Welcome to Episode #106 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “It’s Okay to Suck at Martial Arts.”
After almost two years of hiding out from Covid, I finally stepped outside and joined a BJJ school. Well, re-joined, actually. And guess what?
I SUCK!
Yup. I may only be two years older, but I’m feeling 10 years rustier. As expected, I was under attack immediately and found myself tapping like a beginner… which is exactly what I wanted!
I wanted to tap? I wanted to lose? YES!
That’s because I know you have to suck before you can learn. Losing and failing are not experiences to avoid in training, they’re something to pursue, welcome, and embrace.
I’ve talked about the importance of failing before, like in #55: I Want You to Fail, but this time, we’re going to delve deeper into the benefits of throwing yourself into situations where the odds are hopelessly stacked against you. Hope you like it!
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It’s Okay to Suck at Martial Arts
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TRANSCRIPT
Hi-ho, hi-ho. Ando here from Happy Life Martial Arts. Welcome to episode #106 of Fight for a Happy Life, the show that believes even a little martial arts makes life a whole lot better.
The topic today, It’s Okay to Suck. To suck at martial arts, to suck at BJJ, to suck at cooking, to suck at whatever it is you love to do. It’s okay to suck.
Now, I’m going to tell you right up front just to get this theme rolling. I suck at martial arts. No, not all aspects of martial arts, but many of them. Enough that I stay very humble. Enough that I stay in a student mindset every single day of my training.
I get hit, I tap, I get hurt, I lose, and I’m proud of all of that. I’m proud because I know that’s how you learn. The only way I got good at some aspects of martial arts is because I was willing to suck in the beginning or suck maybe for even a long time. That’s how winning is done.
Now this is not an altogether new theme for this show. Way back in episode #55, there was a show called, I Want You to Fail. That pretty much sums it up. I want you to suck. I want you to fail. I want you to go through that process. Because again, that’s how you get better.
Now in that episode, I tried to equate the idea of a white belt with freedom. The white belt symbolizes freedom. What kind of freedom? I’m glad you asked. The freedom to fail. The freedom to suck.
You have to just think about that for a second, right? A white belt has no expectations put on them. And hopefully you don’t put expectations on yourself if you’re wearing a white belt. Your job is to fail as a white belt. That’s your job.
If you knew what you were doing, why would you even sign up for the class? If you were already an expert, you wouldn’t need to be there. The whole point of being a white belt is that you get the chance to try something new, to make mistakes, to fall down and to learn.
So if you can get over that first fear of being the new person, of not knowing what you’re doing, then the rewards will come to you quickly because everything you do will fail and then you’ll quickly improve.
There’s nothing more exciting than being a white belt, really.
Ask anyone who’s accomplished something. That first phase of learning is thrilling because you make the jump from having no knowledge and no skill to having some skill right away. It happens pretty quickly. It’s at the advanced levels that maybe you don’t see progress or it’s not obvious to you for longer periods of time. But in the beginning, the freedom to fail is also the accelerant on the learning process.
So never be afraid to go start something new. I’ve talked about that before. Even more recently, episode #104, we talked about participation trophies. And in that episode, I said absolutely that effort should be rewarded.
We all can’t be winners. There’s only so many medals and trophies that can be handed out. At some point, what you recognize is that you’re trying. But I don’t think I even went deeply enough into that point.
It’s not just that you’re participating. I think you should reward yourself if you suck. If you’re the worst one in your class. If you are absolutely awful, as long as you’re showing up and trying, paying attention and working, you should still be rewarding yourself. You should still be proud of yourself, yeah, even if you suck.
At least, I do. I can tell you. I’ll always have a pie in my refrigerator ready for celebration. Got tapped 12 times today, I’m having a piece of pie.
Now, just to let you know, just to reaffirm that I practice what I preach, that I’m not afraid to suck, let me tell you something.
I just signed up at a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu school. I have returned to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu after a two-year almost break due to the lockdowns from COVID. Now, I’m not new to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, I started 13 years ago. For the first year, it was some buddies who I could roll with, and I went to some seminars, and got some instructional videos, and just really just wanted to feel what the art was all about. And I loved it.
But I was getting wiped out, I was getting creamed, and that was addictive, I really caught that bug. So after it took about a year, I did join a school formally and stayed there for 10 years.
Now, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was never my main art, it was always a supplement to everything else I was doing. But that emotional process of just getting my butt kicked all the time was so valuable, which is why I’m still preaching it right now and why I wanted to return.
Once COVID hit, March of 2020, so almost two years, that first year, I don’t think I touched anybody. But then slowly in the second year, pod here, partner there, I’ve been able to start working a bit, but it wasn’t enough. So I knew now that I’m feeling safer, it was time to go back, primarily because I wanted to feel that sensation of sucking even more. My training was not giving me enough opportunity to suck, and BJJ is perhaps the greatest art for allowing you to suck badly right away, every class.
So I’m here to tell you, I practice what I preach. You shouldn’t just be scared to try a new art or try a class as a white belt. You should also be able to face the fear of starting a class that you’re returning to, returning to a class. It’s not just starting that scary, it’s returning.
Frankly, to be honest, it was even scarier going back with a brown belt on as a senior student than it was a white belt. Because again, a white belt, no expectations. Brown belt? Expectations, right?
Found a friendly group of people. Everyone’s being very cool, but still, when you’re standing there with a brown belt on, people are looking at you like, okay, hot shot, what do you got? What have you been doing all these years?
So there’s the expectations I feel, and there’s also my ego, right? I’m a human being. I don’t want to come off like I suck. The sucking is for my personal journey. I don’t mind sucking, but I don’t want to come in saying, Hey, everybody, I suck. So you have this little conflict.
Ultimately, though, it’s better to get over that because you’re still free. That would be my lesson if you’re a senior student or a returning student, you want to go back after COVID, you’re an intermediate or advanced student, you’re still free.
Any student of any kind, you’re always free to suck.
Most of the expectations are in your head. Most of that is ego driven. If you can put that aside and get right back to the sucking as fast as you can, then you’ll be learning as fast as you can and you’ll start feeling better as fast as you can. At least that’s what’s happening for me currently.
It’s been a couple of weeks now and I’m not kidding, the butterflies I felt going in may be more than I’ve ever felt going into any martial arts class in my entire life. I’m going in as a brown belt, two years of rust, I teach for a living, I’ve got a website, I’ve got a YouTube channel, not that they’ve probably ever seen it, but I’m just carrying all these expectations on myself.
And sure enough, when I showed up, I was the oldest guy in the room, these guys are younger, bigger, stronger, they’re competitive, they’re technical, they didn’t take two years off. So it was a nightmare for my ego, but it was a dream come true, it was exactly what I wanted for my student mindset.
So I’m here, I survived, that’s the big message. I was able to embrace the suck, face that fear, face my own ego, and get back into it. I’ve survived.
So the advice that I have given for as long as I’ve had this website and beyond, to never be afraid to walk into a school, to give a class a try, to whether you’re going to change arts, start a new art, return to an art, whether it’s been two years, ten years, twenty years, do it.
I’m right. The advice is true, I am practicing what I preach. Get in there and do it. That’s the big message. So if you have to go, have a beautiful day, thanks for being here.
I am going to take a little added journey here, though, a special note for people who practice traditional martial arts, Kung Fu, Karate, Taekwondo, arts that are set up in that fashion. I think that makes it even more difficult to return.
White belts are white belts across the board, so I hope I’ve addressed that problem. But let’s say you’re returning to an art of a traditional nature.
Look, traditional martial arts, at this point, I have a love-hate relationship with them. On the love side, I do believe that the old masters knew what they were doing. They knew what fighting was. They lived in far more brutal times. They understood this stuff, martial arts.
A lot of what they’ve handed down, the exercises, the forms, the drills, the conditioning, a lot of that probably has been miscommunicated and misunderstood. And so therefore, some people look at it now and say, well, I don’t get this. That’s a waste of time. They didn’t know what they were doing.
I don’t believe that. I do believe it is worth digging through that dirt, brushing off that dust to reveal the gold that’s underneath. So I am a fan of traditional martial arts. At least I think it’s worth a look to respect what has been going on before we got here and see how we can help our training. If you can’t find any value in it, great, then go do your thing. But I’ve been able to find great value in most traditional martial arts training models.
That’s the love side of it. So what do I hate? Here’s what I hate. Glad you asked.
Let’s take forms, for example, okay? If you practice forms, let me ask you, have you ever performed your kata and had a teacher say, Wow, that was perfect? Not me. And I’m betting not you.
There’s something about the traditional martial arts that lends itself to corrections, corrections and more corrections. Not necessarily improvements like, Hey, I saw you rolling over there and wrestling. Don’t forget to keep that arm tight. That’s a tip to make you better.
Doing a form, someone might just come over, your teacher or senior student say, well, no, this fist has to be this way, not that way. Yeah, but the other teacher said it was this way, not that way. Why exactly? That’s tradition. I don’t have a good reason.
Well, he says that’s for this reason. He says it’s for another reason. You can start getting lost in corrections. And that’s a problem because where does your confidence come from?
Presumably, you signed up in martial arts to be tougher, stronger, maybe more fit, and ultimately, confidence. Confidence in your body, confidence in your skills. Confidence is rooted in competence. You should feel like you know what you’re doing.
But if every time you work on your exercises, you’re practicing your forms or some type of solo drilling or something, and you’re always given the message, that’s not right, that’s not proper, that’s not enough. Here’s another correction, here’s another correction. To me, that becomes dangerous because each of those corrections can chip away at your confidence if you ever had any at all.
That’s the way I would feel. I mean, I was a serious student. When I started in Taekwondo, there were lots of forms to learn. And that meant lots of corrections. That meant just a constant stream of, no, you got to fix that, no, you got to fix that.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying you shouldn’t get corrections. I’m not saying there isn’t a need for right and wrong. Many corrections could have something to do with the safety of your body. Making sure your knees are safe, your wrist is safe, that your chin is down. There are certain things that, yes, you need to be corrected on.
My problem is when the goals of your training become trying to be great at this art and not worrying about being a better person. You shifted your goals from, here’s what I’m trying to create in myself, to, hey, I hope I can pass this test and get that form right. When that happens, I’ve talked about this before, so I won’t belabor it, but that becomes a problem.
Quick example, when I moved after college from Buffalo to Los Angeles, I had just gotten my black belt in Taekwondo. I’d studied Aikido as my supplemental art for a little while. So, I had a really good idea of what I was looking for when I started at a new school.
Very quickly, I found a Karate school that seemed great. Very knowledgeable, skilled teacher, nice group of people, very hands-on group, very small group. And I was there for about three months, that’s how long I made it. And the reason I left, the main reason, was this.
They did forms, absolutely, and there was a belt test. And there was a woman there, probably college-aged. And she was a great student. She showed up, she worked hard, great attitude, not unskilled. Did the kumite, did the solo drills, did the forms, respectful person.
In my mind, she did everything well and right. Doesn’t mean perfect, but this was a belt test, not like some advanced belt even. This was like one of the second or third belts in the system. She failed the test. The teacher failed her. And the reason was one thing.
The teacher said that on a front stance, forward stance, the back foot was turned out five degrees too much for his liking. Five degrees on one foot for that stance!
Now again, if this was a matter of knee safety, and their back foot was turned all the way in the other direction, you had 180 degrees between your toes in a forward stance, that could be a major issue. Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, that’s incompetent, that’s dangerous for your body. But that’s not what this was.
This was five degrees off on a beginner level belt when everything else, the kumite, the kihon, the kata, were all really well done. To fail that student, the message to me– again, everyone’s got their own standards. That’s his dojo, his rules, I respect that– but rather than stay and complain or argue about it, I just realized, Whoa, this opens up a part of my brain and my personality that I don’t want to open up.
I had already felt that in the Taekwondo training. That it wasn’t about my priorities of what I was trying to get out of the training, it was about pleasing this art, their look to it. And that five degrees off, I mean, who knows, maybe she had a pulled groin muscle, maybe her hips are just genetically set up in a certain way where that foot out makes her feel more stable and powerful. I don’t even want to get into it.
The point was, that to me was symbolic of, Uh-oh, this training is pointed at the wrong goals, not the goals that I want to pursue at this time. So I need to find another school. And I did, which brings me to a quote from Gichin Funakoshi. I’ve seen this type of quote attributed to many different people, but I’m going to go with Gichin Funakoshi.
His quote, you’ve probably heard it before–
The ultimate aim of karate lies not in victory or defeat, but in the perfection of character.
Yeah, exactly, that’s right. Go Gichin. That’s right. The victory or defeat, all right, well, maybe that’s a tournament or war or even just getting beat up on the street. We don’t want to die, but ultimately the training process to prepare you for that fight on the street or that tournament is what’s most important.
What kind of person are you? It’s not what moves you can do, it’s who are you performing those moves?
Who are you becoming? How are you developing? It’s not about, Oh, are you perfect or do you suck? It’s who are you?
Who were you when you started? Who are you today? Who are you going to be in the next month or year if you go through this training exercise?
Which leads to the immediate question, what are your character goals? We all, it’s very common to talk about fitness goals. Maybe you want to lose a few pounds. Maybe you want to be a little more flexible. Maybe you even measure the distance between your feet when you stretch.
Maybe your goal is a belt rank. Oh, I want to get to that next belt. I have to learn this new form.
Maybe you have tournament goals. Oh, I want to be the champ. I want to win regionals.
Maybe your goal is to be a teacher, to have a certain standard for your students.
But what about your goals for just yourself when you’re not wearing the belt, you’re not wearing the uniform, you’re not in the school. What are your character goals? Who do you want to be?
I’m not sure if everyone asks that question. I think it’s more common to ask that question before you start training. Like, Ah, something’s missing from my life, whether it’s confidence, or toughness, fighting spirit, whatever, and you think, well, the martial arts is going to help me achieve that. I want to develop this.
But then again, there’s a little bit of a switcheroo. You start focusing on the exercises and not who you’re becoming doing the exercises. If it’s difficult to come up with your own character goals, because I hope you’ll think about that.
What am I trying to be better at? If it’s hard to think about that for yourself, easy exercise. What character goals do you have if you have a child, for your child, for your son or daughter? What goals do you have for them?
If you’re a teacher, what goals do you have for your students? What are the most important things that you want to see them develop as a human being under your tutelage?
Whatever those answers are, whatever you want for a child or a student, I presume you’d want those exact same things for yourself. Because your teacher would want those for you, your parents would want that for you, so of course you should want those things for yourself.
And you could probably now make up a long list of qualities that you would like to see in yourself. I’ll pick three, because three is a nice number.
Three character qualities to develop…
Number one, I would hope for myself and for you that you could develop a character that has no fear in the face of failure. That’s the theme of this episode today, right?
It’s okay to suck. I need you to embrace that. I need to embrace that. To not be afraid to lose, to not be afraid to suck, to be the worst one in the class.
Ultimately, I think those are just symbolic of not being afraid to die. Getting killed in a fight, self-defense situation, that’s the ultimate loss. You suck. You died. That guy got the best of you today.
Okay, but I can’t be afraid to fight the fight. That doesn’t make sense. So how do you get over that? Well, you get over the fear of failure by not identifying yourself first as always being a winner.
If you create an identity for yourself where you win, you’re perfect, you’re awesome, you’re a black belt– you’ve just set yourself up to be afraid to fail. You don’t want your students to see you making mistakes. So you don’t participate with students. You just give orders from the side.
There are some teachers like that, but I don’t want that to be you. The only way you can get over that fear of failure is to make it a habit, to give yourself the opportunities to suck.
I just said I went back to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu so I could formally, routinely, on a schedule, suck in public with people who have been doing it less time than I have, because that’s good for my soul. So that I am in a habit of saying, I’m not afraid of dying, I’m not afraid of failing, I’m not afraid of sucking. It’s good for you.
So number one, I would say build the character that is not afraid to fail.
Number two, make it a character goal to focus on progress, not perfection.
You’ve probably heard that idea before. I won’t go into it for too long then. Progress not perfection. Perfection is exhausting. The pursuit of perfection, even if you can achieve perfection, it’s exhausting.
It is stressful and ultimately it’s self-defeating. Because it only, from my experience, leads to insecurity. When I have achieved in my mind the status of, Hey, I think I’m the best one in this group, the stress to maintain that title can be crippling.
When I think back to school and I was the leading student, straight A’s, I’m the number one rated in the class, that was incredibly stressful. I didn’t mind the work to achieve it, to achieve that status, but the stress to hold on to it, because now my identity was connected to it– Oh, he’s the star student. Oh, he’s the best one here.
Whoa, now I’m afraid to make mistakes, now I’m afraid to fail, because that’s going to kill my identity. That’s going to destroy my ego, but I can’t allow that to happen.
So, by focusing on progress, not perfection, that’s a totally different life, that’s a totally different lifestyle. If you’re just focused on improvement, just what can I make a little better today? Yeah, I’ll fail in the effort of it, but if I could just improve a little bit today, then class is exciting, always exciting. It’s fulfilling, and ultimately, instead of being self-defeating– I’m working against myself because I don’t want to try anymore because I’m afraid to fail– it’s actually empowering, because I don’t care who’s watching me.
I don’t care who I work out with. I don’t care if I trip, if I fall, if I tap, if I get hit, I don’t care because I’m only focused on progress, on the learning, and that’s the way we should all be.
Third, number one, be fearless in the face of failure, two, be focused on progress, not perfection, and number three, as a character trait, be a fighter.
Be a fighter. I would love to be regarded as a fighter. I would like you to be regarded as a fighter.
This goes back to the original tenets of Taekwondo as I first learned them, one of which, indomitable spirit. Nothing keeps you down.
You cannot only show the toughness to endure hardships and humiliations and failures, you persevere through them. You keep moving forward. You get knocked down, you get back up. You’re not riding the pine, riding the bench. You get back out on the field and you play, and you play hard.
And it doesn’t matter if you lose, it doesn’t matter if you’re the worst one out there, you’re out there. That goes back to the participation trophies. That is a noble character trait that you do not give up, that you keep going. Even if people are pointing and jeering and mocking.
They’re usually doing that from the stands. It’s usually not the people standing next to you on the team. So let the people who are watching from the side mock you all they want. Get out there, fight.
Even on the show, I usually end every video and podcast by saying, keep fighting for a happy life. That doesn’t mean I have a happy life. That doesn’t mean I’m always happy. No, I’m saying you’re fighting for the happy life. I’m fighting for a happy life.
Keep fighting for a happy life. Not just one day or for that month I was fighting, you got to keep fighting. But the only way that you improve your life, you get closer to happiness, is if you try. And if you try, you will fail. But if you’re afraid to fail, you won’t try, and if you don’t try, you can’t improve, and therefore you can’t have a happy life.
So the formula is very simple. If you can be a fighter, focus on progress, and not be afraid of the failure, that’s your best shot at having a happy life.
It all makes sense to me. So now, back to you.
Before you turn off this video today, what can you improve right now? What can you make better today? Just a little bit. But to do it, you’re going to have to face yourself sucking maybe, not being so good.
So, you want to kick over your head? Go try to kick over your head. Give it a couple more chances. You want to control your breath and stay cool under pressure, fighting at business, or fighting with your family or something, not going your way. You at least want to stay calm. Work on that today. Make that a little bit better.
You want to do a handstand, but you suck at it. You want to juggle, pick up a new skill, cut up a celery as fast as you can without cutting your finger. Whatever it is, go try it. Today, don’t be afraid of failing. Don’t be afraid of the sucking. That’s what makes you cool. That’s the best part.
If while you’re doing this, someone sees you and they say, you suck, I want you to say, thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah, I do suck, but I’m working on it. I’m getting better at it.
When you see yourself sucking and you say to yourself, Ah, I suck at this, I suck. I just want you to smile and say, good job. Good job facing this fear. Good job for making the effort to improve. That’s what it’s all about.
So that’s my message for you today. Don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t be afraid to lose. Don’t be afraid to suck.
I suck. I hope you suck too. That’s the secret to success. And that’s the secret to a happy life.
So there’s your challenge. Get out there and suck. Then keep fighting to make things a little bit better. And hey, don’t let anybody stop you. Especially you.
Until next time, smiles up my friend. Let that smile be your shield and your sword. Keep fighting for a happy life.
