#120: Use It or Lose It [Video + Podcast]

Welcome to Episode #120 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “Use It or Lose It.”

Some people say martial arts is like riding a bike… I don’t! I say use it or lose it!

The fact is that no matter how hard you train, you can’t practice everything all the time, which means some skills will always end up being neglected. But wait—the situation is worse than you think.

Unfortunately, a lack of time is not the only reason you will see your hard-earned skills slipping away… not by a long shot!

So, consider this your wake-up call. In this episode, I’ll break down the three major reasons (and a few minor ones) our capabilities get rusty. But I’m warning you in advance—you can’t always stop the corrosion and rot.

Put simply, life is a losing game! Whoa. That sounds bleak, doesn’t it?

Don’t worry—along with the bad news, I’ve also got a four-step formula to help you hold on to your skills for as long as possible. So, don’t give up yet!

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Thanks for listening! Keep fighting for a happy life!

Use It or Lose It – A Martial Arts Warning

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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 #120 of Fight for a Happy Life, the show that believes even a little martial arts makes life a whole lot better.

Happy to be back after a little bit of a break. In case you didn’t know, this is the 10th anniversary of the podcast. I’ve been doing one episode a month for the last 10 years.

So I took a little break just to feel it out and make sure I still felt like yammering on camera. As it turns out, I still love the sound of my own voice, so I’ll be keeping it going for a while.

Also during my time off, I did a little work on an online course, a new course called Martial Arts Over 50. So if you’re getting older and you either took a break from your training or you feel like you’re not getting as much out of your training as you used to, take a look at this course.

It might help as you get into your older years to get the most out of your training as possible. I’ll put a link below. But today, the topic, losing.

I’ve got a warning for you. You are losing skills every day. But do you know which ones?

You work hard, you train hard, you study hard. You may have skills at a world class level. But the fact is, you’re losing something all the time.

If you’re working on this, that means you’re not working on that. No matter how much time and energy you put into one area of your training, that means you’re neglecting a different area of your training.

It’s not always your fault. There are many different factors that go into what you’re gaining and what you’re losing. And that’s what I want to look at today. Let’s figure out how to maximize our capabilities moving forward and stop losing the skills that are the most important to us.

Now let’s start off by breaking down what I think are the three ways that we lose skill. One, life changes. Two, your body changes. And three, your focus changes.

Let’s break these down. Starting off with life. This category is mostly not your fault. Most of these factors you had no responsibility for, it’s just life.

So for instance, maybe money. Maybe you lost your job. Maybe you had to use your money for medical bills or to help out a family member or a friend and suddenly you just don’t have the money to go to class or to take those private lessons or to fly and take that seminar.

Maybe it was time. Maybe you used to have a lot more time when you were back in college or in your 20s, but now you have a family. You have a child and another child. Maybe you have to take on a second job. Time can slip away and now you have less for training.

Maybe it’s the location. Maybe you had to move for your job or to take care of a sick family member and you’re just not in the same town where your old school was. Maybe the school changed locations or the school closed down and now you’re without your training group.

Maybe your teacher passed away. Maybe your favorite training partner moved away or passed away.

All of these things are not your fault. Life happens and hopefully our training has equipped us to do the best we can in these circumstances. But no matter how you cut it, your training changes every time one of those factors is changed.

So most recently, you could probably all relate, the lockdown. I wasn’t responsible for that. But definitely that was a major change to my training routine.

Suddenly only training alone. Solo training only. No partner practice for over a year. That was unthinkable. I had never imagined something like that could happen. And yet there it was.

So in the beginning, it was shocking. And then in a way, it turned into a blessing. Because it forced me to change my perspective on how I was training. It forced me to shake up my priorities and take a good look at how I was spending my time to really figure out if I was using it the best way I could.

We can all fall into a routine that becomes a rut-teen. You’re in a rut. It could be a good rut, but often it’s a bad rut. If you haven’t updated it in several years, I think it’s a great idea to take a look at it. And the lockdown forced me to take a look at it.

I’ve always said that martial arts is really two projects. There’s time spent on developing yourself, and then there’s the time spent developing yourself with another person. Or two or three.

Self-defense is ultimately a relationship. How you manage other people, there’s two sides to that. There’s you and then there’s them and you’re together.

So the lockdown took my focus off of how to control other people and brought it back to how to control myself, my body, my thoughts, my feelings, my strategies. What can I make better? I had to ask.

What have I been neglecting? What skills am I not maximizing? What skills have I lost?

And that led to a whole new training routine. And when it was all done, when the lockdown was over, I found I was in better shape than ever. I also found that my mechanics were better.

I think I had better balance, better weight shifting, my strikes had more impact. I just felt better.

And my breathing, my coordination with my breathing and my mindset, all of it I thought had been polished to a higher degree. So I was grateful for that. But there were losses. Some things I didn’t expect.

I didn’t expect the timing in my sparring to be off because I was visualizing when I’m hitting stuff, I always visualize shadow boxing. But people are different and different people are different.

So there’s always a slightly different space-time continuum to deal with. And so getting back in the groove of reading body language and setting myself in positions where I need to be, that took a little time to sharpen back up. I didn’t expect that as much.

A big surprise was pain tolerance. I’d lost a bit of my pain tolerance. When I wasn’t getting tapped out or choked out or hit all the time.

When I came back and had partners again and felt that pressure and impact, yeah, there was a little bit of an ow factor. Like, ugh, that’s uncomfortable. So I had to catch up on that again, getting back into pain tolerance.

And very specifically, I remember being in a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class and my backward roll for some reason, just not there for me. I had done other conditioning on the ground, but that specific, completely super small backward roll, my back had stiffened up a bit, and I just had a problem with it.

Of course, I wanted it all back. When I realized I’d lost some timing and pain tolerance and a couple of different moves, I wanted them all back. I felt they were all important.

And now I know if I ever have to train alone, if I’m forced to, or just in my own private routine, added a couple of hand-eye coordination drills, like with a ball, playing a little handball against a wall, hitting myself with a stick, poking myself with a stick, just a little bit of impact practice on my own so I don’t lose that.

And animal movements, a little extra time on the ground with a more specific visualization of being stacked up, having all that pressure on my neck, being able to roll that out. So I benefited when I found out what I’d been losing.

How about you?

During the lockdown, whether you honored that for two weeks or a year or you’re still honoring that, what have you lost? Did you notice anything? Did you get it back?

Even without a lockdown, even if you are not forced to just train alone, I think it would be valuable if you just took a minute and reflected on the importance of your school, your teacher, your training partners, and really be specific about what each of those offers you.

What do you get out of those experiences and relationships of being in a school with a teacher, with training partners? Don’t take any of those things for granted.

Whatever situation you’re in with your training right now, get as much out of that as you can while you can before life steps in and closes that school, takes away that teacher, or messes with your time and money and location and you can’t get there anymore. Just be aware of it so you can get more out of it.

Next, after life changes, your body changes. This one, mostly, you can’t do anything about either. It’s expected that your body is going to change as we grow older, but still there are some surprises that come along with that.

Since we’re aging, you’re going to find muscle mass goes down. You start losing muscle mass, no matter how strong you are.

Bone density can change. You might start losing some bone density. Your balance, you might start having some issues with that.

Your eyesight, I don’t take that for granted anymore. Energy level down, recovery time up.

These are just changes from the genetics of being human, apparently.

I’ve even noticed lately, I’m having difficulty swallowing. What the hell is that about? Maybe that’s great because it slows me down eating, but I keep getting caught. I just can’t swallow. I’m looking into it, don’t worry, but that was a surprise.

Of course, I’ve talked before about arthritis. In my late thirties, my shoulders really started bothering me. In my forties, my feet started giving me problems. Now I have to wear orthotics most of the time when I’m training.

And in my fifties, herniated discs became more of an issue. I didn’t plan on any of these things. I certainly didn’t prepare for those things in my twenties and early thirties. But yep, there it is.

To be expected, as we get older, your body changes. But let me tell you what was unexpected. I lost the bounce in my step. The spring in my step. That youthful little spring.

I figured this out crossing the street. You know when you’re crossing the street and the timer is counting down, 5, 4, and so you do a little quick jog just to get across the intersection. You bounce up onto the curb and you’re on your way.

Well, to my horror, I was with my wife a couple of times. We’d be going across the street, see the timer counting down, and I ended up doing the old man jog. I started saying, let me hurry up here.

My hands started moving, but my feet didn’t. So I was basically just still walking, but pretending like I was jogging. My feet felt like they were stuck in cement. No bounce, can’t get going.

And when I got to the curb, forget about bounding up there. No. I found myself stopping and pausing, stepping up safely, and then getting up on the curb.

Who is this guy? What is this? You’re a martial artist? What the heck happened there?

I figured it out. I realized that I used to train in the stadium near where I live. I used to do a lot of stair training. Bounding up, bounding down, jumping down. I realized, oh yeah, you don’t do the steps anymore. You’ve moved into other kinds of training.

I just didn’t do it on purpose. I just stopped going to the stadium. And then I also realized that I had broken my jump rope. I was never a big rope jumper, but I usually always have one. In the trunk of my car, particularly when I was out working out in the park during the lockdown, I was jumping rope. I had a lot of bounce in my step. It felt great.

But then eventually the rope wore out. It broke. And that was one of those things on my list, like, oh yeah, you need a new jump rope. I never got around to it. And there it was.

Without my thinking about it or planning on it, I found myself with no bounce in my step anymore. Horrific!

So this is what I’m talking about. While you’re doing one thing, you’re not doing something else. And if you really want a bounce in your step, you better keep training it. And now I do.

I do appreciate a good bounce in my step. So I’m back to bouncing. I add a little bouncing into my daily routine. And I’ve added some frog jumps. Very simple.

It’s taken about three or four months, but I’m happy to report that my body reclaimed its spring. So you can too.

Evaluate what you’ve been missing. Make a little effort to add it back. And I think you can get it back.

All right. So three. Life can happen. Your body can change. And now the one that’s more responsible, you’re more responsible for, your focus can change.

Right off the bat, I can think about high kicking. Kicking head height. When I started martial arts in my teens, in my early 20s, high kicks were very important to me. What other measure is there as a martial artist than being able to spin hook kick someone in the head?

That’s what I wanted to do. That’s what I did. I stretched, I conditioned for it, I practiced it. High kicking. No.

Once I got into my mid 20s, I started realizing, hang on, this is a skill that takes a lot of my training time. And as I get older, as I’ve seen my older teachers struggle with high kicks and complain about their backs and tight hamstrings and hip implants, I kind of made a decision like, I would rather spend this time practicing techniques that I can work into old age more easily.

I can always just pick up a stick. I can always just kind of move my hands around. So let me just focus on that stuff and forget about the high kicks. And so I set high kicks aside for quite a while.

I mean, I’d still throw them here and there, but they weren’t part of my regular training program. But then in my 40s, I think it was my 40s, I changed my mind. I suddenly thought, well, wait a minute, why am I willingly giving up mobility and the coordination, the balance that high kicks demand?

Isn’t it just good for me as a human animal, just as a someone who’s in motion a lot, to be able to lift my leg up, to have the flexibility and that mobility and the confidence to move my body in any way I want?

I wanted that range of motion back, so I said, you know what, I’m going to start throwing some high kicks again. Let me add that into my training routine. To my horror, they were gone.

It wasn’t just as easy as, okay, let me turn that switch back on, toggle on. No, I had lost that skill. Sure, there’s some muscle memory, but the memories were of younger muscles.

If 10, 15 years have gone by and you haven’t thrown many high kicks, you don’t have them anymore. I don’t believe martial arts is like riding a bike. Your body needs updates all the time. I was basically running old software on a new computer, and there were just too many bugs to let that run smoothly.

In my mind, I felt like I know how to do this, but my body did not remember it really. So the upgrade began. I needed to switch out, update, get better software, switch out the processing, whatever. I’m not a computer guy, but you know what I mean.

I needed to update the systems all across the board, and very slowly and painfully, I’ve gotten my high kicks back. Of course, I’m in my 50s now, so I’m constantly updating and getting that groove back, to get that leg up there with some kind of control and some kind of accuracy and get that done.

I don’t regret it at all, but again, it’s another example that my focus changed and I lost a big chunk of my skill.

Weapons would be another category of loss for me. In years past, I went through a stick phase, went through a knife phase, and staff has come and gone.

Long staff. When I’ve lived in a small apartment, which is most of my life, staff is just not convenient. I’ll keep it in my car, if I go to the park, like during lockdown, suddenly staff became far more a bigger part of my training program.

When I moved to North Carolina, the back of our place opened up to a big field. So again, staff. I was working with it all the time.

I’ve moved back to Los Angeles now. I’m back in a small apartment. So, staff? Difficult.

I’ve taken it out to the park. Once I moved back, it broke. I smacked it onto a tree and it broke.

I haven’t gotten another one, and very quickly it just slipped my mind. Like, oh yeah, I got to go get another staff.

What happened to the sticks and the knives? Very simply, I’m sure you’ve done this. You rearrange your training space or you move to a new place. You put some things, your equipment, into a cupboard or in a closet or they’re in a box somewhere, and then you forget you even have them.

Months go by, years go by, and suddenly you think, what happened to my knives? Where did my chucks go?

You haven’t picked them up in years. So what happened to your skill?

The good news is, clearly you’ve had more time to work on something else, so you’ve been developing, but if you really wanted that knife skill or that stick skill or that staff skill, that stuff might be gone. So out of sight, out of mind.

We’ve got to be careful about that, because time goes by so fast, and every day that you’re not doing what you want to do, you’re losing something. That’s the warning today.

All right, so is there a solution to this? What’s the solution to this? How do you stop losing the skills? Is there a way?

Well, yes, and no. The fact is, here’s the hard, cold truth. In the end, we all lose everything. We lose our lives. So let’s start there and move backwards.

In this slow crawl to the moment that you’re dead, you’re going to be losing things, like it or not, because of life, because of your genetics, your body, your focus, your dreams. Things change. Everything changes.

So what are the last things, the last skills that you want to lose? Please take a minute and answer that question for yourself. Pause the video.

What are the last skills that you want to have with you the moment before you die?

What are the most important skills to you? Is it high kicking? Would you like to be able to do a split till the day you die?

Is it your strength? Do you want to have guns? You want to be able to flex your arm and impress people in a tank top?

Do you want just a clear head and a calm soul? Do you need to add more meditation to your life? Should that become your number one training exercise?

Is it your cardio, heart and lungs? Do you think you’ll live longer if that’s your number one priority?

Do you want to maintain your explosiveness? Do you think that’s the most important?

Do you want to be an encyclopedia of forms, of every style? Make that list. The shorter the better, I would think.

As we’re all losing everything, and you know the ending of the story, you’ve got nothing. What are the last skills you want to have in your possession?

This is the formula, my friends. Start with that.

Number one, set your goals. Which skills do you want till the end?

Number two, prioritize your training to make sure that those things on your goals list are practiced first and most. If you love stick fighting and that’s your favorite thing, that should be the first thing you do, and that should take up the most of your training time.

Don’t get distracted. Focus on that.

Number three, after you set your goals and you prioritize your training routine, keep the tools that you need in sight. Like I said, out of sight, out of mind. So, if you want to keep that balance in your step, then you better have a jump rope, or you better live right next door to some stairs if you want to jump on them.

Keep them near you. Keep them in sight. Don’t put them in a closet. Don’t put them in a box. Put them right up in front.

If you want to work on that staff, put the staff right by your door. You want to lift weights, put those dumbbells right by your bed.

Put the tools that you need right in front of you so that they’re always on your mind. It could be as simple as a poster, by the way. If you’re inspired by a certain body type or a certain hero, put that poster up where you can see it all the time.

Maybe get a tattoo. If there’s some icon or some symbol that means something to you that reminds you of what you want from your training as a martial artist, put that tattoo front and center so that you can see it and keep it in your mind. Because life is busy, and you will find other things to focus on. Just an idea.

Keeping things in view, to me, also means being viewed. Being seen. So that means show up to your class.

If you’re part of a class, keep showing up. If you have a teacher, keep seeing the teacher. If you have good training partners, keep that relationship going. Show up. Be seen. Get in there.

Last part of the formula. Set your goals, prioritize your training, keep your tools in sight. Reflection. Before you train, after you train, take that moment to ask if you’re getting what you wanted. Are you meeting the goals that you set out for yourself?

I don’t think you can do enough of this. Figure out what you’re working on and why and keep that list updated.

It’s so easy to drift into an agenda that’s 20 years old, 10 years old, or someone else’s agenda. Peer pressure, what you see in a movie, what you see in a tournament. Come back to basics.

You’re going to die. What do you really want to be known for? What do you really want to have in your possession? Which skills? The clearer you are, the better. And that’s it. That’s the formula, my friend.

And don’t wait for old age. Don’t wait to shock yourself with what you’ve lost to start this process. Do it right now.

I don’t care if you’re 15 years old. I don’t care if you’re 25 years old. Go through this exercise right now.

The clearer you are, the earlier, the earlier you can be clear, the better for your future training. If your focus changes over the years, so be it. But get clear now.

Remember this–life is a losing game.

I don’t care who you are or how hard you train. In the end, the Grim Reaper always wins. He will take everything from you.

So, our job is to fight, fight, to hold on to what we want as long as we can, to not let that stuff go until the very last second. It’s your choice if you want to let something go or just suck it up when something is stripped away from you without your choice.

Either way, when these things happen, when you have to let something go or something is taken from you, we must be strong enough to make peace with that. If you can make peace with what’s lost, that gives you more time and attention on what you still have.

And focusing on what you have and being grateful for it is absolutely the secret to a happy life.

Okay, you’ve been warned. Time is short in getting shorter. Which is why I’m so grateful that we could spend some of that time together.

If you’d like to spend a little more time together, either training online or taking a class here in Los Angeles, let me know. Training together is something I plan to do until the Grim Reaper says otherwise.

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