that’s where the story is leading here. I’m right-handed, I held the tape like this. So that’s thumb down, elbow up, and most of the time I’d be reaching across my center line, depending on the size of the box, around the corner of the box, put down some pressure, drag that as tautly as I could across the box, press it down, and then go around the far corner, or the closer corner, I guess, and then do that little flick of the wrist to cut the tape. And I did that countless times.

Now, the other part of this that I should admit to you is in not underestimating the amount of work it takes to pack, we ended up doing an all-nighter. I would say seven-eighths of the stuff that we put on that truck we did in the last 36 hours. So we were grinding it out at the end, which meant that all of those, I’m going to say thousands of reps of putting that tape down, was all in a very short time period.

I will tell you that the next night after we had moved, I’m going to skip ahead a little bit, I woke up in the middle of the night because my arm was burning and I couldn’t move my arm. It was just stuck next to my side. And just moving my arm, trying to lift it a little bit, couldn’t lift a glass of water, couldn’t brush my teeth with it. My arm, I still can feel it. This is only within the last week. I can still feel it.

It’s cooling off now, but at first I had no idea it had anything to do with the packing because I’m a little slow. I’d gone to a jiu-jitsu class, now post-quarantine. I was happy to go back and kind of do a goodbye round with a couple of the guys at BJJ. And I did get caught in an armbar once.

So my first thought was, see, I can’t snap with that finger, my first thought was, that guy, Mike, he jacked up my arm. So that’s what I was thinking about for most of the day until I needed one more box put together. We have some odds and ends that we have to ship. So I went to grab the tape, and when I tried to even just fake it to get into that position, just to start it, I felt that burn again.

Then Dr. Ando figured out, Oh, this is basically like tennis elbow. This is an inflamed tendon. I’m glad it wasn’t more serious. It wasn’t a jacked up arm. It’s just something I’m going to have to just live with temporarily. I realize this is not chronic pain, unless I’m an idiot. I got to let this cool off. But it did teach me something. A lesson I thought I had learned a long time ago, but again, now that I’m older, I have to really take seriously. And that is…

A little pain. Your body doesn’t scream at you in the beginning. Your brain is kind to you. Maybe too kind. So in the beginning, you could do something that’s not necessarily good for your body, and you won’t even know it. It’s just not even on your radar.

But then at some point, when you start crossing that line into dangerous, reckless behavior, not necessarily reckless in that moment, but maybe 5 years out, 10 years out, 20 years out, that you’re starting to wear down something in your body, your body gives you a very little whisper. A very little bird starts to chirp in your ear in the form of pain, which again is not a bad thing, that your body is trying to protect you.

Pain is a protective mechanism to say, stop this, don’t do this anymore. Put your attention here. Fix this.

So that would be the first little lesson here. Pain is not your enemy. Pain is your friend. If you ignore the pain, and you let that little pain turn into a big pain, then you got a problem. Now it’s your enemy. Now it’s something you’re going to have to battle with and bring in doctors and surgeons to deal with. You can’t even fight it alone sometimes.

But we want to avoid that, right? So back it up. That packing tape, this packing tape, was a great reminder of how to prevent pain. Because there were two main causes. I broke it down. Now that I’ve been reflecting in pain, I can move my arm a little bit again.

There were two main causes to the problem. Number one, technique. As martial artists, we all love talking about technique. How do you punch? How do you kick? What’s your favorite escape from this? What’s your favorite escape from that?

But please keep in mind that all of that just answers the question of what to do. It doesn’t tell you necessarily HOW to do it. If you just go from technique to technique, you just start pumping out reps, but you’re not really paying attention to how you’re performing those repetitions, that is opening the door to big problems.

And again, the only way you’re going to know that is if you’re slowing down sometimes and specifically asking, is this the right way to do this? And I don’t just mean write according to your teacher or according to your style or according to your heroes that you watch, your idols. I mean quietly, closing your eyes and feeling it in your body and asking your body, is this the right way to do this?

Do you feel strong? Do you feel smooth? Is this going to be a problem five years from now, ten years from now?

I beg you in your training, no matter what style you do, how old you are, don’t go all out all the time because it’s impossible to hear your body when you’re doing that. You’ve got too much other stimuli showering in on you. There’s just too much to pay attention to when you’re moving fast and you’re hitting hard.

There’s impact and vibration. You got partners. It’s intense. You won’t hear that little voice saying, Hey, that hurt. Hey, that’s a little tense. Hey, you twisted that. Hey, that’s pinching.

These are all very subtle cues. So absolutely technique, clean it up, slow down, feel it out, and figure out if you’re doing things the right way for your body’s health, for longevity. If you have watched some of my other videos, you’ll know that I’ve had, I learned that lesson a long time ago with my shoulders. I did too much pushing and not enough pulling, too much curling up and not enough expansion, and that led to some shoulder issues, which I’ve pretty much figured out how to manage and work within. But I don’t want you to even have to deal with it.

So seek the balance, seek something comfortable. And don’t get me wrong, everybody’s body breaks down. That’s part of the nature’s cycle, right? You’re kind of damned if you do, damned if you don’t. If you are training, you’re going to wear down your parts anyway. But prematurely is the problem. With extra pain that you didn’t have to experience is a problem.

So this is the kind of advice I’m trying to give you. You’re going to get hurt no matter what. Pain is part of life. But again, I just want you to be able to minimize it so you can continue the activities that you love, like martial arts training or whatever it is you do. Go fly a kite, but be able to do it with a smile and less ibuprofen.

We all break down, but you go farther if you’re smarter. So don’t just study your art, study you.

Now let me give you the second cause, the more embarrassing cause, to my pain, because putting down tape is not something I ever do. If I was a professional mover, a professional packer, well then maybe I would have a different technique, and I would have studied this already.

But let’s say I had already mastered the technique of making boxes and sealing up boxes, there was still another cause to my pain. And I don’t even like admitting it, but I’m going to. So here you go.

The second cause was attitude. I gave up even trying to do things right.

Like I said, we were under a lot of pressure. The movers were coming, we had underestimated how much work there really was to do, and so we found ourselves having to pull an all-nighter to get everything packed on time.

We were still sealing up boxes as the moving truck squealed. We heard them pull up outside, and the crew was getting off. There were still a couple of things we were still trying to shove into boxes and seal up. So we were really under the gun. And I’m going to tell you, I actually remember the moment.

It was around 2 o’clock in the morning, and we’ve been going at it, and I knew that we still had a ton to do, literally a ton to pack. And I gave up caring how I felt. The how went out the window. I only focused on what had to be done, the task. I gotta pack this stuff right now!

I remember leaning over boxes and straining my back. My back was burning. I remember being dehydrated. I didn’t stop for water. I didn’t take a breath. I didn’t shake it out. I didn’t stretch. I gave up all of that because the task felt so desperate. I had to get the packing done.

But I remember there was a moment where I said, I don’t care. I don’t care about my back anymore. I don’t care if this is perfectly sealed up. I don’t care. I just gotta get it done.

And that’s a problem because you got to ask yourself, how much do you care about being your best? How much do you really care about being at your best? At what point do you stop caring about your health or your well-being or doing things right, and then put yourself as the second priority and make the task number one?

Again, I think at some point we all go off the rails. At some point, there’s that breaking point where you say, I don’t care anymore. I don’t care what it looks like. I don’t care what you think of me. I don’t care about anything. I gotta get this done.

If you get stabbed, right? If you’re on the street and someone starts stabbing you with a knife, you see your blood come out. You probably won’t be thinking as much about what technique should I choose and does it look right? And is this as good as my last belt test? And what would an observer comment about my performance right now?

I bet you don’t care about any of those things because you’ll die if you do. At some point, you’re going to say, Oh, task at hand is what? I got to stop this guy from stabbing me and I got to stop the bleeding and I got to go seek medical help.

At some point, we flip that switch from how we’re doing things back to what am I doing? What needs to be done? But along the way, you can make things worse is my point. If you have given up on your own personal safety, your personal comfort, then you might find yourself in that panic situation earlier than if you had just taken your time to be a little more aware, prevent a little bit of that trouble, maybe you wouldn’t end up getting stabbed.

If you had cared a little earlier about what’s going on around me, what’s my awareness telling me? How can I prevent this bad guy from getting closer? Why didn’t I see that knife? Why am I here in the first place?

It’s a fine balance is what I’m trying to say. But I do know that there was a point when I gave up. I gave up caring, being healthy anymore. I told myself, why don’t you just slow down and stretch for a little bit? I was like, no, I don’t care.

Why don’t you just take a breath? I literally didn’t even care about taking a breath. At some point, I’ll just go all the way dark. I actually felt like we were never going to finish. It was dark. There was no light. We had nowhere. There were so many boxes that there was nowhere to sit down or lie down. So you’d have to go outside if you really wanted to stretch and take a breath anyway. And I’m going to admit to you that at some point, I actually felt like I don’t even care if I die.

I’m not kidding about that. I believe my wife felt the same way. So this isn’t like a big, big revelation. But do you know what I’m talking about? Has this happened to you?

I’ve talked about it in Jiu Jitsu. I’ve talked about being pinned and being exhausted and just being so desperate and so out of gas that I felt like I accept death at this point. I accept that you win, I lose, and I’m okay with it. And it’s actually a peaceful state of mind. It’s not frightening.

I’ve talked about that, accepting death in other podcasts. But it was that moment again, even in just packing, I reached a point where I didn’t care if I made it to my birthday. If I had died that night– I’ve had good food, I’ve had lots of laughs, I feel like I’ve accomplished some things– I really could die happy. Everything past this point is a bonus.

That night, I was almost ready to just cash in my chips. No joke. But is that healthy? Is that rational? That packing for the truck should get me to the point where I was okay to accept death?

That’s how much attitude can play a part in your life. And I’m hoping that you can hang on a little bit longer with whatever you’re going through, whatever pain you’re experiencing, whatever tasks you have on your list. Hang on a little bit longer. Please hang on a little bit longer.

Don’t give up on the dream, on the goal, on the actions that you’re taking to be your best, to be your best self. Don’t give that up.

So let me put this together. Pain’s a part of life, yes. Chronic pain, I believe, increasingly will become more a part of my life. And will be probably part of yours too. But as much as possible, I think we should be working actively to minimize that pain. And if we can prevent it, prevent it. This is what self-defense is all about.

Now you know, as a student of self-defense, the advice that, the best advice you hear, is it’s not about techniques. It’s hopefully about avoiding trouble and preventing trouble. And how do you do that? With awareness, right? And taking action as early as possible to improve a situation.

As soon as someone’s starting to call you out and act belligerent, that’s the time maybe to go home or to walk away, to try to de-escalate. I don’t want a situation to get to the point where I have to punch or hope that my knife disarms are up to snuff. Or anybody’s.

You’re always trying to work with your awareness to prevent trouble. And the earlier the better. Those are the rules of self-defense. Like I said, the trigger finger, the hallux rigidus in my feet, the herniated discs, they all came with warning signs, little whispers of, Hey, maybe that’s not such a great idea. Hey, maybe a little less of this and a little more of that.

But I didn’t listen to those signs, and then those little pains became bigger pains. Little problems became bigger problems. Don’t let this happen to you. Slow down. Listen to your body. Feel things out.

And as always, I’m not just talking about your martial arts practice here. I’m talking about your life practice. I’m not just talking about really physical pain. I’m also talking about your emotional pains.

You know, if someone in your family has a belief about you, and they know that trigger, and every holiday they say that little thing, they needle you with that little comment, and it’s that little pain inside of you, it constantly bothers you until 10 years goes by, 20 years goes by, and then it explodes. And you say, That’s it. I don’t want to hear that ever again. Stop saying that. Why do you always say that?

And then it becomes a big fight, a big pain. Maybe then it leads to a split. You don’t talk to that person for a couple of years. Maybe you’ve never gone back to talk to them or heal that wound. But trace it back. Where did it start?

It started with a little annoyance, a little pain. You didn’t say something about it. You didn’t make it right at that time. You didn’t make your comfort more important than the task of just get through dinner. Just let it go.

I’m not saying you should always call out everybody on everything at all times. But if you feel that pain with you over and over again, year after year, just know that those little pains will grow. They don’t necessarily get better. You’ve already given it a chance to get better on its own. If it’s not healing itself, then you’re going to have to take some type of action, something more serious than just whatever it is you’ve been doing.

I should also, before I wrap it up, you have to constantly update what I’m talking about here. Update your software, so to speak. You don’t think twice about it when it’s your phone, and it says, Oh, there’s a new version of whatever you’ve got to update. Update it.

Now the phone works better, hopefully. Always some bugs. That’s part of life, right? Pain is part of life. Bugs are part of life. But you keep running those updates, because that’s going to give you the best chance to maximize performance, right?

So I’m here to tell you that version 2.0, my 20s of Ando, is very different than version 3.0, very different than 4.0. Now I’m in version 5.0 of Ando. And if I’m not updating my software, I’m absolutely going to break down and blow up. Absolutely.

Certain relationships might blow up if I don’t update them. Certain techniques are going to blow up my body if I don’t improve my performance of them. Seriously, there’s no way that the way I used to punch in my 20s should be the same as I’m punching now in my 50s. And I don’t just mean what style of punch do you use and what do you look like when you punch. I don’t mean that.

I just mean in my body, how fast can it move? How far can it stretch? How explosive can it be? How fast can it recover? You have to update your expectations of what your body can do.

That doesn’t mean you’re just giving up, getting worse, and eroding. No, no, I mean developing. I mean refining. I mean evolving. It’s not necessarily a better punch that I’m throwing nowadays, but it’s a different punch. It’s the best punch that I can throw today compared to the punch I threw in my 20s.

It’s better in some ways and not as good in some ways. That’s okay. It’s still in development and always will be. The punch that I’m throwing today as 51, as a 51 year old, won’t be the same, I know, probably even into next week, let alone when I’m 60.

But this is the challenge for you too. Don’t think ever that you’ve got it.

Oh, can you do this technique? Oh yeah, I’ve got that. No, you’ve got it today. But if you keep trying to run that same software five years from now, ten years from now, you’re going to have more than bugs. You’re going to have a major malfunction. One day that system is not even going to boot up. You’re going to have a black screen of death or the pinwheel of death or it’s not good. Maybe smoke and an explosion.

So what’s the secret here? How do we avoid this? How do we minimize the problems? Again, pay attention. Don’t just focus on what you’re doing. Focus on how you’re doing things.

Change your expectations. Allow yourself to evolve and refine and develop. Stay vigilant.

Don’t accept what someone other people are telling you about what’s good for you. You have to really go deeper into your own self-knowledge, which is, to me, project one of martial arts. Knowledge of yourself and the knowledge of yourself in relating to other people, particularly people trying to hurt you. These are the two big projects.

So again, don’t just study your art. Study yourself and enjoy this journey. Don’t be afraid of what you discover. Don’t be afraid of, oh, I’m not as flexible. Don’t be afraid.

Oh, my bone density is changing. My hormones are changing. My energy is changing. My recovery time is changing. Enjoy it.

As long as you accept these changes and you keep practicing and find the information you need to manage it and alter it enough so you can still get what you want out of life and out of your practice, all the power to you. And if I can help, I will.

That’s why I also listen to podcasts and I also still seek out teachers because I never just think, I got it. I know what I’m doing. I only know what I’m doing based on what I’ve got today. But things are changing.

So I need to talk to some older teachers. I need to talk to people down the road. That’s what Sensei means, right? Someone born before you. Someone who’s got more experience than you. So that’s why I’m very excited in the move to the Raleigh area. I’m super excited not just to teach new students, but to be a new student to other teachers. Because that’s the cycle– you learn and then you share. At least that’s my cycle.

So there you go. Don’t let your little problems become big problems. Stay on guard at all times. In your martial arts practice and in your practice for a happy life.

All right, that’s it for today. I hope that rant was relatively pain-free for you. I’ve been sitting too long, so it hasn’t been pain-free for me. Time to get up and do some stretching.

Until I see you next time, remember, smiles up, my friend. Let that smile be your shield and your sword. Keep fighting for a happy life.

The post #97: Little Pain, Big Trouble [Video + Podcast] appeared first on Sensei Ando.

Welcome to Episode #96 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “Decision and Action.”

It’s common in self-defense training to focus on the speed of your punches and kicks… but how fast can you make a decision and take action?

Like it or not, no matter how good you are at performing your martial arts techniques, they won’t help if you freeze up or hesitate under pressure. That’s why we must train to pull the trigger and make things happen as much as possible.

Join me for a story about taking action and, more importantly, some tips on how to maximize your safety and success in self-defense and life.

In short–reflect, recreate, and rehearse!

To LISTEN to “Decision and Action,” you can either:

To WATCH the video version or READ the transcript, scroll down below.

If you’d like to support this show, share the link with a friend or leave a quick review over on iTunes. Thank you!

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Thanks for listening! Keep fighting for a happy life!

Here’s the video! If it won’t play, click this direct link.

This podcast builds on a theme from Episode #72, “Are You Ready to Fight?” You can find that discussion here.

As always, if you’d like to keep the conversation going, feel free to leave a comment here or through my Contact Page.

Howdy, howdy. Ando here from Happy Life Martial Arts. Welcome to episode #96 of Fight for a Happy Life, the show that believes even a little martial arts makes life a whole lot better.

Today’s episode is really a follow-up to episode #72. That episode was titled Are You Ready to Fight? And in that podcast, I talked about this young man who walked into the dojo one day and was calling me out to fight, wanted to test his Jeet Kune Do.

I talked him down. We did not end up fighting. Sorry to disappoint any violence lovers out there, but the wise way was to walk away on that one. However, that whole episode, the theme basically broke down to preparation. It was asking you as a martial arts student, if you’re living a lifestyle of a martial artist, or is it just a hobby to you?

The big difference being, you can train techniques a couple times a week. That’s one way to go. Or you can be preparing yourself at all times to defend yourself from anyone, any place, at any time. And once you go through that deep conversation with yourself about preparation, that’s going to affect how you dress, how you eat, where you sit, how you move through the world, how you deal with people, how you speak.

That’s when martial arts really becomes your lifestyle, becomes part of who you are. And I wish that for you, because I do think the habits that you get in a martial arts context will only help you in real life, outside the dojo, outside your school.

So train hard and then take those benefits and carry them with you everywhere. When you do that, you’re always training. And that’s the secret to being great at things. You’re always training.

Now, like I said, we only really talked about preparation in that episode. And I didn’t really talk about how to take the next step into action. You can prepare all you want, but when the moment comes that you have to do something, if you’re not able to make a decision and execute, well, then you’ll just die very well prepared. You didn’t do anything with those tools. They sure were sharpened very well, but you never swung that axe, and you never killed the monster.

So today I want to go into a little detail on a simple way you can practice how to make decisions and how to take action more effectively.

And to do that, I have a big story about taking action, and then a little story that I think will lead into some advice about how to practice taking action. So let’s get into it.

The big story. Okay. This happened a few years ago. A couple holidays ago, my family met for a holiday dinner. So we were at, I don’t want to disclose actual locations, in case there’s anyone looking for us. But trust me when I tell you, it was a family establishment. This was not a place people go looking for trouble.

It was also broad daylight, very happy environment. But there was a restaurant portion of this place, and then there was the kind of the waiting area, which was like a lobby/bar. So definitely have a couple of drinks before you go in to have your meal. You get the idea.

So anyway, the place is pretty packed, and there’s one guy who just did not fit the scene. He didn’t seem to have any family with him. He was on his own, which was already unusual. He was kind of scruffy looking, whereas this was kind of a nicer place. Most people looked kind of put together. And he was drunk. And this was in the middle of the day, like I said, broad daylight, and he was already having his own party, let’s say.

Now, I’m not judging his drinking, but I am judging his belligerent behavior, because this guy was going around and being inappropriate with every female he could spot. So that meant he was testing boundaries with my wife, my sister, my mother, and every woman in the place.

The bartender, not much security, he’s still serving him drinks, no policing going on there at all. So, let me get to it.

At some point, dinner was coming close, this guy was being obnoxious, and we decided to move our family outside to wait instead of being inside. Because no one was doing anything, and it was just annoying to see this guy and hear this guy.

Now, when we moved outside, there was only a very small little patio. I think it was just for smokers, which was fine, my mom smokes, so great, we’ll go outside. But really, this was like a very tight space. Maybe a couple of cafe tables, maybe could fit a dozen, fifteen people at most out there, and there were already people out there. They had already escaped this belligerent guy by just kind of sitting outside. They weren’t even smoking.

So anyway, we squeeze outside. And I should say, it’s my wife, my sister, my brother, and my mother. Okay, my brother, let me just back up. His name is JD. You may have heard my interview with him in episodes 26 and 27. Cool guy, he’s a fighter. He’s bigger than me. He’s probably the reason I got into martial arts. Because as the older brother, I was losing a lot of my food.

Anyway, we’re together. And so we’re all squeezed out on this little patio. And you could see through the window what this belligerent guy was doing. And sure enough, he follows us out. I don’t mean personally targeting us necessarily, but he was already getting bored perhaps inside.

So he follows us out. And like I said, there’s really no room out here anymore for anyone else. Everyone could see this guy coming, and you could just feel a collective groan, because nobody wants to deal with this guy.

So the guy comes out, and there’s really almost no room for him even to step into the space. So he’s kind of in the door, out of the door. There are people behind him. They don’t want to be near him. We’re just down about six feet over this way, seven feet this way.

And again, he’s being, again, belligerent. He’s just being inappropriate and obnoxious. So I can already feel my brother kind of getting a little fluffed up, a little bothered by this. We all are. But he’s a little quicker on the trigger. And I mean that in a positive way. He’s someone who has worked in law enforcement.

Actually, go back. His first job, I think, was as a bouncer. Even before I think it was legal for him to be working, he worked the door at some bars back where we grew up. So he had done bouncing. He was a prison guard. He was a sheriff’s deputy. He’s been a fighter his whole life in martial arts. So he’s seen this kind of situation happen before. I have not had that career path, so I’m a little slower on the draw.

Anyway, guy’s in the door. Belligerent. Nobody wants him there. Someone must have complained though inside because finally a representative of the restaurant came outside to handle this guy. But wait, they sent out a five foot female with a walkie talkie. She was only armed with a blazer, a very nice blazer, and a walkie talkie.

She was about five feet high and must have weighed, I don’t know, 110, 115 pounds. So this was not a formidable voice coming out of authority. And this guy was bigger, you know, he’s probably 6’1, something like that, and taking a lot of space.

So she comes out and she says, Sir, you know, leave these people alone. Please step back inside. Please come back inside. She keeps repeating this message, but there’s nothing to back it up. She’s just standing there, kind of like a mouse, beep, beep, beep, beep. And he’s just talking over her, looking over her, and just disregarding it.

So at this moment, I’m thinking like, Oh, someone has to do something now. This has gone too far, right? He’s bothering everybody, who knows where this is going to go? He’s being belligerent, he’s starting to get in people’s space, and he’s ignoring authority. This moment is just frozen, nobody knows what to do.

So I start saying to my brother, as we’re kind of making our wall of don’t come over here, I start to say something like, so how do you want to play the–

And it’s too late. My brother’s already stepped forward, locks up the guy’s arm, grabs him, marches him right back inside the restaurant, deposits him in a big empty space, and lets him go.

Now, this all happens very, very fast. While my brother’s marching him back in, the security guard or employee or hostess, I don’t know what her title would be, definitely not security, she’s yelling at him, Hey, hey, let him go! You can’t touch him, sir! Let him go.

Which is the same thing that security guards yelled at me and my wife when we held down that guy breaking into cars a couple of podcasts ago. So this seems to be a theme. Even the people who are sent as authority figures don’t really know what to do when something bad happens. They’re not bad people, but they’re not trained for this.

They don’t recognize the dangers, they don’t make decisions, and they don’t take action. That’s why I want to talk about it. The only person around there that recognized what was going on, made a decision and took action, was my brother, JD. And, oddly enough, can you believe this? He then got treated like the bad guy.

We ended up staying for dinner, they didn’t kick us out, they didn’t go that far. But suddenly, this giant chef appears. Much bigger than my brother. This big guy comes out, and during our dinner, just to glare at us and stand up against the wall and watch us eat dinner. As if we’re the troublemakers, as if my brother was the one who started the trouble.

The belligerent guy, I don’t even know what happened to him. After he got marched in, I think he just stayed in the bar. But I’m not kidding, we got followed through the lobby, into the restaurant, and then the whole time we sat there for dinner, that chef stood there, or sous chef, or whoever he was, this big dude, just staring at my brother, like, Don’t start any more trouble. So, bizarre.

But my point here is, the edge that my brother had over everybody was that he had already seen this situation play out, I don’t know how many times, way more than me. As a bouncer, how many times do you see somebody drunk, being belligerent, and needs to be escorted out of the establishment? That’s part of the job.

Whether you’re a prison guard, a police officer, any of these types of jobs, where you’re dealing with people who have crossed social boundary lines, they’re not being polite anymore, they’re beginning to show some types of threatening behavior, and they’re not responding to authority, they’re not listening to social cues or direct commands from the owners of an establishment or their representatives– that’s a problem. And we all know it.

Inside, everybody’s thinking someone should do something. If you have training, you’re the person who’s supposed to do something. Like I said, the staff at the restaurant did not have that kind of training. There was no bouncer to be seen, except for this mystery sous chef who shows up after the fact. Great.

The only person who had a clear picture of what was going on was my brother. And the speed with which he could recognize the situation, make a decision about what needs to be done right now, and then to execute, to take the action, to grab that guy and move him in, didn’t hurt him, no problem. He was the only one who was ready to do all of that.

But it gets you to think, I hope, gets me to think, well, what if the situation had been even worse? What if the guy had pulled a gun? What if the guy had pulled a knife? What if he suddenly put his hands on you or someone in your party?

Let’s just keep playing out the scenario. At some point, you, everybody, would take action. The question is, how far does the situation have to go before you finally say, that’s enough? And again, I’m not saying you have to wait until it’s the worst case scenario. Well, now he’s got a gun to my head, I guess I’m going to do something now.

I think a lot of martial arts make a big mistake. Because that’s kind of where they start their scenario training. All right, you’re on the ground and they’ve pinned your hands, go! Well, how did you get there?

I’d like to think that with awareness, you can prevent most problems, right? This goes back to the other podcast. Just living a lifestyle of a martial artist, so that you can recognize danger, sense danger, and prepare for it sooner than all the people who are not training for danger, right?

Outside in that little patio, my mother doesn’t train in self-defense. My sister doesn’t train in self-defense. These other people apparently had no background in anything. So we’re all just quiet, waiting to see what happens, even if it happens to us.

So at some point, if you’re a martial artist, I think you should be separate from the rest of the people in the world who don’t train, because you should see danger faster, decide what to do faster, and follow up and take action faster.

That is the speed that will save you and save people around you. That all makes sense, right? Okay. So now the little story.

Let me tell you how I think you can practice this type of thing. Because it’s not easy. Most of us don’t have career paths or lifestyles that encounter bad guys often. You probably don’t have to raise your voice very often. You probably don’t have to punch people in the face very often or wrestle people to the ground and handcuff them. Most of us don’t do that.

Yet, if you’re a martial artist, you’re practicing for what happens if all the safety systems fail, and now you’re on the ground, how do I get out of a choke? How do I choke them? But what happened to all that other stuff? All the chances that you had to talk your way out of it? Or to escape the problem? Or to bring in allies and try to form a coalition of some kind? To overpower the other person?

Watch out for this danger in the martial arts of only preparing for worst-case scenarios. That’s it. Because then you’re only going to think like that. And the problem there is that there’s a gap. There’s a gap between here’s you living your normal life, everything’s fine, and now here’s you on the ground trying to remember which technique is going to help you get out of a choke and reverse that situation and get back to your feet.

This gap in the middle, that’s what we’re talking about today. Being able to not just see a bad situation forming, but make the decisions that hopefully can prevent it or de-escalate it. And then if you can’t do that, being able to make the wise decision to do what to do and let your body move and do it, whether that means punching or running. Right?

Because every situation is different. I’m not here to judge your decision, but I am going to tell you that it’s really important that part of your training includes decision-making and action-taking. It’s not a guarantee you’re going to survive.

Does it mean you always win? Absolutely not. But I really do fear freezing up or waiting too long and then getting hurt because of it. You prepared for decades as a martial artist, technique-wise, but you didn’t prepare to make a decision to trust your judgment, to move forward with that plan, whatever it is.

So now here’s a little story. A little story that led me to practicing exactly what I’m talking about and hopefully you can do the same thing. So I was here, my final days in this dojo. And I was alone in the building. It was nighttime. I was locking up for the day.

There’s a window out in the back. And the only thing back there is my car and the dumpster. That’s it. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the two apart. So there’s no reason for anyone to be back there. It’s just a place for me to park my car.

But out through the window, out of the corner of my eye, I saw some motion. So I kind of, like a ninja, tiptoed over to see what was going on. And sure enough, there was a young dude in his 20s, and he was standing behind my car right next to the passenger window.

He was kind of hunched over, fumbling for something like this in his hoodie jacket. So I’m aware that this is not usual. He shouldn’t be there. And I made a decision to step outside, to confront him. Okay, I didn’t say fight him, but to confront him.

So I make a rustle with the keys that were in the door. So maybe that would scare him off. Maybe that would be enough. That’s a nice warning.

I jangled the door a little bit and I opened it up. And I chose to put on kind of my Batman face and use my Batman voice. And I said, Hey! Something like that. Can I help you with something?

And he jumped. Very jumpy. He was startled. And his response was odd, but he said this. I’m just trying to get something out of my pocket. Right. That’s an odd thing to say. I can see that you’re getting something out of your pocket. I’m not sure if I want to know what’s in the pocket. I really just want to know why you’re behind the building where I’m working, standing next to my car.

Did you just break into the window? Are you about to break in the window? What are you doing here, man? This is private property.

So anyway, he says, Oh, I’m just trying to get something out of my pocket. So I just keep staring at him. That’s my choice. I stand my ground. He’s maybe, I don’t know, 15 feet away. And I just keep staring at him and staring at him. And he’s kind of fumbling. He moves back around the car and he walks off.

Not a super exciting story, but that’s the story. What happens to the guy? Well, he ends up just walking over to the next parking lot, gets into a corner. I see him pull out a paper bag, some kind of spray paint or something like that. He’s huffing. He’s just looking for a quiet place to do some drugs. Sorry to see that, but at least I didn’t get shot.

So anyway, at that moment, I’m here in the dojo. I’ve got some punching bags here. And in that moment, I recognize, like, Whoa, okay, hang on a second. My heart’s beating a little bit faster. I had a little bit of that feeling in your stomach because I don’t know what’s going on here, trying to figure this out. And I realized, as always, this is the best moment to practice right now.

It’s the end of the day. I’m already tired. I already taught Zoom classes for the day. But I know that this was a lesson. So immediately, I start playing out that scene right there in that parking lot where the guy was standing. And I just start walking it through again.

How did I come out? How was I standing? What was my tone of voice? What was the effect? And would I have done anything differently?

In this case, everything worked out fine. So I was happy with my choices. But as I was standing there in the parking lot, I realized, Ah, you know what? I never really looked over to my left.

He was on my right. Door was there. I never really looked this way to see if maybe he had a buddy. Maybe there was a group of these guys doing drugs. I didn’t really notice that. So that pointed out to me, Yeah, you should have a little more awareness. If you’re going to step out and do that, I should also be scanning the area.

So that was just a good, in the moment, little quick lesson. Don’t forget that. The other things I felt pretty good about, I was watching him closely. I was very careful about watching his hands in case something came out. But again, I got lucky. Nothing bad came out.

But in that moment, while I still felt that vibe, I imagined like, well, what if he had a knife? What would I have done right from here? Well, I’m still holding the door and I can feel it. All right, if he had a knife, I could have shut the door, try to lock it really fast. That’s one option.

I could have shut the door, run inside, gotten a weapon, defended myself. Maybe I could have done that. Could have jumped inside, called the phone, called the police. I started running through options because that’s what training is. I’m running through options. What if, what if, what if.

After I got done in the parking lot, trying to figure out, well, where could I have run? Could I have run out this way? Where are the next escapes? Should I, could I have made it to that corner of the parking lot? Could I have scaled that wall if I needed to? If he had started shooting, is there, what’s the closest cover I could have gotten in between me and him? Just playing all that out, playing that stuff out.

But then the next level of this was I locked the door and I came back inside. There’s a mirror here and I got my bags. So then I just started rehearsing, again, the same situation, but with lots of different endings to it. I went over to the mirror and I practiced.

I mean, I do this a lot when I teach, especially with the little kids. Using your voice to set boundaries. But delivering it to this guy at that moment, I thought, let me just rehearse it again. So went into the mirror, started using my Batman voice a little bit.

My voice, right? Don’t make it your Batman voice, make it your voice. Practice saying different things. Back it up. You better back it up. Say whatever you want. I’m going to call the cops. Practice saying something.

Do you know what you would say? What would you say? That’s part of my point. As a martial arts class, you practice techniques a lot, I bet. But what about how you use your words? How about your de-escalation skills? How about scanning for exits and taking them?

There are so many other variables to a self-defense situation than just the actual fighting part. And I fear that some people don’t really do those, don’t practice those things.

So anyway, I’m screaming at myself in the mirror. Then I go over to the punching bag and I pretend the bag is the guy. I pretend he’s got a knife. I pretend that I have to escape the guy through one route or another.I pretend I have to dive and roll and get out of the way for whatever reason, because I’m making up scenarios.

Then I go into worst case, okay, I’m going to engage with this guy. How am I going to enter? If he has it in this hand, okay, let’s go over some of my knife defenses. What can I do? How can I attack from this way? What weapons did I have? Was there anything in my pocket? Let me practice throwing my backpack. You get the idea.

The point was, you should be practicing all aspects of your self-defense skills. Almost all martial artists that I know are nice people, and they almost all agree that they don’t want to fight. They don’t go out looking for fights. They swear that the martial arts is just something to make them as better people, and they’re not looking to hurt anybody. Yet, they’re not practicing how to avoid a fight.

You say you don’t want to fight. So have you practiced avoiding fights lately? Have you practiced talking yourself down in the mirror?

Imagine someone’s a little drugged up or drunk, holding a weapon, coming at you, belligerent. Have you practiced talking someone down lately? Because if you haven’t, you might find yourself in that worst-case scenario where now the guy’s stabbing you, or now you’re being tackled, because you let that gap get too wide. You knew it was a bad situation, you recognized that, but you didn’t practice making a decision of what to do about it.

So you should be practicing, scanning environments, looking for extra dangers beyond the danger that’s coming your way. Looking for improvised weaponry. Looking for a weaponry that’s on you. What can you use? Your shoe, your belt, your jewelry? Throw off your glasses?

You should be thinking about which side do you want to approach somebody on. How do you approach somebody? What’s your voice tone? What’s your posture? Are you looking in a mirror once in a while to see what you actually look like?

Have you ever heard your big voice screaming and yelling commands to a bad guy? Because even that will throw you off in real life if you haven’t rehearsed it. How many people, when they record themselves on video, say, Oh, I hate the sound of my voice. Oh, really? At your niece’s birthday party, you hated the sound of your voice when they caught you singing Happy Birthday?

Oh, imagine how you’re going to feel hearing yourself say, You in the red, call the police! Help, I’m being stabbed! It’s not going to be better. You’re not going to like the sound of your voice then either. In fact, it’s going to distract you because you’ve never heard yourself say things like that. Unless you train.

This is the big message today. I want you to be training. Not just what to do when things go bad, but before things go bad. Preparation is step one.

As martial arts students, we are constantly, I hope, looking for ways to prepare for worst-case scenarios. I don’t look for them. I don’t live a lifestyle where I’m worried about them all the time. I’m not paranoid. But I try to be prepared.

Practical shoes. Not caring too much. Not flashing money around. Not getting drunk in front of strangers or anybody. What clothes I wear? What could be used against me? Do I have improvised weapons at hand in every room of my house, in every my car? How prepared are you if things go bad quickly? How prepared are you emotionally to run if you have to and not think you’re a coward or how other people are going to judge you?

Now, next step. Okay, here comes trouble. How much training can you do now to start making decisions to either run or stand your ground? To use your voice or use your fists? To hold someone, control someone, or end someone? These are all decisions that are going to come up. You may not be ready to make them, but please train to do so.

And again, I’m not saying it’s easy. Some situations are really gray. Should I hit this guy? Should I not hit this guy? Am I making too big a deal out of this? Should I run? Should I not run? Is this really happening? I don’t want this to happen.

Wow. So many voices in your head, especially when stress comes, but there’s not a lot of time, which is why we prepare to make decisions in the training.

So, today, if you can do that, prepare yourself by making decisions faster, trusting your judgment, and then also practicing taking action. If that means in sparring, you don’t hang back as much, but you throw yourself into that fire and just attack more, that’s a great way to exercise your spirit of just take action, even if you get countered, but practice taking the action.

Practice getting off that line and doing something. And that could be for anything. You got dirty dishes, don’t put them down for later. Just do them right now. Make a decision, say, I’m going to do that right now.

You know your car needs an oil change, that’s it. Get on your phone, find the nearest gas station, go get the oil change right now while you’re thinking about it.

Not sure what you want for dinner? Chinese. Live with it.

Practice making decisions fast. Trusting your intuition, trust your judgment, and then live with it.

Make the decision, follow through on it, order the food, wash those dishes, get that oil change, and then live with it. That is the emotional and psychological practice of self-defense every time you do that. And if you do have a stressful situation, you have to confront someone or someone’s confronting you, and you didn’t like the way you felt during that situation, as quickly as you can, if not right in that moment, as soon as you get home or as soon as you get to your next class, run the scenarios in that exact situation.

Use your imagination, have fun with it. This isn’t all about being scared, it’s the opposite. It’s about building up courage so that you don’t have to worry about these types of situations. That I know the next time this happens, I’ve practiced this.

I’m used to hearing my big voice. I have some ideas of what I can say. I’ve seen my body take these positions. I know what it feels like to run. I know what it feels like to fight. This is the benefit of training. And this is what I hope you’ll carry with you everywhere you go.

So that’s the big message today. It’s not enough to prepare. You also have to practice making decisions and taking action. So many martial artists worry about the speed of their technique. How fast can you punch? How fast can you kick? But those things are not going to save you if you’re not fast in your decision making, if you’re not fast in getting off that line and taking action.

Compared to your friends who don’t train, compared to your family members who don’t train, compared to strangers who don’t train in the martial arts, you should see trouble coming sooner than everybody. You should be able to make a decision about what to do for safety’s sake, for survival’s sake, for protection’s sake, faster than everybody around you. And you should be off that mark, either running or fighting or speaking up, faster than anyone because that’s what you do. You’re a martial artist. That’s the lifestyle.

So I hope that will show in everything you do. Be a decisive person who has a reputation for taking action. You don’t just talk about stuff. You don’t wait around hoping someone else is going to do something for you. You do things. You say you’re going to do it and you do it.

And even if it blows up sometime and even if it’s a mistake sometimes, well hey, that just means you learned your next lesson faster than the next person who didn’t do anything. While everyone else is waiting and worried, you took action, you learned from it. So now the next time that you make a decision and take action, you’ll be wiser.

Don’t let a worst case scenario be the first time you made a decision and took action. Let your training guide you to make lots of decisions and take lots of action in every part of your life. Preparation, decision and action. Train all three and I think that’s a heck of a formula for a happy life.

All right, enough preaching, time for practice. Let’s make a deal. You get up right now, I’m going to get up right now, find a mirror or find a bag, and start practicing some scenarios. Start closing that gap and start making some decisions and taking action.

Until I see you next time, my friend, smiles up! Let that smile be your shield and your sword. Keep fighting for a happy life.

The post #96: Decision and Action in Self-Defense [Video + Podcast] appeared first on Sensei Ando.

Welcome to Episode #95 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “Respect for McDojos.”

Is your martial arts school a “McDojo”? Could that term of derision ever be a good thing?

I say YES! If your school or teacher is helping you reach your goals and improve your life, then keep going! Only you can judge what is worth your time, effort, and money.

The fact is there will always be haters and naysayers no matter HOW you train or WHAT style you practice. So, don’t worry about the critics–just focus on YOU!

To LISTEN to my full argument on the topic of “Respect for McDojos,” you can either:

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Howdy, Ando here from Happy Life Martial Arts. Welcome to episode #95 of Fight for a Happy Life, the show that believes even a little martial arts makes life a whole lot better.

The topic today, McDojos. Now, I’ll tell you right up front, the word McDojo is not one that I really ever use. If you do, if you go around calling out schools and saying that’s a McDojo and that’s a McDojo, I’m not here to stop you. But I do think that if I rant a little bit, I’m hoping that maybe I can shape how you use that term and when you use that term.

The topic has come up when I’ve been a guest on other people’s podcasts. So I thought it was just about time that I formally present the topic here on my own show. So let’s get to it.

Like I said, if you’re going around calling other places McDojos, I’d like to believe that you are a really good person, and your motivation is to be helpful. Okay? I would like to believe that. I believe that you probably love martial arts so much that you fear someone’s gonna go into a school and have a bad experience, and then they’re never gonna come back to being a martial artist, and you want to help avoid that.

So you appoint yourself like a police officer, and you say, Hey, don’t go there, go over here. This place is not safe, this place is. I totally respect that. But I do think sometimes it goes overboard. And then the term McDojo comes up, and it starts being thrown at a bunch of schools that really don’t deserve to be made fun of, or to be mocked. And we’ll get to that.

I do think there’s a range. Calling some place a McDojo is very similar to recommending a movie to someone, or a restaurant to someone. Everyone has different tastes, and at different times of their lives, right? I mean, it’s very tricky to pinpoint what’s going to be great for someone else.

So on some level, you just have to focus on what’s working for you, try to share that, and hope that everyone else is having a good experience, too.

Okay, so again, I’m not here to stop you from saying “McDojo”, but maybe we can help shape how the term is used.

I will say as an aside, it’s always amused me a little bit, because there are so many people out there saying that’s a McDojo and that’s a McDojo, but the numbers are a little off, right? Because when you talk to this person, they say, well, that’s a McDojo. Then you go over to that school and they say, Oh, no, no, it’s not our school. It’s that school and that school and that school.

There’s a lot of people calling out other schools for being a McDojo, but no one ever says, Yeah, I go to a McDojo. So right off the bat, that kind of proves my point. One person’s McDojo is another person’s perfect school.

All right, moving on, so what is a McDojo? Sometimes people, really, there’s a very low bar to be called a McDojo.

What’s that? You have to pay for your belt tests? McDojo.

What’s that? Your instructor drives a fancy car, an expensive car? McDojo.

What’s that? You’re like in a shopping mall with paying a high rent and your instructor actually makes a living teaching martial arts? McDojo.

Hey, what kind of uniform do you wear? You don’t wear silk, do you? McDojo.

Are your uniforms red, white, and blue? McDojo.

Do you guys spar? You don’t spar? McDojo.

Light sparring? McDojo. You have an optional sparring program? McDojo.

Whew, that covers a lot of schools right there. A lot of McDojos right off the bat. Now let’s talk about styles.

Hey, what style do you take? Kung Fu? McDojo.

Taekwondo? Mm-mm. McDojo.

Karate? Probably a McDojo. Boom.

Hey, what about Tai Chi, Bagua, Xing Yi? I’ve never even heard of some of those. Oh, they’re Chinese styles. McDojo.

They’re internal styles. McDojos.

Yikes. That’s a pretty sloppy paintbrush. You’re whipping around town, painting every school as a McDojo there. It sometimes feels like, unless you’re a student of a full contact MMA Academy, and you yourself are competing in the ring or in the cage, then you’re a joke and your school is a McDojo.

I don’t agree with that. I don’t think it can be that black and white when it comes to learning martial arts, where either on this end of the extreme you have no training– you’re not even a martial artist. You don’t even go to a school.– and on the other extreme, full contact MMA and you compete. And that’s it. If you’re not in that full contact situation, then don’t train. No.

I believe the McDojos live here in the middle, in this gray area. And like any gradation, there is going to be, you’re going to get closer and closer to what you think is legit, and you’re going to get farther and farther away from what you think is legit.

But again, it’s really tricky to work around in this gray area to say, that’s a McDojo to you and that is not. But let’s push ahead and see if we can figure out what a McDojo is. Here’s something that it’s not, in my opinion.

This is all my opinion, by the way. You can make your own podcast if you don’t like it.

Some people lump in some practices at schools into this McDojo category that just should not be there, in my opinion. So for instance, have you seen videos where a teacher puts their student up against the wall and then they just start hauling off and just wailing away and just bashing him in the head and the student just sits there and, I guess, learns how to take head shots?

To me, that’s abuse. Someone should call the cops. That is straight up battery, assault and battery, criminal behavior. You call the cops when that kind of thing happens, right? Find a new school. To me, that’s not a McDojo. That’s a criminal enterprise. That’s criminal activity.

Same thing if there’s cameras busted in the locker room. The guy’s a pervert, put cameras in there to watch the girls change. That’s, again, criminal activity. It’s not a McDojo. Leave the McDojos out of it. That’s a criminal. That’s an invasion of privacy.

Same thing for long-term contracts. Oh, you’re tied in for a 10-year contract, paying X dollars. You got to sign away your house as backup. This is an unethical business practice, probably illegal. You should never even have signed this thing. In that case, call a lawyer.

So I really don’t think McDojos should be lumped in with criminal enterprises or places that are practicing straight up fraud.

What if they say, Oh yeah, I’m a black belt in such an art, but it turns out they’ve never trained in that art whatsoever? That’s fraud. That’s not a McDojo. That’s straight up lying.

If they said, Oh, I trained with this famous person, but they never did. Again, fraud.

If they say, Oh, if you learn this one-month program, you’ll never fear any man, you can win any fight. This is all combat, street-ready self-defense. That’s obviously marketing overreach and silly. But again, I would put that just as fraud.

So those two categories, whether it’s a criminal enterprise, straight up fraud, in these cases, you’re calling a cop or you’re calling a lawyer. And there’s one other category, now that I think about it, that also should not be lumped in with McDojos, and that would be mental illness.

You’ve seen these videos, you know what I mean. Some of these people just have a real break with reality. They’ve clearly had some type of brain trauma, or something’s wrong. There’s a deluded nature to the person, and in that case, someone should call a doctor. That’s still not a McDojo. That’s someone operating without all of their mental faculties. And I pity that person, and I hope they can get help.

So I would like to set all of those aside if I can. Any instance where you need to call a cop, call a lawyer, or call a doctor, none of those should be in the McDojo category. So if we can hopefully agree to just push those aside to a separate place, now we can still move forward.

Now the term itself, McDojo, obviously is modeled after the word McDonald’s, the fast food hamburger chain. But how about a little respect before you start mocking McDonald’s? A little respect for what it is.

In the United States, McDonald’s is the number one fast food franchise. In the world, it’s the number two fast food franchise, after Subway, yeah. That means McDonald’s employs a lot of people. McDonald’s also feeds a lot of people.

You’ve probably seen the sign, Billions and Billions Served. If you’ve ever tried to run a business, you should have some respect for that. They have systems in place to get a specific job done with that level of consistency is really impressive.

Okay, now I don’t want to mix up business success with quality of martial arts program, but I’m just pointing out that the term McDojo is meant as kind of a derisive term, like, Haha, like a McDonald’s. But what McDonald’s has accomplished is pretty impressive, so slow your roll there for a second. To me, they get the job done, and I respect that.

And personally, let me tell you a little bit about McDonald’s in my own life, because it also might color this conversation a little bit…

When I was a baby, let’s say five or six, I didn’t get sick much, but we also didn’t eat out much. My family, we were a stay-at-home kind of family. But every once in a while, I would get sick and have to stay home from school. And I have a couple of memories of on those occasions when I was sick at home, my dad would come home with a McDonald’s milkshake.

This was my medicine. And because we didn’t eat out much, and because I really didn’t have milkshakes that often, to get that milkshake with the golden arches on it, that seemed like the most special gesture of all time.

My dad coming in, snow on his shoulder, handing me a milkshake from McDonald’s. So at that time, McDonald’s to me was almost magical. It was very special, meant something.

Okay, so now I grow up. And like I said, we didn’t eat out much. But once in a while, maybe my birthday, I get a Big Mac. Now, again, I want to be really careful here, because I’m sure some people here, they’re not impressed with a Big Mac on your birthday. But hey, that is still a big deal for some people.

Not everyone’s got money. Not everyone can eat out all the time or choose what they want. A lot of people, billions and billions, look at that Big Mac as dinner with a straight face. And when I was a kid, that was me. I not only took that Big Mac just matter of fact, like, Okay, this is my dinner, I thought it was a luxury, like, Wow, a Big Mac. Look at this. It’s got two patties on it. It’s a big deal.

So it went from being a special place, McDonald’s, to a luxurious place. I’m a kid. I don’t know what else is out there.

Okay, so move up. Now I’m a teenager. I’m starting to work for my own money. I get a job. Paperboy, when I was young. 14, 15, I could finally work legally. First job was in a supermarket, stocking shelves, that kind of stuff. Washing dumpsters. Great, right? Minimum wage jobs.

But that money was mine. I earned that money. And in between the supermarket where I worked and a place that I could bike to, even when I had a paper route, there was a McDonald’s. So for me, it was a journey to get to that McDonald’s, but it was a place where I could buy my own food. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t being fed. I could feed myself.

And at that time, getting the small size Chicken McNuggets represented independence. My money, my decision, didn’t tell anybody I’m coming here. I bike there. I go in, I order my own food at McDonald’s. So again, McDonald’s meant something to me.

A little older now. Okay, I’m in my twenties. Eventually, I meet my wife. We sometimes take road trips. Before the internet, this is right before the internet, at least we didn’t have it, when you’re out on those roads, driving across the country, there are some stretches where there is nothing. If you’ve driven across the United States, you could drive for hours and not see anything. And at some point, you start worrying, hey, am I going to run out of gas? Hey, am I ever going to eat again? Hey, is this car going to make it?

There was more than one occasion where I’d be driving, fatigued, worried. And yep, I’m going there. Romantically, you would see on the horizon the golden arches. And you would feel, I felt, relief. You would say, Oh, thank God, there’s a McDonald’s. And that represented something. That meant I have a safe place.

We can stop, we can pull over, we can eat something, get our bearings, ask some directions, ask where the next gas station is. That meant a lot to find these safety oases along our route.

Now, moving past that, into my 30s and 40s and now into my 50s, I don’t go to McDonald’s anymore. It just doesn’t come up. I live right within walking distance of a McDonald’s for over 20 years. There’s a McDonald’s right there. We never go there, but I never sneer at it when I drive by either. I never make fun of it. I don’t think less of the people who are in the drive-through line or standing inside to get their hamburger and shake or chicken McNuggets or whatever. And that’s because I have a history with them.

I remember starting off there as a baby, as a young guy, as a teen in my 20s. For a long time, McDonald’s meant different things to me. And I still have respect for that.

Okay, so let’s bring it back. You don’t have to go to McDonald’s to respect what they’ve done and what they provide for billions of people for many, many decades. I’m going to have the same attitudes towards martial arts schools.

Not every martial arts school is meant to… you’re not meant to stay there forever. But at different parts of your life, that martial arts school means something to you. It could be just your first step. It’s your baby step into the world of martial arts. It’s that first milkshake. And you think, this is magical. There are moves to learn. There’s conflict I have to overcome. There are new relationships and new challenges to my thinking and my feeling and my body movement.

Martial arts can be really overwhelming to anyone. So you can’t just throw people right into the deep end to full contact, you know, tap out situations, which is probably why most people don’t even go into martial arts.

Wouldn’t we all love all of our friends and family to join martial arts? But they don’t. And one of the big reasons is they’re afraid of getting hurt. Right? But if they knew there were many schools in the gray area where you could step up to something like that, even if you never go there, that’s fine.

If you never end up in a cage fighting– I haven’t– but there’s still so much you can learn about yourself, so much about your life that you can improve. So I respect that. And that’s what McDojos do. McDojos keep you going.

That should be a compliment. Oh, a McDojo. Great. You are a safe place for someone to get started, to start learning things. And if you decide to stay there, I have no judgment about that. Great. Stay there. If you think that’s the best hamburger, if that’s all you’re ever going to afford, then God bless you. Stay there. And get as much out of that as you can. Enjoy it as much as you can.

You don’t have to go to the Four Seasons and get some gold leaf hamburger. You don’t have to. Stay there. It’s nice to know that the Four Seasons is someplace where you can get a good hamburger, let’s say. I haven’t eaten one of the Four Seasons, but I’ve paid over $20 for a hamburger many times, and I know what that tastes like, too. But you don’t have to, to get value out of the less expensive burger, let’s say.

And that’s another issue with these McDojos. I think a lot of times people call out McDojos and the presumption is that everybody in that school is deluded. Like they don’t know what they’re getting in that school. There’s this fake idea that, okay, we all agree that full contact MMA is the gold standard and anything less is a McDojo. And anybody in a McDojo who’s not doing that stuff doesn’t even know how stupid they are. They’re all idiots. They don’t even know what else they could be doing.

But that’s false. That’s totally false. I’ve met a lot of martial artists of a lot of different styles, all kinds of different business models, whether it’s in the park, community center, or high rent. Making a living or it’s a volunteer kind of thing. I’ve met all kinds. I don’t actually run into that many people who are so deluded that they don’t know where they are and what they’re doing.

If you go into a McDonald’s and you ask the employees, Are you guys making the best hamburgers in the world? I don’t think you’re going to find many employees who say, Yeah, these are the best hamburgers in the world. Right?

If you go through a McDonald’s where people are eating, and you say, Is that the best hamburger you could ever imagine eating? I bet you most people would not say, Yes, this is the best hamburger you will ever eat in your whole life.

They’re not deluded, but they go there because it’s functional for them, it’s comfortable for them, it’s affordable for them, and that’s great! I respect that.

So I would just like to eliminate that idea that if you’re in a McDojo, which I don’t think is a bad thing, that’s part of my premise here, if you’re called a McDojo, don’t take that as an insult, because you’re getting some job done there. Some function is being served. It’s not worthless. There is value. It just depends who you are and what you want and how far you’re looking to go.

How good a hamburger do you want? And if you’re honest about what you’re eating and you’re honest about what else is out there, then what’s the problem? Why should I be made fun of for eating a McDonald’s? Leave me alone. Mind your own business. Eat your own food. It’s all relative.

My mother is over 70 years old. She’s never trained in martial arts. If my mom calls me and says, You know what? I finally watched one of your videos. I’ve been interested in martial arts. What should I do?

I’m not going to tell my mother, Okay, Mom, that’s great. Here’s what you got to do. Go into Google and look up local Muay Thai gyms. Okay? And ideally, try to find a Muay Thai school where they have a BJJ program on off nights, somehow incorporated. I need you to get your strikes up, and I need you to get some groundwork, and you can get some rolling in, Mom.

And ideally, listen, Mom, when you walk into this place, it would be great if there’s really loud music playing, and you see a bunch of 20-year-olds yelling, screaming. If you see some people getting knocked out, and some people with bruises and bandages on, stay there, because that’s a hardcore school. That’s legit. Anything else is a McDojo. So either go there or forget it.

I’m not going to tell my 70-plus-year-old mother that. No. But I’m also not going to say, give up. I’m going to say, OK, well, let’s see what you have in the area. How are you feeling? How’s your back? How are your knees? Are you looking to get dirty?

How much you want to sweat? Is your goal to get in shape? Is your goal to punch people? Do you want to get punched? Because everybody’s different.

I don’t want to stereotype 70-plus moms. Moms are different too. Some moms may love that environment of a young stud Muay Thai gym. Okay, good for you. Go for it. I’m just saying my mom would not fit in there.

But if she found a place where she said, Hey, this is really great. It’s a comfortable class. There’s whole families training at the same time. We use our big voices. We practice standing our ground. We get to hit some bags and make a little contact once in a while. We stand really close to each other and practice holding wrists and wrist escapes. I have a sense of enemy and holding my ground and standing up for myself.

I’d say, God bless you, Mom. I’m so happy that you’re in that program. And if that’s all you do, wonderful. And if somebody comes by and says that’s a McDojo, say great, thank you, yeah.

If it’s not for you, well, then great. Go down the street, go to another gym. But there is good work being done here. A function is being served. Needs are being met. Lives are being improved. How about a little respect for that?

We’re all different. We’re all on different journeys. I know you know that, but sometimes you might forget that when we go around presuming that everybody wants what I want. And that if you’re not fighting in the UFC as a professional fighter, it’s no good. You’re wasting your time.

Some people are not athletic. It’s the way it is. Some people have had trauma in their life. They’ve been abused. And the worst thing they could do is get it maybe for some people, to get into an environment where they’re being pinned and trapped and made to feel helpless again, being berated by a hardcore coach, whatever. You’ve got to have this gray area.

If you can lead people to the most extreme forms of training, so that they are the best prepared possible for high-stress, high-danger situations, fantastic. But I would say, however far they can get on that gradation, from no-contact, slow-motion practice, where you never touch anybody, to the hardcore stuff, whatever they can do, I respect it. Whatever program you’re in, I respect that.

Because again, we’re not talking about criminal stuff, we’re not talking about fraud, we’re not talking about abuse– I’m just talking about a martial arts training program.

It makes me think about, before I go, there was a guy, when I was in a Taekwondo school, a school that haters would probably call a McDojo. Did we have multi-colored belts, more than four or five belts? So, McDojo. Did you have to pay for belt tests? McDojo. Was there a grandmaster who sat behind a table in a business suit and lived a pretty good life full-time operating some schools? Yes, McDojo. Were there families working out at the same time? McDojo.

Okay, so you call it a McDojo. And I have a lot of respect for that school because it changed my life and it set me on a path that I’m still on today. So, great. Call it a McDojo. I respect it. I didn’t stay there. I have a different video about that. Just because I felt I kind of outgrew it. It was a great place to start for me. Some people stay. Great.

For me, I started realizing, three years in, you know what, there are some needs of mine that are not being met here. There are some ways of training that are not being practiced here that I would like to do somewhere else.

So I knew that I would not be staying in that school. So that gave me a little bit of a, a little bit of a pretension, a little bit of arrogance, because I already felt myself pulling away from this program. I already saw the limitations of it. Even though it had served me very, very well for those first couple years, like I said, it changed me, changed me drastically as a human being, but I did find myself saying, Yeah, this is not enough.

Now, at that time, after class one night, there was a guy there. He was in his 20s. And I believe, we weren’t friends, and I never really saw him again once I left the school, but my memory is that he had been in a car accident. Young guy in his 20s, good-looking guy, but he suffered some brain injuries as a result of this car accident. And my memory is that half of his body didn’t work very well. He had one arm that wasn’t very functional, one leg that wasn’t really functional, and he definitely had a problem with a lot of the movements. All right?

As I recall, he was wearing like a yellow belt, probably an orange belt at most when I left. First, you know, kind of a year’s worth of ranks. After class, I’m cooling off, doing my thing. He comes shuffling by, okay? And he was on a high, just came out of class, and he says, I love this place. Taekwondo is the best.

And I was a little arrogant, so I’m like, Yeah, it’s cool. I didn’t want to start trouble with the guy, so I’m like, Yeah, it’s cool. And he said, I’m serious. This place has changed my life. And I just, I didn’t quite understand what he was talking about. He said, This place has changed my life. And I said, Yeah, yeah, I hope so. I said it like that, really flippant, not really hearing him. And I’ll never forget how he looked at me.

He got right in front of my face, stared into my soul, and he said, No, I’m telling you. And that’s when I got it. That’s when I realized, Hey, big boy— me– hey, big shot, you think you outgrew this place. Well, that’s good for you. But that has nothing to do with what they’re going through, what this guy is going through.

This guy will probably stay here. And his life will continue to change for the better as long as he keeps training. Who am I to look down on his progress? Who am I to stand outside now and say, Oh yeah, I used to go there. It’s a McDojo. No. That guy made it clear.

I don’t even remember his name. But I’m very thankful because he slapped the arrogance out of a cocky, young dude and forced me to see life from other people’s perspectives, not just my own. All right.

I’ve been blessed. I have a healthy body. I’ve got a pretty good mind. I’ve been able to train with some really incredible teachers and great fellow students to help me get better. Not everybody has that. Not everybody can afford a $20 burger. Not everybody wants a $20 burger or can appreciate a $20 burger.

So if you’re part of a McDojo, be proud of that. If you’re worried that people are going to make fun of you, if you tell them what style you practice or how you guys practice, stop it. If you are a martial artist training in any way, I’m proud of you. I have respect for you.

I only ask that you’re honest about what you’re doing so that you don’t become someone who is deluded or thinks that you’re doing one thing but it’s really something else. And the way you figure that out is by looking outside of your school for other information. Not to debunk your school, but to enforce your knowledge of what you’re doing.

If you are told in your school that, No, we only light spar because hard sparring is dangerous, then it’s good to go check out a school that does some hard sparring and talk to those students and figure out why they’re not all in the hospital all the time. Oh, there is a way to employ some hard sparring. Okay, at least you know it. So that you could be honest about, Well, I’m comfortable here. I don’t want to do hard sparring. I know it exists. I know I could probably move to a city with a pro MMA team and try to pay enough money to get in there and work with the best coaches in the world, even if that’s not my goal, just so people don’t say I’m a joke and I go to a McDojo.

But no, you missed the point there. You have your goals. All you need to do is ask, Am I getting what I paid for? Am I getting the value that I am paying for? Whether you’re only showing up and you’re giving your time, or whether you’re paying a ton of money and your time, that’s between you and your teacher. If you are getting what you wanted out of that exchange, like any business deal, if you’re getting a good deal, then stay.

If you’re honest about what you’re getting and you’re getting what you want, then stay. And don’t worry about what everyone else is saying. That is my big message.

Okay, so to sum that up, I think McDojo is overused, and I think it’s unfair to use McDojo as a term of derision, to mock people. As if it has no value.

McDojos have value. I know because I’ve attended what would be called probably a McDojo. More than once.

You trained in Aikido? Yeah. McDojo.

Taekwondo? McDojo.

I’ve taught kids for 15 years now, solid as a career. McDojo.

Did you ever knock those kids out? No. McDojo.

Did you hand out belts? Yeah. McDojo.

Did you get paid for that? You made a full-time living? McDojo. McTeacher.

I don’t have time for that. If you’re a good person, then you should know what martial arts did for your life. And if you need to take a step back sometimes, like I was forced to take a step back by that guy who told me, no, no, this is changing my life. I’m telling you. If you need that wake up call, well, then let this be the wake up call.

Don’t just look at other schools from your point of view and your needs and your capabilities. What about my 70 year old mom? What about that person who’s been through a really horrific trauma in their life? What about that person who suffered abuse? What about that person whose body just doesn’t work the right way?

I want everyone training. It’s not binary. It can’t be full time, MMA hardcore or nothing. I respect any step someone makes on this path of martial arts. And I know if you’re a person who considers himself a police officer of the martial arts, I know that’s what you want too.

So let’s just be a little more sensitive about how we use that term, so we can welcome more of our friends and more of our families into every dojo.

Again, don’t get it confused. If you’re being abused, call a cop. If you’re being ripped off, call a lawyer. If you’re suffering delusions or you fear someone around you is suffering delusions, call a doctor. Otherwise, train honestly, train hard, and don’t let anyone stop you from fighting for a happy life.

All right, you heard the man. Oh, the man was me, okay, you heard me. Get out there, train hard, train honestly. And until I see you next time, smiles up, my friend. Let that smile be your shield and your sword. Keep fighting for a happy life.

The post #95: Respect for McDojos [Video + Podcast] appeared first on Sensei Ando.

Welcome to Episode #94 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “Don’t Be Water, My Friend.”

We’ve all heard Bruce Lee say, “Boards don’t hit back.” You probably also remember his admonishment, “Don’t think–feel.”

No doubt about it… Bruce Lee was full of good advice. But that doesn’t mean I agree with everything he said!

In this episode, I will turn a critical eye towards one of his most famous pieces of advice: “Be water, my friend.” Sure, it sounds cool, but I fear this idea is easily misunderstood and will actually limit your development as a martial artist… and human being!

Join me for some good-humored analysis of the legend’s words… and a few words of advice my own.

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Howdy, and welcome to episode #94 of Fight for a Happy Life, the show that believes even a little martial arts makes life a whole lot better. My name is Ando, I’ll be your host today. So come on in, have a piece of pie, cup of coffee, let’s talk.

And what are we talking about today? Well, I’ve got a rant for you. This is going to be a rant on a very famous quote by Bruce Lee. You know the quote. It’s the one where he says, Be water, my friend. You’ve heard that, right?

Now, my critique of this quote might just come off as a semantics argument. Fair enough. But even if you think this whole rant is a little silly, a little misguided, I do think there’s a serious point still to be made. And I think that’ll be worth your time. So bear with me.

Let me say right up front, I’m a fan of Bruce Lee, okay? I’ve talked about in other episodes how Bruce Lee got me started in martial arts as a way to improve my life. So for sure, there was a period where Bruce was the guy. I was following his lead.

I even did a podcast about him, right? If you go back to episode number 19, I have an episode called Seven Lessons from Bruce Lee. So there’s a lot more hero worship talk over there.

All that said, I’ve got a big problem with this quote. Be water, my friend. I think the quote is misleading. I also think that he didn’t mean to really say it. I do not believe that he believed the meaning of that quote, at least the way I think people interpret it nowadays. I think if he understood how people are using that quote, he would say, No, no, no, that’s not what I meant. Forget I said that. Just forget it. So, since he’s not here, let me clear it up.

The quote that you’ve probably seen came from that black and white interview. It was on the Pierre Burton Show back in 1971. Now, what you may not know, if you haven’t seen the whole interview, is that Bruce wasn’t just saying this for the first time off the top of his head. Actually, Pierre was asking him to repeat something that he had said when he was on the TV show Longstreet. Bruce had made a guest appearance on the show, and that’s actually where the quote came from.

So Pierre asked him, Hey, can you repeat that cool quote from that show? And in the clip, the black and white clip that maybe you’ve seen, Bruce has to drop his head for a second to remember it. So he says, Yeah, yeah, I remember. Yeah, I got it. And then he starts the quote.

Now, he actually doesn’t say it exactly the same way that he said it in the show. For the sake of what I’m going to be talking about, it’s the same. But I am going to give you the original one from the Long Street episode, because I think it’s actually a little better. It was a little fuller. But it’s the same point. So here it was. And no, I’m not going to do it in imitation of Bruce Lee. I’m not. I just won’t. Not on camera. OK, here was the quote.

Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water. Now, you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. Put it into a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or creep or drip or crash. Be water, my friend.

Cool, right? No, no, that’s my point. We’re going to get to it. Right off the bat, are these really even his words? Bruce said that he liked being on that Longstreet show because he basically got to just play himself. So you’d think, oh, then he’s just saying whatever he wants to say. Well, that’s not how TV works. There is a writer on the show. His name was Sterling Silliphant.

Now, are those Sterling’s words or Bruce’s words? Interesting fact, Sterling was a student of Bruce’s. So who’s to say? Bruce’s words through the mouthpiece of Sterling and then spoken by Bruce. I’m still going to attribute it to Bruce.

Now, let me give you my small problems right off the bat with this Be water, my friend idea. Small problems. First of all, okay, so water can flow and it can crash, but he doesn’t say that water can freeze. Water can just stop. No life. Dead.

Another problem. He doesn’t tell you that water can lie stagnant. It can become a swamp. It can become filthy, rife with dirt and disease.

He doesn’t tell you that water always follows the path of least resistance. It takes shortcuts. It takes the easy way out.

He also doesn’t say that water takes orders. It has no mind of its own. Gravity tells it what to do. Gravity will pull it, zig and zag it, wherever gravity wants it to go. Water has no say in it.

So are you sure you still want to be like water? Frozen, filthy, no mind of your own, taking orders?

No, no, no, I don’t. Now, those are small problems. Let me get to a big problem now. One of the big problems here is that he starts this off by saying, Empty your mind. All right. Bruce was good at emptying his mind. That’s fair.

He was open minded, looking at different styles, trying not to copy anybody, doing his own thing. So he did empty his mind. But not forever. He filled that mind. He was not formless. Bruce was not shapeless. That’s just, that’s just crazy.

He did not believe in becoming a cup. He personally did not become a teapot. He worked his whole life on just becoming himself. This is the critical point that I’m going to try to make today. It’s the opposite of saying be water.

Bruce didn’t live like anyone else. He was an icon. So, he lived famously because he was his own man. He did things his own way. So, let me give you an example.

Bruce studied Wing Chun as a younger man. Right? We all know that. But he did not become Wing Chun, did he? He left it. He criticized it. He changed it. He came up with his own style of modified Wing Chun. So, he did not become a teapot there. Far from it.

He also didn’t believe in styles. He didn’t believe, like I just said, copying other people. He did not conform. He did not follow along. He only believed in discovering himself and what he could do and what he could create.

He didn’t even believe in identifying himself when he was asked. He didn’t identify himself as Chinese or American. He just said, I’m a human being. Cool, right?

Now let me give you my biggest problem with the quote. Got some small problems, a big problem. Now here’s the biggest problem. Another idea that we all think about when we talk about Bruce Lee is the idea that his way was “the way of no way”. No way as the way. And that’s okay in the beginning when you start to learn something. You empty that cup and you have no way.

However, are you telling me that Bruce Lee didn’t have a way? Absolutely not. Again, his legacy is that he did create his way, the Bruce Lee way. He lived his life very much uniquely. He made choices of his own. He was not taking orders. So it’s really important to remember that.

This “no way as the way” is a temporary situation. You’re not supposed to live with no way. You’re not supposed to live your whole life with an empty mind. Never making choices, never choosing a direction, never moving forward, just floating around where life takes you. That’s not how Bruce lived.

But if you think about being like water, you might end up living like that. And that’s where I think he would say, no, no, no, that’s not what I meant. Does that make sense?

So that brings up that idea that, You’ve got to stand for something, or you’ll fall for anything. The way of no way means you’ll fall for anything. You’ll follow anywhere.

No, at some point, you have to make a stand. Bruce did. Bruce stood for himself. He wasn’t a teapot, he wasn’t a bottle or a cup. Bruce formed himself into Bruce Lee. He shaped himself into a better and better version of Bruce Lee. That was his way. That’s why we’re talking about him right now. Or at least you know who I’m talking about.

He became an icon, a legend, because he wasn’t following along.

Now, of course, once someone like Bruce Lee comes along, who’s made all these strong decisions and shows how he’s living his life, people want to copy him. He became the teapot. And I’m sure you know people who kind of poured themselves into that teapot. And they changed their name to being Bruce, or they wear their hair like Bruce, or they move like Bruce. And they all missed the point.

They got a little too far into that hero worship stuff. They didn’t grow out of it. They didn’t understand his big message. And keep in mind, he was only 32, I believe, when he died. So he was able to forge such a unique path through life and create such an image that people would want to copy him in a very short period of time.

So he outgrew the idea of having no way and having an empty mind really early in his life. And then look how far he was able to take that. Very impressive.

Okay, so as you can tell, the key phrase here that I’m critical of is the idea of being water. Now, of course, you can’t literally be water. And in fairness to the full quote, he starts it off by saying, “like water”. Be formless, shapeless– like water. By the end of the quote, he says, Be water, my friend.

So if we step back from be water, and now we soften it a little bit to say, well, be like water, well, that’s cool. That opens the door to a little more freedom. Okay, maybe you are a thinker, and you do start to choose your own direction. I’m like water, but I’m not water. So I think that’s a better quote.

If you’re going to go around saying Be water, my friend, I think it would be better at least to say, Be like water, my friend. That’s one step better. Still not perfect, though. We’ll get there, but still not perfect. Here’s why.

When I was thinking about the whole quote of being water or being like water, I immediately remembered that old ad campaign. Maybe you’re old enough to remember it too. In the early 90s, Gatorade had an ad campaign all around Michael Jordan– based on the cult, the legend of Michael Jordan. It was, “I wanna be like Mike”. That was the campaign.

Now, again, to be clear, it wasn’t “I wanna be Mike”. It was, I wanna be like Mike. And frankly, I still think that was creepy. And I have some evidence for that. I’ve got the lyrics here. I looked up the lyrics to the theme, the little jingle that went with the commercials. They were written by Bernie Pitzel. He was the ad guy, I believe, who sparked the whole campaign. But listen to these lyrics.

Sometimes I dream that he is me.
You’ve got to see that’s how I dream to be for just one day.
If I could be that way, I dream, I move.
I dream I groove like Mike.
If I could be like Mike, I want to be, I want to be like Mike.
Oh, if I could be like Mike.

Yikes! You’re telling me that’s not a little creepy? Of course it is. But again, when someone is an icon, when someone cuts their own shape into this world, it creates people who want to become like that. The people who are water pour themselves into this mold that’s been created, whether it’s Bruce or whether it’s Michael Jordan.

In the case of Michael Jordan, look at the Air Jordan, the sneaker. How many people bought a sneaker thinking maybe they could be like Mike if they wore that sneaker or drank the Gatorade? Do you think that it helped them play basketball? Maybe there was a placebo effect where in their head they thought, Hey, I’m a little more confident now. I’ve got moves.

But I’ll bet you those same people stuck their tongue out when they went driving to the hoop. I don’t really think it helps anybody, right? Trying to be like somebody. Not good.

Now, of course, again, I think this has to do with what stage of development you’re in as a human being and as a student of something. When I was younger, I was a drummer. I played drums for many years. And Phil Collins is one of my early heroes. And I absolutely admit to seeing him at a concert and he was wearing a bracelet. It looked like an ID bracelet.

So what did I do? I went out and I bought an ID bracelet. I thought, Fantastic. Now I’m like Phil Collins. Surely this makes me a better drummer.

Bruce Lee. I’ll go back to Bruce Lee. He was my first influence as a martial artist. I saw him in the movies wearing one of those cool Chinese style jackets with the ties down the front, the big white cuffs. So guess what Ando was wearing in the garage once or twice or more times. Yeah, I went out and I got the whole kung fu uniform.

Nobody could see me in it. It was just me in the dark in my garage, hitting a bag. But for some reason that made me like Bruce. Another step closer, mistaking the point, there I was pouring myself into the Bruce teapot.

But again, I think this is all about development. I believe as a student, as a human being, you have a childhood, you have an adolescence, and you have adulthood.

Childhood would mean, I want to be Bruce Lee. Adolescence would be, I want to be like Bruce Lee. Adulthood means, I just want to be me. I don’t want to be Bruce Lee. I want to be me.

Now, you can’t rush this process, so maybe I’m being a little overly critical. Childhood, when you’re born, let’s just talk about growing up as a human being in this world. As a child, you have no options. You have no choice who your parents are or where you’re being raised. You are mindlessly absorbing information. So of course, you’re going to learn by copying and by mimicking.

At this stage, hero worship makes a lot of sense. When I was a little kid, I wanted to be Superman. Not be like Superman, be Superman. Maybe you want to be like your parent. I want to be like my mom. I want to be my dad. Like literally. Because that’s all you know. All I can do is copy.

But then you grow a little older. I can’t tell you what age that would be for you, but let’s say by the age of 10, 11, you start becoming more self-aware. And now you do have a choice over who you want to follow. So I think you move from hero worship to an era of role modeling.

You get to pick who’s wearing clothes that you think are cool. Who is taking actions that you would like to emulate. Who’s living a life that you would like to follow in the steps of. Now you’re allowed to choose your influences.

Now you get picking role models. So you have a poster of someone on your wall. Or you may get a tattoo of their name on your wrist. You wear a bracelet that reminds you of that person. Just to keep you motivated, just to keep you inspired. Just to have some link in the world with something outside of yourself that can pull you out of only being stuck at home and only seeing maybe your mom and your dad. And stepping outside, and that’s like a bridge.

You’re in this adolescent stage of influence. Where you’re choosing where you want to go. Super important. But we can’t get stuck there.

The final stage would be adulthood. In adulthood, I’m not copying anymore. It should all be about creating. You are creating your own shape, your own form. I can always respect where I came from, respect my heroes, respect the role models. But at the end of the day now, the project is becoming myself. I have to be my own hero. I have to be my own role model.

This whole process calls to mind another famous quote, usually attributed to a poet, Matsuo Basho. But I do believe there are earlier records of this quote being used. So anyway, forget I mentioned any of that. But the quote you’ll know, Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the masters. Seek what they sought.

That’s the dividing line right there between adolescence and adulthood as a student, as a human being. Taking away the bridge, you’ve made it to the other side, you got out of your house, you’re not copying anymore, you pointed yourself in a direction to say I want to go over there, follow that role model, you followed in their footsteps to get you across that river of adolescence, and now that you’re on the other side.

You don’t have to look back. You can let the bridge burn down. You don’t need it anymore. You made it to the other side. Now you’re going to create your own path.

So that’s how I take that to mean, you’re not following the footsteps anymore. Now I’m seeking what everyone was looking for in the first place. Wisdom, happiness, confidence, comfort, security. That’s the project.

Now, the problem at that stage, and the reason some people get stuck in that adolescent stage, is that it’s so hard. It’s very difficult to search on your own. It’s very difficult to have faith in things that you’re discovering. It’s very difficult to feel confident in what you’ve created. That’s natural.

I think we all seek validation. We need someone there to say, You’re on the right track. I like what you’re doing. Good job. Keep going in that direction. That’s what friends are for. That’s what a good teacher is for. The teacher’s not there to say, Get behind me and follow. The teacher’s next to you or behind you saying, Good job. Yeah, keep going. You’re going in the right direction. I like what you’re doing.

Bruce, by the way, in the same interview where the water quote came from, says this exact same thing. He says, Ultimately, martial art means honestly expressing yourself. And then he goes on to say, To express oneself honestly, not lying to oneself, that, my friend, is very hard to do.

Now, I really need you to think about this for a moment, because it’s the whole point of this rant. Isn’t that advice right there, that ultimately the goal of your training is to express yourself honestly, not lying to yourself, isn’t that the exact opposite advice than be water?

On the one hand, he’s saying, Hey, be shapeless, be formless. But now he’s saying, Take your own shape. Be honest with yourself. Be who you are. It’s the exact opposite. In the water quote, he says, Empty your mind. Now he’s saying, Fill your mind.

Over there, he’s saying, Become the tea pot. Now he’s saying, Become you. And I think that’s the stronger message.

Based on how he lived his life, that is the pure advice from Bruce Lee, not the water stuff. That water stuff is basically talking to someone in childhood. You’re saying to this little baby, Hey, you see how I’m walking? Follow me. Do it that way. You hear these words I’m using? Copy my words. Copy these sounds. Empty your mind.

Thankfully, most babies have empty minds. Right? Blank slates. So they will willingly go and conform and follow. But that’s it. That’s childhood. We must get past that. Bruce did. And in that part of the quote, he makes that very clear. He says, look, this is a more difficult journey. But ultimately, that’s the goal. To express yourself honestly.

Am I wrong? Am I crazy? Let me know.

Now, based on the fact that this is a very difficult project– to be yourself. To be honest with yourself– a lot of people will give up on it. Because it is easier. You do feel more security when you’re doing something someone else has done before you. When you fit into the club. When you just follow the rules. When you don’t have to think for yourself or go out on your own, or fail more often by experimenting with things.

I get it. And we all do that on some level. Myself included. But here’s my thought that I’d like you to think about a little bit. Here’s the idea.

I personally, would rather live a life where I was successful being myself at a 40% 50% level than trying to be like someone else and being successful at an 80 or 90% level.

I would rather die on that hill of heading in the direction of being myself than dying over here on someone else’s hill trying to be like them. And consider, it is literally impossible for you to be 100% like someone else. Whether it’s Michael Jordan or Bruce Lee, you are not Bruce Lee, you can never be Bruce Lee. You cannot be anybody else.

No matter what you do, no matter how bad you want it, no matter how much you dream and work, that’s impossible. So if you’re trying to be someone else, you will fail. But there is a chance that you can be 100% an honest version of yourself. That’s possible.

So right off the bat, if you’re choosing goals, this goal of being someone else 100% is impossible. This other goal of being myself 100% is possible. Well, right off the bat, when you hit that fork in the road, head towards being yourself. And then understand that it’s a more difficult journey, but even if you only get 20 or 30% down that path, it’s much better than being 60 or 70% successful on the other path.

I think there’s more happiness the other way, in the way of being yourself, I think there’s more fulfillment, I think it’s more fun. But I leave that to you to decide. So let me just wrap this up.

My main point has been made, and here it is one more time. Don’t be Mike. Don’t be Bruce. Don’t be like Mike. Don’t be like Bruce. Be you.

Don’t be formless. Don’t be shapeless. Be you.

Don’t become a cup. Don’t become a teapot. Become an honest version of yourself.

How do you do that? Don’t dream and don’t copy. Seek.

Don’t follow the path of least resistance. Work. Don’t settle. Don’t stagnate. And don’t freeze.

Don’t be water. Be you, my friend.

All right, I hope you enjoyed that little rant. I sure did. Now it’s up to you. Go out there and make your own way.

Until I see you next time, smiles up, my friend. Let that smile be your shield and your sword. Keep fighting for a happy life.

The post #94: Don’t Be Water, My Friend [Video + Podcast] appeared first on Sensei Ando.

Welcome to Episode #93 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “Cross-training Tips for Martial Arts.”

Actually, a better title for this episode would be, “My First Ballet Class!”

That’s right! I started taking online ballet classes a few weeks ago. No, not to become a better dancer, to become a better fighter!

That’s what cross-training is all about, right? Looking outside your normal routine to find new ways to approach your old goals.

But be warned–not all cross-training is created equal!

In this episode, I will break down four different cross-training methodologies in the martial arts and give you my recommendation for the approach I find to be the most beneficial.

To LISTEN to “Cross-Training in the Martial Arts,” you can either:

To WATCH the video version or READ the summary, scroll down below.

If you’d like to support this show, share the link with a friend or leave a quick review over on iTunes. Thank you!

Oh—and don’t forget to sign up for free email updates so you can get new shows sent to your inbox the minute they’re released.

Thanks for listening! Keep fighting for a happy life!

Here’s the video! If it won’t play, click this direct link.

As always, if you’d like to keep the conversation going, feel free to leave a comment here or through my Contact Page.

There are four approaches to cross-training in the martial arts.

#1: Unrelated activities with no goal. Maybe you practice Karate and play a little basketball on the weekend. Or maybe you like to swim, bike, or go for a run. Great!

Obviously, improving your cardio or strength any way you can is worth doing, but those extra activities do not directly lead to skill development in Karate.

#2: Related activities with no goal. Maybe you take a regular boxing class and occasionally work out with a friend who practices Wing Chun. Or maybe you went to a Judo seminar once. Great!

Again, all worth doing, but these activities don’t necessarily lead to skill development. It’s just a little of this and a little of that… which leads to being a master of nothing.

#3: Related activities with a martial arts goal. Maybe you’re a Kickboxing student who also takes a BJJ class. You chose this extra activity with the specific goal of filling a gap in your technical skills. Great!

MMA has made it clear that relying on just one range of fighting is a risky strategy. Outside of combat sports, if you’re interested in self-defense, you must also consider cross-training to address weapons and multiple attackers. But so long as you’re designing your training routine around specific goals, you’re cross-training effectively.

That said, to this point, all three methodologies have focused mainly on technical issues–how to be an effective martial artist. The fourth methodology takes training one step farther…

#4: Related activities with a LIFE goal. This approach seeks to cure imbalances not just in technique, but in personality, behavior, and lifestyle. You choose specific activities that will benefit you as an overall human being, which will then make you a better martial artist as a result.

In that spirit, ballet is offering me a range of physical, psychological, and even spiritual benefits, including:

So, how can you make the most of YOUR cross-training? Ask yourself three questions:

#1: What do you want? Why are you training? If you don’t have a goal, you can’t measure your progress. If you don’t know when you’re improving, you won’t know how to modify your training routine.

#2: What are you doing? It’s critical to analyze your training to figure out which activities are getting you the results you want. By removing activities that are NOT helping you, you will free up time to experiment with something else.

#3: What are you NOT doing? The goal of cross-training should be to fill gaps in your skill set and correct imbalances in your life. Like a doctor, you must prescribe activities that will cure the habits and behaviors that are working against you.

Physically, when I did too much pushing and not enough pulling, I tore my shoulder. Emotionally, when I lost my temper too often, I tore relationships apart. Enlightenment as a human being should not steer you into a behavioral rut… it should offer you choices.

Be warned–if you don’t seek balance, you will be vulnerable to injury. Not just physically, but emotionally, spiritually, financially–in every way possible.

So, don’t just cross-train to be a better martial artist, cross-train to be a better human being.

The post #93: Cross-Training Tips for Martial Arts [Video + Podcast] appeared first on Sensei Ando.

Welcome to Episode #92 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “Shouting at the Moon.”

Stress is a part of life… especially this year! The challenge—if we want to maximize our health and happiness—is to find effective ways to face and manage that stress.

Is martial arts training one way to do that? Absolutely! But there’s another exercise that I discovered by accident back in my teenage years… a simple, but powerful exercise that I still practice to this day.

In this episode, I’ll share that experience and detail the four life-changing lessons it taught me. You can watch the video, listen to the audio, or scroll down for the Cheat Sheet. 🙂

To LISTEN to “Shouting at the Moon,” you can either:

To WATCH the video version or READ the summary, scroll down below.

If you’d like to support this show, share the link with a friend or leave a quick review over on iTunes. Thank you!

Oh—and don’t forget to sign up for free email updates so you can get new shows sent to your inbox the minute they’re released.

Thanks for listening! Keep fighting for a happy life!

Here’s the video! If it won’t play, try this direct link.

As always, if you’d like to keep the conversation going, feel free to leave a comment here or through my Contact Page.

When I was young man, I often felt alone, insecure, and frustrated. To combat the uncertainty of life, I sought to control what I could—starting with my body. That’s what led me to pursue the martial arts.

Without a car or access to a school, I usually ended up training on my own… and usually at night… shouting at the moon. Once I had burned up all of my teen angst, I would then find myself lying on the ground… staring at the moon.

That time on the ground changed my life. Here are four lessons I learned in the moonlight…

LESSON #1: Silence. Once we turn off the noise of the outside world, we can tune into the inside world. Quiet time is quality time! Let there be no such thing as “awkward silence” in your life… only comfortable silence.

Sitting in silence allows a release of tension, which leads to a sense of equilibrium between you and the environment. Seek to fill your inner space and connect it to outer space.

LESSON #2: Motion. Once we stop running around from task to task, we can find stillness. While stillness may provide some calm, it is not lasting… because it is an illusion!

Staring at the moon will reveal that the world is always in motion… and so are you. Your heart beats and your blood flows just as surely as the earth spins and the planets circle the sun.

You are not stuck. You are not frozen. Instead of focusing on the splashing of the waves, go deep and ride the undercurrents.

LESSON #3: Darkness. As children, we are afraid of the dark and imagine monsters under the bed. As adults, we fear the unknown and can easily imagine the worst in others and ourselves.

When you lie on the dark under the moon, you realize that you are part of the darkness… and darkness is part of you. You realize that YOU can be the monster under the bed… if you choose to be.

So, don’t fear the dark. Accept it and feel the power to face the unknown.

LESSON #4: Belonging. It can be stressful when you feel you don’t “fit in” with your family, friends, religion, or country. Yet, you are always at home in the universe.

You were born here. You belong here. Remember that and you will always find a sense of peace… which will lead you to to finding your purpose.

Ultimately, you won’t need to look up at the moon and the stars for inspiration or comfort… you can simply look inside. That’s where you will see that you are a star… and understand that you always have the power to shine through the darkness.

Keep shining, my friend!

The post #92: Shouting at the Moon [Video + Podcast] appeared first on Sensei Ando.