Welcome to Episode #72 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “Are You Ready to Fight?”
No, seriously… are you?
If some maniac suddenly jumped on you RIGHT NOW, are you prepared to fight back?
Are your muscles tight? Will your clothes hold you back? Can you flip your mindset from calm to aggressive in a blink?
In this episode, let’s examine the gap between your life on the mats and your life off the mats. Hopefully, they’re not too far apart!
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Are You Ready to Fight?
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TRANSCRIPT
Hey, Ando here from Happy Life Martial Arts. Welcome to episode #72 of Fight for a Happy Life, the show that believes even a little martial arts makes life a whole lot better.
Today, I’ve got a little story for you. I got called out for a fight. It’s kind of a silly story, but it raises a serious question. Are you ready to fight? I mean, for real. I’ll tell you that story and share some thoughts right after this, but, spoiler alert, I’m just fine.
Okay, our story begins right here. I’m standing in a location of Dawn Barnes’ Karate Kids here in Los Angeles. In case you didn’t know, this is where I’ve been working for over 13 years, helping kids be their best through martial arts. It’s the kind of program I wish I had access to when I was a kid.
On this particular day, which is only a couple of days ago, I was sitting right here at this table. The front door is wide open. We’ve got a sign outside with some balloons floating around. And I have a coworker sitting over here at her desk. She’s also on her computer. That’s when a fellow bounces in the door.
He’s about 22, 23, and I would just describe him as kind of a hipster. Not homeless, but a hipster. He had kind of a cool beret, kango hat on, ear buds, holding a coffee drink. His shirt matched his shoes. It’s well put together.
So he bounces in the door and he looks around and he says, Oh, cool Karate. I like Karate. You guys do Karate here? Keep in mind, there’s a huge sign outside and it’s on the door, so, Yeah, we do Karate here.
My coworker speaks to him first and she says, Yeah, can I help you? And he says, Oh, I really like Karate and I’m interested in classes. So I step in and I say, Well, once you start shaving, you’re a little old for what we do here. And he says, No man, I don’t mean taking classes. I’m interested in teaching classes.
Oh, okay, so context shift. In my brain now, I’m thinking like, Okay, was this the kind of guy I can hire? It’s kind of an odd first impression, the way he bounced in, but maybe he’s just an artsy guy. Maybe he’s great with kids. So, all right, I’ll play along.
So first question, I say, Oh, okay. Well, what’s your background? What styles have you studied? He says, Oh, everything.
Okay, pause the story. Everything. First off, the guy is 22, 23, tops. But even if you’re 122 or 123, that’s just the wrong answer, right? Studying everything. All right, anyway, back to the story.
So I say, Everything, huh? And he says, Oh, yeah. Boxing, jiu-jitsu, but mostly Jeet Kune Do.
Jeet Kune Do. So I say, Oh, well, that’s kind of everything. He says, Well, that just shows you know nothing about Jeet Kune Do, because Jeet Kune Do studies everything.
All right, pause the story again. I don’t want to get into this whole thing, but Jeet Kune Do, the way I understood it– even though I know it’s been kind of standardized in some places and seems like it’s a style of its own nowadays– in the original spirit of it, it seemed like Bruce Lee was just trying to say, Do your own thing wherever that leads you.
Doesn’t mean you have to study everything. You just do your thing. It’s just a name. Don’t fuss over it. That whole idea. But I don’t want to get into all that argument with this guy. So anyway, back to the story.
Next question. I ask, Have you ever taught kids before? He says, Yeah. I say, Great. What ages? He says, Oh, you know, 16, 17, 18. And I said, Oh, that’s kind of a bummer, because by the time you get to high school, you’re kind of done with this place. I mean, look around. We have kites on the ceiling.
And he says, Oh, yeah, that’s pretty young. He said, I can’t teach kids that young what I do. I say, What do you mean? He goes, Well, it’s Jeet Kune Do. I mean, everything is just lethal street defense. I mean, I can’t teach kids that. It’s so ugly, I couldn’t teach that. But maybe I could teach kicks. He goes, I’m not great at them, but I could probably teach the little kids kicks.
And I said, Well, you don’t have to make up anything. We have a whole curriculum here. We already have this all kind of worked out, but I’m glad to hear you’d be willing to teach kicks. He goes, Yeah, because I can’t teach the other stuff.
And I, at this point, understand that this is not going to work out as far as hiring him. And I let him know that I say, You know, I don’t think we’re on the same page, but thanks for coming in. And he’s not convinced that this is a done deal yet. So he keeps going…
And he’s starting to talk to me about the philosophy of martial arts, and why what he’s doing has got great value, and there’s got to be a way for him to be able to teach what he’s doing to these little kids, and– you know, at this point in my life, I’ve learned that if someone is a little nutty, and at this point he’s gone over that line a bit, it’s better just to let them talk, let them have their say, let them be heard. I can take that for a couple of minutes. Maybe I’ll learn something in the process. No harm done. I can do that. Because then usually they feel good. And so I do.
I let him go, and he’s telling me about martial arts, not realizing that maybe I have a head start on him, and I have some knowledge about this stuff too. But I let him go. And he keeps going on and on. And he’s preaching to me about what he believes and what martial arts is all about. And by the end of it, I’m still smiling. I’m very patient. I promise you, I’m not looking for trouble with this guy.
I say, Well, that’s all great, and I wish you well, but really, I don’t think we’re on the same page here. I don’t think you have the experience we’re looking for. But thanks for coming in. And that pretty much, that was the end of the nice stuff.
He got flustered by that. So he starts backing up a little bit, and he goes, Hey, why don’t we just settle this? Your Karate versus my Jeet Kune Do. Let’s just fight. And I said, Well, look, man, I’m not going to fight you. He goes, No, let’s just go in there. Let’s just settle it. Come on.
No, I said, I just want peace here, man. I’m not looking for trouble. So he got a little more aggressive after that. He said, Come on, what are you, a BEEP? Come on, don’t be a BEEP. Just come on, let’s fight. And I said, No, man. Hey, man, just peace. I just want peace.
Now I’m kind of walking him towards the door, kind of backing him out. And he is backing out. So I get him outside the door. And there’s a middle-aged woman out there. She’s walking her dog. And he’s appealing to her. He’s like, Look at this guy. Blah, blah, blah, pretending to be all nice. He’s so passive aggressive. Look at this guy.
And I said, something– kind of wise guy– I’m like, Oh, passive aggressive. I said, Well, that’s better than being aggressive aggressive. You actually just want to fight.
And as a weird side note, the middle-aged woman immediately assessed the situation and said, Well, he, meaning me, he seems to be very calm and you seem very angry. So she kind of took my side.
Anyway, he saw this wasn’t going anywhere, so he kind of threw up his hands and he walked off down the street. I looked over at my co-worker and we couldn’t believe what had just happened. And I looked down the street. He had walked off.
Went back to my computer work, and a few minutes later, he walked by again, just kind of waving his arms, like, What’s up? And I haven’t seen him since. And hopefully I never do. Again, no ill will towards him. I wish you well, sir, if you’re seeing this video. But like I said, we’re just not on the same page. This wouldn’t be a good fit.
Okay, but that brings us now, my silly little story, to the big serious question…
Are you ready to fight anywhere, anytime, with anyone?
Like I said, I was sitting over here at this table and my head was completely at work, thinking about kid art, graphics, hunched over a computer. So my head was very far away from having a young adult come in and challenge me to a fight and maybe, within a second, being on the ground, rolling around or getting my head slammed into a wall, or slamming his head into a wall.
How long does it take you to go from your normal life, whatever you’re doing right now, to fighting for your life? Normal life to fighting for your life. Because to me, that reveals a lot about your training and about how you see yourself as a martial artist.
I remember something that my first Karate teacher told me. He said, Hey, if you want Karate to be with you all the time, then you have to practice it all the time. If you want Karate to be with you everywhere you go, then you have to be training everywhere you go.
That’s a pretty big point, don’t you think? That’s the difference between training martial arts as an activity, something you do once or twice a week, and living martial arts as a lifestyle.
It’s very simple when you go to a class, let’s say, and you have time to prepare for that. Okay, I’m going to go fight. Mondays and Wednesdays from 7 to 8.30, I have this class and I can eat to prepare for that. I can dress a certain way. I can warm up a certain way. I can prepare myself a certain way. I can review my notes. I’m ready to fight.
But then what happens when you leave class? I think for a lot of martial artists, that’s something that you just leave behind. You stop being a martial artist for a moment or two. You just kind of drift into your normal life as if you hadn’t even been to your school. And you just hope that it’ll be there if you need it sometime.
But I don’t think that’s how it works. Not at its best. Maybe if you have time to prepare, then you could pull up some skills and get ready to fight. But I think for most of us, you’re going to get caught off guard. Just like this guy walking in. I wasn’t looking for that fight.
Or if you remember a couple episodes ago, and I told you about my wife and I tackling that thief, we weren’t given any warning for that. One minute you’re holding hands, the next minute you’re chasing down a bad guy. And when I think back to any type of harassment I’ve ever received, or seen knives get pulled, any of those situations, any emergency, there’s usually no warning for that.
I only say usually because, you know, maybe back in high school, there’d be some guy, Oh, that guy’s going to beat you up after school. Watch out. Blah, blah, blah. So maybe there’d be some inkling in your head that, Oh, I know who I’m going to be fighting, and I know when it’s going to probably happen, and where it’s going to happen. So you have a vague idea of bad stuff coming. But most life doesn’t work like that.
You don’t know. Which means, you have to be prepared everywhere and at all times.
Now that could sound a little bit paranoid, but I don’t mean it like that. Because again, if it’s just part of your lifestyle to have good posture, to be breathing, to be stretching, to move your body, to feel that you have not, you’re not carrying too many things around, either physically or mentally, these are just habits that if you make part of your life, it’s not paranoid, it’s just preparation. It’s just who you are.
For example, when I told you that story about chasing down that thief, one little detail I think I forgot to mention was once I found myself on the ground with that guy, I noticed that one of my sneakers had popped off. How did that happen? Because during the movie– we had just come out of the movie theater– I had loosened up my sneakers. They were a little tight. I wanted to relax. It was a long movie, so I had loosened up my sneakers. And when we left the theater, I forgot to tighten them back up.
Same thing on a plane I often loosen my sneakers on a plane, because your feet swell, I heard, and then I usually tighten them up before I leave the plane. But in this case, I had forgotten. So now I’m running through this parking lot, and when I get this guy, my sneaker had popped off, which might have put me at a disadvantage, right?
If I didn’t have as much traction on the ground as he did, I’d be sliding around, and that’s not ideal. Or if I wanted to kick with that foot, that would not have been ideal. So that’d be one simple example of how if I had been more in a preparation mindset, I would have been better prepared for that situation. Thankfully, it turned out okay.
In the same way, when I started martial arts back in my teens, I never again bought a pair of pants that I can’t run in or kick in. Are you the same? I’m not kidding. I mean, I will, if I try on a pair of pants, the first thing I do is to see if I can lift up my leg. That’s the first thing I do. And then I squat down to see if I can get down low. Because I already know, not from a paranoia standpoint, just from a life experience standpoint, that you never know when you’re going to need to run. You never know when you’re going to need to be able to kick. And I don’t want my shoes flying off, I don’t want my pants holding me back, I don’t want my shirt holding me back.
That’s why I don’t wear flip flops, I don’t wear dangling jewelry, I don’t have piercings, I don’t believe in long hair, I don’t believe in hoodies. I don’t want to wear anything that can be used against me.
Does that sound paranoid? I really don’t think it is. I think it’s just common sense if you’re a martial artist. Alright, so this is the big question.
Are you living a martial arts lifestyle?
Let me give you another example. As I said, I was sitting at this table, and my head was in this graphics project. But here’s what you don’t know. Even though I had been working over there for, I don’t know, an hour and a half on a couple of different projects, and my head was in the business of helping the school keep going, every time I would hit a creative block, whether I was typing up an email or creating the graphics, instead of just staring at the computer and staying hunched over and leaving my brain stuck there, I have a habit of getting up.
While I’m thinking, maybe I’m swinging my arms, maybe I’ll drop and do ten push-ups, maybe I’ll get into a squat and loosen up my back, then I come back and continue with the project. So generally speaking, I try to move between: am I feeling powerful, am I feeling comfortable and what’s this work I have to keep working on?
And I think it actually helps, because sometimes when you get stuck in a project– just as a little life tip– a work tip, a productivity tip, when you get stuck on a project, because you’re looking at it one way, literally just by standing up and thinking about it from a different angle or moving your blood around or having a different sensation, it kind of frees things up and maybe you come back to that project with a better idea or at least a different idea.
So I recommend taking these little physical breaks anyway. Just for the creative side of things. But certainly as a martial artist, it’s helpful just on the physical side of things. That you’re constantly tuning back into your body. You’re feeling the ground. I’m adjusting myself just to make sure I’m ready for anything. Because isn’t that the point?
Let me back up a second. Remember when I said you go to class and you have that time to prepare? Well, why are you going to that class in the first place? Aren’t you going there for some type of transformation? Wasn’t that the whole point? Aren’t you there to change your life somehow? Hopefully for the better, presumably.
So let’s say this. Let’s say you go to class and maybe you’ve been having a rough day. Maybe you love martial arts class because that’s the one place where you can feel comfortable yelling with your full voice. You get pushed to use your full physicality. You breathe deeper than you’ve breathed all day. You are more brave. You’re more courageous.
You’re sparring or you’re rolling and you’re getting pushed. And you not only reveal your true power, you get to develop your true power. Isn’t that the beauty of a martial arts class? Maybe more than any other activity in the world. At least that’s what I believe.
That martial arts class gives you the chance to be the most powerful version of yourself possible. But what happens right after class? If you leave the best version of you in the classroom, then you’ve just made a complete loss of the whole experience, right? You’ve blown it.
The point is to develop your best person and then take that version of you with you outside into the real world. That’s the point.
It would be like you go shopping at the supermarket. You need food. You have nothing at home. So you go to the supermarket. You spend a half an hour filling up your cart with this. You make all these careful selections. Do I want that? Gluten free this? Blah, blah, blah. Low sodium that? Blah, blah, blah.
You have this great shopping cart. And then you just leave it. You walk out. You don’t buy any of it. Now you go home again and you’re like, man, I’m starving. I wish I had some food. That makes no sense, right? That’s a huge waste of time. And now you have nothing.
Martial arts class or martial arts training is exactly the same thing. You’re spending all of this time. And you’re filling up yourself with, Oh, this is me at my bravest. Oh, this is me getting stronger. Oh, this is me being creative and being powerful. Now you gotta take that home.
You buy all of those things by sweat and by work and by coming back honestly and saying, what do I need to get better at? Where am I failing? How can I improve?
Once you buy that stuff with your hard work, you take it home. You take it to work. You take it into the community. That’s where you can eat from it. That’s where you can sustain yourself. That’s where you can move ahead.
So I’m wondering if you’re doing that, what parts of your life are directly influenced by your martial arts training? And where do you have no connection whatsoever? Are you bringing the best of you into your work, into your relationships, into your business? Or is martial arts just that little thing you do once in a while to kind of feel good?
I’m begging you. Martial arts is powerful, not just as physical exercise, but as therapy, but as a journey into self-knowledge, as a journey into being the best version of yourself possible. So use it. Take it with you. Carry it with you.
Now, just to be clear, I’m not just talking about fighting here. I don’t want to give that impression, because to me, martial arts is a lot more than just being able to fight. Are you also ready at any moment, everywhere you go, at any time with anyone, are you ready to forgive?
Are you ready to help somebody? Are you ready to love someone? Are you ready to make a friend? That’s the full project of martial arts, right? You have the power to hurt someone or the power to heal someone. You have the power to be frightening and destructive, or you have the power to be friendly and constructive.
So when I say that you reveal your true self in a martial arts class or during your training, and that you develop your true powers, your full powers in your training, it’s not just your destructive powers– your ability to fight somebody– it’s also your ability to control your anger, to become more patient, to be kinder, to manage your relationships well so that people aren’t always offended when they talk to you, or that you feel offended when you talk to someone.
Isn’t that part of the martial arts project? To me, it absolutely is. If you can’t control your weapons, then I don’t want you to have weapons. I need you to be responsible with them, right?
So that’s the bigger question. Not just are you ready to fight, but are you ready to help?
When you take your full powers with you, out of your training and into the real world, now you have the ability not just to fight for yourself, but to fight for your friends, fight for your family, fight for anyone on Team Good Guys who needs you. You also have the ability to help anyone who needs your help. You have the ability to love someone who no one else is loving.
That is real power. You have the choices. You have the options of someone who is confident enough to do whatever you need to do to make a situation right.
Could I have accepted this guy’s challenge and fought him and tested my Karate versus his Jeet Kune Do? Absolutely. Would that have made the world a better place? I don’t think so. That’s just my call. Maybe you’d vote differently.
Maybe you’d say, you know what, that guy just needs a punch in the face and he would learn a little humility. I get that. There was a time when I needed a good punch in the face to learn a little humility. So I understand. But in this case, my choice, I was very proud of myself to have a choice.
When a young guy comes up to you and says he wants to fight, it would be very easy for this old guy to say, Oh, yeah? Okay, you’re a tiger cub. I’ll show you what the old great silver tiger’s got. But I didn’t. Because I’ve been around. I’m not looking for a fight or a lawsuit. Certainly not while I’m on the job. Put the whole company into trouble.
No, I could see other options. I could feel sorry for him a little bit. Or I could kind of see a bit of myself in this guy. This is what wisdom brings you. A perspective. Another way of looking at things. Not just sitting at the computer, but getting up and looking at the computer. Spinning around and coming back to the computer.
This is what training gives you. A way to see yourself in different positions, literally and figuratively. You get to see yourself winning. You get to see yourself losing. You see yourself in pain. And you see yourself causing pain. And in that way, you get to learn everything you need to know about yourself. So that when you’re in any situation, hopefully you can figure out the right way to either make peace or to put down violence. That to me is the whole goal here. To be a complete martial artist and to be a complete human being.
Please don’t forget, martial arts is only a part of your life, right? Even if it’s part of your lifestyle, it’s part of your life. If you had to stop going to your class, you’re still a person. You’re a person first. The martial arts is your tool to help you develop as a person. So the question is, how are you developing? And as you’re developing, are you bringing the benefits, the rewards of all that hard work with you?
Can people tell that you’re a martial artist, or that you have at least done the work to know yourself? Can they sense your patience? Can they sense your strength? Can they sense that you are ready to help? Can they sense that you’re ready to fight?
My challenge to you is to take a look at your life and ask yourself, am I just a martial artist during class? Am I just a martial artist a couple times a week for a couple hours? Or am I a martial artist everywhere I go? Is that a tool that I use to develop myself and reveal myself at all times with everyone everywhere I go?
I hope that you are making martial arts part of your whole life, part of your whole experience here. And I want you to look at what you’re doing today. What are you wearing? Is that you at your full power?
What are you thinking? Are the thoughts in your head helping you maintain the sense of power that you feel during class?
Who are you hanging out with? Are they bringing out the best in you?
What do you do for a living? Is that satisfying to you? Do you feel fulfilled? Do you feel like you’re making a difference?
Anything that is not helping you reveal your true nature or develop your true power, I would consider cutting out of your life. You can learn a lesson from it. The adversity is good for you, but at some point it becomes toxic if you’re not managing it, if you’re not controlling it. And if you find these gaps in your life where there are things that are holding you back or limiting your power, then I encourage you to add some things into those gaps.
Start finding little times when you can take a breath, when you can stand up a little straighter, when you can sneak off and do ten punches in the corner, when you can think something, remember something that happened in class that made you feel tough and strong and brave and carry that feeling back with you into a meeting, into a date. Because if you don’t do those things, your training is essentially worthless. The point of your training is to affect the rest of your life.
So if you’re not ready to fight anywhere anytime, if you’re not ready to help anywhere anytime, then you’re not only letting yourself down, you’re letting your friends down, you’re letting your family down, you’re letting Team Good Guys down. In that way, you’re letting the whole world down. So, my friend, get ready to fight.
All right, that’s all I have to say for now, but you know me. I’ll probably have more to say about something else later on, so stay tuned for that. If you enjoyed today’s episode, thanks for sharing it with a friend. That means 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.
