#78: My First Fight [Video + Podcast]

Welcome to Episode #78 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “My First Fight.”

When I was seven years old, my babysitter set me up to fight another kid in the neighborhood. Surprise!

Even though the situation was totally ridiculous, the lessons I learned from that fight have stayed with me to this day. Perhaps most importantly, always ask your babysitter if they have secret dreams of becoming a fight promoter. 🙂

Anyway, if you have a little time, I’d love to share what I learned with you. I’m confident that the lessons I learned that day will help keep your next fight from becoming your last fight!

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Thanks for listening! Keep fighting for a happy life!

My First Fight

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.

TRANSCRIPT

Howdy, Ando here from Happy Life Martial Arts. Welcome to episode #78 of Fight for a Happy Life, the show that believes even a little martial arts makes life a whole lot better. Sorry about the voice today. I’m just getting over a head cold, and you know, I scream at kids for a living, so the voice tends to go sometimes.

But today, I’m here to tell you the story of my first fight. Spoiler alert: I was maybe seven or eight years old when this happened, but I still learned a few valuable lessons that I want to share with you today.

…INTRO OMITTED…

Okay, here’s the story. I’m seven years old. I’m playing outside with my brother, JD. We have a babysitter. Her name is Chrissy. She’s an older girl who lives down the street.

Now, at some point during the day, she comes in and she says, Hey Andy– because back then I was Andy. She says, Hey Andy, how’d you like to fight Simon?

Simon is a boy, my age, my size, who lives not just down the street, but down the street and around the corner. Now, back in those days, we always played outside, not like those kids from today in their new fangled machines. We were always playing outside. And we were given boundaries in my family.

My mother said, You could play from that corner to this corner, but you don’t go around the corner, and you certainly don’t go around the block.

Well, Simon– that’s not his real name, because he might still be alive, and I don’t know how this story is going to play out– Simon lived down the street and around the corner. So if we were playing outside, if he chose to come on to the street, which was sometimes, not all the time, then great, we could all get a game of hockey going or whatever, he could play with us. But we never went around the corner to go play with him.

So Simon was a friend, but nowhere near a best friend. That’s who Simon is. So Chrissy says, Hey, how’d you like to go fight Simon? Only it didn’t really come out like that. There was really no wiggle room here. It was more of, Hey, you’re gonna go fight Simon today.

Now how the heck did that come about? Well, because Simon had an older brother. And thinking back, he must have been a tween or early teen. And that guy and all of his friends, a group of dudes — you know trouble’s gonna happen when you have a group of dudes sitting around– the group of dudes decided, Hey, it’d be cool if their kid brother fought somebody.

Chrissy, my babysitter– I guess was trying to impress those guys– she said, Oh, I have someone who can fight. I’ll go grab Andy. And so that’s how this thing apparently came about.

So it’s set that, Hey, in a half an hour, let’s all meet over at Simon’s place, and Simon will fight Andy. Now, already I’m a little nervous, because that would be off of my street, across the boundaries in this guy’s backyard. So I’m already worried that maybe my mother’s gonna be upset if she ever finds out that I got off the street. I’m not worried about the fighting so much. I’m worried about being outside the boundaries.

Anyway, I got a half an hour to prepare for this fight. And I didn’t want to get my shirt ruined, so I went up to my bedroom to put on a different shirt, a shirt I didn’t really care about. Now, keep in mind, I’m not a fighter. I wasn’t a street tough guy, something like that. So this was kind of an unusual territory. Like, we’re gonna fight? I’m not even sure what that means. But I figured, there could be a ripped shirt, there could be some bleeding, I don’t know. So I did go up and change my t-shirt.

Now, while I was in my bedroom, I saw my belt. At the time, I had a belt that had a big Trans Am buckle on it. I think it actually had the words Trans Am. That’s how I know I was about seven or eight years old, because the movie Smokey and the Bandit with Burt Reynolds came out in 1977. And so at that time, the hero car, the black Trans Am, which was the coolest car going at the time, until I saw the Dukes of Hazzard a couple years later, that was the car I dreamed about.

So somehow, I’d gotten this Trans Am belt buckle and the cool thing about the belt buckle was that it was made of metal. So I’m putting on this t-shirt for this fight. I see the belt, and I think, Hey, if I put on this big metal belt buckle under my t-shirt, when Simon goes to punch me in the stomach, he’ll hurt his hand.

Hmm, could I do such a thing? Is this morally correct? I decided it was, since I didn’t even really want to fight. So I wrestled with my conscience briefly, and I put that belt buckle on, put my t-shirt over it, and I left my bedroom.

Now, I tell you, this is an important part of the story. Emotionally, I felt smug wearing that belt buckle. I felt like I had a secret weapon. I felt invincible. I thought, wow, I have a huge advantage here. There’s no way I can lose, because man, I got my Trans Am belt buckle on.

Okay, so I get downstairs, babysitter’s ready, my brother’s with me, that’s my camp, that’s my entourage. We start walking down the street. As I’m walking down the street, no kidding, my head, I can actually, I have the memory of my chin lifting, because I was so confident that I could win this fight as long as I’m wearing that magic belt buckle.

Alright, so we go down the street, and I run into Simon. Not at first– first I run into Simon’s big brother, Ben, that’s his real name, and his cronies. They come out of the house and they’re all laughing. They pile out, they open up the door to present Simon…

Simon steps out wearing full hockey gear, hockey goalie gear. He’s got the mask, he’s got the arm pads, he’s got the leg pads, and my memory says that he even was holding a goalie stick. In that moment, it never occurred to me that this would all get called off, and that wouldn’t be fair, and it was more of a joke. But in that moment, all I could feel was my incredible cockiness dissolve instantly in the face of someone who was far better prepared for what was about to happen.

My secret weapon was worthless. Instantly, it vaporized.

Now, of course, I had a good manager here. Chrissy said, No, no. Come on, guys, you can’t have him wearing hockey pads. That’s not fair. And they all kind of knew that, I guess. So they made him take off all that equipment. Whew! But I’ll never forget that feeling of how my confidence just completely disappeared in the face of a foe who was better prepared than I was.

Okay, so he takes off that gear, and now we head into the backyard. The backyard, no big deal. It’s just patchy grass, a high fence. All of the dudes are on one side, these teen boys with Simon. They’re getting him ready.

I’m over in my corner with my brother and Chrissy. Maybe her sister was there. And I’m back to feeling pretty good about my belt buckle. I’ve got a shot. Until I saw, oh, guess what? They’ve got boxing gloves. They were ready for this. They handed us these old lumpy boxing gloves– I think they were purple– and they tied on gloves.

Now I’m thinking, again, my secret weapon’s not going to be so good. But at least it’s a shield. Maybe it won’t hurt his hand, but at least I have something to hide behind for a gut punch. So not all is lost. I still have a small advantage. All right.

So the fight begins. Here’s what happens…

They kind of bring us together as if it’s a professional fight. They’re enjoying this whole ridiculousness. And they say, OK, let’s fight. Boom, go.

Now, look, I have no fight training at this point. Simon has no fight training at this point, other than the fact that he has an older brother who maybe was kicking his butt a lot. I don’t know. Bottom line is, it looked like a cartoon. It’s one of those clouds and like maybe two cats, so just an occasional claw popping out, maybe a star once in a while, and just bah, bah, bah, bah, bah.

We’re both just pinwheeling our arms wildly, probably half the time, not even looking. And it’s just up and down, high effort pinwheeling. Trying to catch our breath a little bit. Pinwheeling just nonstop. Nobody doing any damage.

I can’t tell you how long that went, but at some point, we were both really tired, and so they gave us a break. So let’s call that round one. So they’re over there, giving their boy a little neck rub and a little pep talk. I’m over my corner doing the same. But really, I can’t hear what anybody’s saying, because all I can feel or not feel are my arms.

My arms, no joke, were as red as this shirt I’m wearing. Just beet red. In fact, maybe that’s where that phrase comes from. It’s not beet red like the vegetable red beets, it’s like beaten red. My arms were just beat, beaten up red. So they were numb. They were feeling like I was carrying two 50-pound dumbbells. My arms were toast. But back into action. Here we go.

We get thrown into round two…

Round two is pretty much the same as round one. We’re both just pinwheeling, pinwheeling, pinwheeling until it happened. One of my hands, bam, hits him right in the nose. And it was one of those kinds of shots where time just stopped. It was obvious immediately that this fight was over.

Hit him in the nose. Started bleeding almost immediately. He stopped, put up his hands. He saw blood. And that’s when he kind of freaked out.

Now, one little thing about Simon I forgot to mention. The only thing that I remember about Simon was that he had an absolutely ridiculous temper. So if he lost the hockey game or whatever, he’s one of those kinds of guys who’d say, I hate everybody. I’m taking my ball and I’m going home.

But when he would throw a tantrum, he would make this sound like he was an alien. Honestly, he pump up himself with his breath and just go WEGHHHH! I would say it was like a wild animal, only I’ve never heard an animal make that kind of a noise. It really was otherworldly.

Now, he never actually got to that enraged state during the fight, which was curious. He had some sham rage. I mean, he was kind of pretending that he was all hyped, but he never got to that crazy pitch that I was expecting. But after he got hit in the nose, that’s when he lost it.

It wasn’t so much from anger. It looked just more like frustration or just fear or sadness, whatever it was. His emotions just boiled over, and he was just bleeding and making this crazy noise. I can’t forget that. That was the most memorable part of this.

So at that point, the boys, his team gathered him up and took him inside, while Chrissy untied my gloves. And that was it. I mean, there was really no closure to this. It was just sort of, Okay, I guess it’s done. And the last image I remember is we were walking out of the backyard along the side of the house, and there was a window…

I looked up in the window, and that’s where their kitchen sink was. And the guys had Simon bent over the sink where he was just bleeding out, I guess. These weren’t doctors, mind you. I bet even today. And he was just bleeding out. And he had a rag, but he was making that noise.

So I remember the muffled sound of this imprisoned alien, just bleeding and screaming. And we had eye contact one last second. It may have been the last time I ever saw that guy. And I just remember walking out, very Zen-like, I really had no feelings about any of this, and just walking out and seeing him completely out of his mind. And that was it. Slow walk home.

I seem to recall maybe Chrissy cut out like a little fake ribbon or made some kind of little trophy thing just to say, good job. So that’s it. That’s the end of the fight.

What did I learn from this fight?

Well, I got three things I wanted to talk about. Two of them we’ve kind of talked about before in other podcasts. So I’ll be brief. And the third one I think is a little more important. So let’s get to that.

Number one lesson– keep swinging.

So this just goes under that heading of fight till the last punch. Don’t give up. Go down swinging. And we’ve talked about this one before.

The only extra element I would add to that today is this idea of a lucky punch. I’m sure when you hear this story, it sounds like, Okay, we got two wild men swinging these punches around. And hey, I got lucky. My punch hit first. But you know what? Regardless of this story, whatever you think of this story, I’ve never liked that phrase.

When you see two professional fighters going, and you say, Oh, that was a lucky punch there at the end. Or even a lucky throw and a lucky catch to score the big touchdown– it’s a lucky catch. I don’t, I never really liked that phrase because that lucky punch was a punch.

If I got into a fight and I curled up in a ball and lay on the ground and just took a beating, well, there’s no chance of having a lucky punch because I’m not throwing any punches. But if you’re still standing there, and you’re still swinging, whether you know what you’re doing or not, whether you’re terrified or not, if that punch hits, take credit for that.

That wasn’t a lucky punch. You threw the punch. They were throwing punches too. It fell my way. When I fought Simon, it fell my way. I shouldn’t feel like, well, you got lucky. I should feel like, hey, good for you. At least you kept swinging.

Your arms were numb. I didn’t even want to fight this guy. I was getting grazed and hit too. But I didn’t stop. I kept swinging. And when you keep doing something, there’s a chance you’re going to get the results that you want. What’s that phrase?

The harder I work, the luckier I get. So I would put that in your mind all the time. As long as you’re still swinging, you’re doing pretty good.

Lesson number two. This one’s pretty simple, and I think it’s not going to be a big surprise.

Lesson number two– everybody should learn to fight a little.

You hear me say it all the time– even a little martial arts makes life a whole lot better. In this case, if I had had even a little bit of fight training, how to protect my head, how to throw a little better punch, how to pick my moment or pick my target, that fight could have been over a lot easier. Same for Simon. That could have been a lot shorter that way as well.

It’s crazy to me that children, adults, everyone in the world is not taught how to fight a little bit in the name of self protection, obviously. To me, this is no different than learning the ABCs.

If you can learn the ABCs in school, and you can learn your 1-2-3s, why in the world are you not learning your 1-2-knees?

That’s the most basic self defense you can learn. How to throw a 1-2, how to grab somebody, and just start throwing knees. So, whatever you can do in your community, whether it’s to teach your children, or go take a lesson yourself, or get a program going in your local school, or whatever group you’re part of, you have a book club– hey, why don’t you have one night where your book club meets at a martial arts school, take a class together.

As always, I believe that the vast majority of people in this world are good. But it’s also true that the vast majority of people in this world have no idea how to fight. I mean zero idea. If anything, they’re against all fighting and violence, and they haven’t even given themselves the permission to fight for a good cause. They think it somehow makes them a bad person, just to think about fighting for any reason.

But of course, that’s how the bad guys win, right? The good guys have been duped into believing that all fighting is bad, all violence is bad, and not recognizing that violence is just a tool. And if good people don’t train themselves to stand up for themselves, and yes, sometimes put their hands up, well, then the bad guys will always have an advantage. They’ll have the belt buckle, and we have nothing.

So, lesson number two. Hey, everybody should fight a little bit. Alright, let’s get to the big one.

Lesson number three –step outside your bedroom. Step around the corner.

It’s so easy to delude yourself, to hypnotize yourself into thinking that you’ve got all the answers, that you’re really good at what you do, and that you’re prepared for whatever life throws at you. But that’s usually not the case. Or let me say that another way.

There’s always more to learn, and there’s always room for improvement. There’s always room to make yourself a little stronger, a little tougher, a little braver, and a little wiser. The minute you think that’s not true, you are the guy wearing a belt buckle under your t-shirt thinking you got it all figured out. And then what happens when you run into the guy who’s got the hockey pads on, and they’re not taking them off.

That’s it. You’re done. Your fight’s over.

What do you do when the other guy’s got a bigger belt buckle? We’re constantly in situations where we can be outmatched. And it shouldn’t be that way. If you’re always working, if you’re always learning, if you’re always putting in the extra effort to ask a question or to take a class or to have the humility to start over again and look at what you’re doing from a new perspective, that is the only way you should have any kind of confidence walking around in this world.

When I earned my first black belt, or when people found out, Oh, you’re a black belt, you would presume that that would be my proudest moment, earning that first black belt. And sure, I was proud of myself. But do you know what made me more proud than earning my first black belt? Tying on a white belt after earning the black belt.

I talked in my recent video about my reasons for moving on from Taekwondo. I had a great time in Taekwondo and I learned a lot there. But when I tied on a white belt in a Kung Fu class for the first time, that was something I was much more proud of, because I was out of my bedroom and off of my street. I was around the corner. I was doing something different.

And then, many years later, I started Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, about ten years ago now. And that was another situation where by the time I started Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, I already had three black belts. And my black belt in Kung Fu was a fairly advanced degree, enough so that I could just use that as my certification to teach for the rest of my life. I’m good. I’m done.

But I knew that Brazilian Jiu Jitsu offered something that I needed. There was another dimension to self-defense and just my self-development. There was something there that I wanted. And tying on that white belt at the age of whatever I was ten years ago, so like about 40, to me, that was another proud moment.

I’m not telling you this to say, Oh, aren’t I cool? Aren’t I the best? No. I’m using it just as an example of what everybody should be doing, I think, of you learn something and you keep learning. You keep pushing yourself. You keep coming back to saying, Yeah, I shouldn’t be smug or cocky. I can be proud of what I’ve done, but I should always be open minded to go learn something else.

Then a little over four years ago, I started taking lessons in Systema. You can laugh all you want if you want, but I’m going to laugh right back at you. Because that’s how you keep learning. That’s how you can see what you’ve been doing from a new perspective. That’s how you grow and get a little more real confidence. That fake confidence that you get from sitting in your bedroom, putting on your belt buckle and thinking, I am invincible. If I am ever in a fight today, no one can beat me, because I have my Trans Am belt buckle on. That guy is someone you should worry about.

Going outside to try this and try that and meet this person and try a different training methodology and try a different set of techniques and skills. That person, they have got the right to be a little more confident because they’re earning it.

Especially in the martial arts, I’m sure you already know what I’m talking about. The room for delusion and self-hypnosis is huge. And there’s a reason for that. The reason is, I can’t think of another activity where you’re not actually allowed to practice the activity that you’re training for.

For instance, let’s say you’re going to go take piano lessons. You don’t go sit at the piano and have your teacher say, OK, well, I want you to practice this scale. But don’t touch the keys. Just put your fingers over the keys and make that pattern. But don’t you dare make a noise.

That would be a ridiculous way to learn how to play the piano, right? You could probably actually learn the exact fingering of a very complex piece over time. But you don’t actually know how to play the piano yet, because you haven’t felt the pressure of making noise.

Same with soccer, right? If you go to play soccer, you’re not going to say, OK, well, you guys can dribble or whatever you call that. Move the ball up and around anywhere you want. But when you get to the goal, leave the ball alone. I want you to kick next to the ball and just pretend that you’re kicking.

Makes no sense. But what do we do in martial arts? You can’t really kill people. You can’t do that. How many people have really gouged out an eye or crushed a trachea or broken someone’s back or their neck? Hopefully that’s a small number.

Instead, you have to pull the punch. You have to slow down so that your partner can tap. No matter what style you’re in, no matter how hardcore you think you are, there’s a margin that pulls you back from full reality. There’s always a rule. There’s a ref. There’s some type of guideline to make sure that everyone’s not getting killed or brain damaged all the time.

So martial arts is very strange that way. But once you open up that margin between completely real and how you train, and again, that’s going to be maybe a slim margin for some schools, but then it becomes a bigger margin in other schools until it could be a gigantic margin in a different school.

And that’s where trouble starts, right? That’s where you are just spinning your own wheels, and I just pray that that never leads to being cocky or smug. I know I’ve got examples of what I would call just bad teaching, but bad teaching that came out of that margin between what’s really real and how we train.

For instance, you want examples, right? I was told crescent stepping in traditional martial arts– you bring your feet together, you make that half moon shape as you walk across the floor doing techniques– I was told by a teacher that the reason that you make that crescent step is because in the old days, when you wanted to sneak up on a soldier or an enemy, and they were standing in high grass– I can’t even get these words out– if you wanted to sneak up silently on that guy, you’d have to use your foot to press down the grass so that you wouldn’t make noise.

I was told that this is how the Native Americans used to do it, and that this knowledge had been passed down so you could sneak through the grass and sneak up on your enemy and kill them. Hey, no disrespect intended if that’s what you have been told and that’s what you believe, but I feel that I’ve been out of my bedroom and around the corner enough to know that’s not really why you do that.

I was also told that an X-Block, right– classic formation– I was told that that was for when a guy’s got a gun on you– shotgun, a rifle– and you’re jumping at them and pressing down the barrel of the long gun, of that long barrel, and then of course you continue on to punching and kicking.

What? Right? Is that me? And some of these techniques were developed before there were guns. I can’t even– what?

Of course, I think I mentioned once in a podcast, just because it sticks out of my mind about smugness, a very small-framed, light woman– couldn’t have weighed more than 110– and we were talking about rape scenarios. And she actually smirked when she would talk about the idea of being raped, because her attitude was, If anybody ever tries to rape me, they’re in for a big surprise.

Now look, I’m the last guy to try to take away somebody’s confidence that has been built through skill, practice, and experience, but in my mind, to consider any violent attack with a smirk– I don’t care who you are, what your rank is, or what your training is– to just get to that place in your life where you would imagine a violent attacker surprising you when you’re not expecting it, to try to rape you or murder you or anything, just touch you, rob you, and to think that would ever be easy or simple or a snap or no problem?

That scares the hell out of me that a teacher would ever present material like, Oh yeah, this part’s easy. Or, No problem. I’ve talked about that before, so I won’t belabor it. But please, don’t be one of those people. At least stay humble enough to say, Well, I’ve trained, I’ve prepared the best I can, and then let’s just see what life brings.

Because everybody can be killed, in case no one’s told you. Anybody can be killed. Anyone can be caught off guard. Anyone can be surprised. Anyone can get stabbed, or sucker punched, or outnumbered, or just caught at the wrong time in a bad place. Anybody.

Which is why, if you’re wise, you don’t want trouble with anybody. I don’t want trouble. Because I know, what’s the old saying– when two tigers fight, one gets mauled and one gets killed. There’s no easy way out of a fight.

That’s why you want to prevent fights as much as you can by hanging out with good people, by treating everyone with respect, by being the first one to say sorry, even if it’s not your fault, by trying to use your words, create distance, and escape. That’s always the most sensible thing. Because fighting is ugly business, and as good as you may be, there’s always a chance of getting killed.

Alright, so enough about that.

My advice to you today, the point of telling you about my first fight, and about my belt buckle, was to encourage you to take a class, read a book, ask a question, visit a new school, go to a conference. I don’t care what part of your life we’re talking about.

Martial arts, being a parent, being a spouse, being a friend, your business, whatever it is you do, don’t just say, you got this. Don’t put your chin up and think, Ha, I’ve got this secret weapon. I’m invincible. I can’t do any better. Because there’s always another level. There’s always something or someone out there who can take away what you’ve got. And that’s why we talk about fighting.

Good people shouldn’t be afraid or be unprepared to fight for a good cause, to fight to keep what they have, to fight to protect your family and your friends and what’s good in this world. That’s why we’re here.

My hope for you is that your next fight, because there will be one, whether it’s again in your family or it’s in your business or it’s on the mats, I don’t want your next fight to be your last fight. And the best way to make sure the odds are in your favor is to keep learning. You deserve to invest in yourself as much as possible.

Make that time. Spend that money. You are worth it.

So that is my advice. Get out of your bedroom and get off of your street. That to me is one of the biggest secrets in how to fight for a happy life.

Okay, that’s the show. I hope you’re feeling pumped up enough to tie on your belt, pack a lunch, and head out to start a new adventure. If you like this show, thanks for subscribing to the channel and maybe sharing with a friend. That would mean a lot to me.

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