#67: Walk Like a Warrior [Podcast]

Welcome to Episode #67 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “Walk Like a Warrior.”

The way you walk tells a story to the world… but is it the story you want to tell?

You change yourself for the better through training in the martial arts, right? But do you leave those benefits behind as soon as you leave the mats? What a waste!

I recently realized that I’ve been walking the same way for the last 20 years. I’m still carrying around old pains and old habits when I should be walking like a warrior. It’s time for an update!

How about you?

Listen in and let’s figure out how to connect our training life to real life.

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To READ along, or if the player won’t play, you’ll find a transcript down below. I also included a related video called, How to Walk Like a Martial Artist, that you might like.

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Thanks for listening! Keep fighting for a happy life! 🙂

Walk Like a Warrior

SHOW NOTE

A special shout-out to Master Gretchen Carlson, a Tae Kwon Do instructor in Madison, WI, for the encouragement to try recording this episode without a script! Challenge accepted! 🙂

You can check out Gretchen’s cool martial arts blog right here: Martial Journeys.

Thanks for the push, Gretchen!

TRANSCRIPT

[0:00 – INTRODUCTION – not transcribed]

[3:43 – MAIN SHOW]
I took a walk in the woods the other day. I think I’ve mentioned before that my wife is a bit of an adventurer. She likes to ski, she likes to mountain bike, and I don’t.

So, when we drive up in the mountains for her to get her ya-yas, I choose to just find a mountain path and go hiking. Of course, it’s more of a “Kung Fu” hike. I use that time alone in the wilderness to tap into my wild side. I will kick a tree over, beat up a bush, pick up rocks and throw them, and just do whatever the heck I want. It’s always a lot of fun… as long as no one sees me.

Anyway, on this particular day, I was walking along and found a clearing, did a set of horse stances and kicks, worked my legs.

Okay. I caught my breath, walked up to the next clearing and, okay, now, I’m going to throw some punches and work on my arm techniques.

Okay. Catch my breath, walk up to the next clearing, appreciate the sunshine and all of that, and at some point, in this cycle of working out and walking, I realized that there was a disconnect between the two.

When I was working out, I was very mindful of setting my spine a certain way, or shifting my weight a certain way, feeling the ground with my feet, relaxing my shoulders, controlling my breath, widening my awareness…you know, Kung Fu type stuff. But then when I would walk, all of that went away and I would find myself just snapping back into some movement pattern that I haven’t changed in years.

And that, my friend, I would say is a failure. I mean, what’s the point of training if it doesn’t affect your whole life?

You train to change. If you’re not changing your whole life, something is wrong.

It shouldn’t be compartmentalized. Like, “Oh, well I do this martial arts thing an hour here and an hour there, and then I leave that all behind and go back to being the way I was before I did martial arts.” That makes no sense.

The point of your training is to reprogram yourself, do you update your software. So, I was really kind of surprised to see that I wasn’t as mindful, or aligned, or relaxed, or aware when I was walking versus when I was stopping to do “Kung Fu”.

This, of course, set me to thinking about how I had walked my entire life. And it was kind of fun to go through the archives of how I walk.

I think the first time I became conscious of how I walked was probably my early teens. This would be when I really started watching movies… movies that starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. Macho movies.

I was not a macho guy, but, of course, when I would see these big, muscle-bound guys, I thought, wow—that’s what I’m supposed to look like. I’m a man. I should look like that.

In particular, I remember modeling myself a bit after Sylvester Stallone. When he would walk, his head would be up, his shoulders were pulled back, and his arms didn’t really swing much. At least not when he was trying to look tough. That was my model for a while. I wanted to be big and macho and I’m going to walk like I’m a big and macho… even though I wasn’t.

I remember attending a school function of some kind and my brother was sitting across the auditorium— really just a gym, but that’s where everyone was sitting—and I walked in from the parking lot, puffing up my chest and holding my arms back. And as I walked across the gym and I got closer to him, I saw him smiling… and then laughing—laughing at me. As I walked up, he said, “Hey, you can put down the suitcases.”

He was calling me out. I looked ridiculous. I was walking like someone I wasn’t. And of course, you can see lots of people walking like that at your local gym.

So, anyway, after that, I was kind of lost. I went back to walking like me. Until I saw Steven Seagal in Above the Law. Now, if you’ve seen Steven Seagal’s walk, you know that it’s pretty distinctive. He also keeps his head up super tall, macho kind of guy, but his arms aren’t stiff at all. He’s not carrying suitcases.

Quite the opposite. His arms flop all over the place. His arms flop around him, behind him—that really got my attention. And if you see Steven Seagal run, well, that will get your attention, too. His arms fly all over the place. But to me, that was a signal that he was relaxed, that he was calm, which is a little different than carrying around suitcases.

So, as a martial artist, I thought that was smarter. I liked that rather than walking around flexing and stiff. I should be loose and ready to flow. But again, I got called out.

I remember walking next to my father—he was not a fan of the martial arts—and I was doing my Steven Seagal walk. Without even turning around to look at me, he said, “What are you doing? You look ridiculous.”

Well, again, I was on the wrong track. That wasn’t really my walk, that was Steven Seagal’s walk. So, it didn’t take much to convince me that I should stop doing that. It wasn’t authentic.

So, then what? All right. I started training in more traditional martial arts, like Taekwondo and Karate, and in those stances you turn your toes in a little bit at angles. So, of course, how does that affect me? I started standing and walking a little bit pigeon-toed. I started ruining all my shoes by pushing out my heel and rolling my foot in.

Once again I got called out. This time, by my girlfriend, who eventually turned out to be my wife. I remember standing in a supermarket—and I wasn’t aware that I was standing like that because it had become a habit—and she just walked up to me and said, “Stop standing like that,” and kicked my foot.

Again, I was having a problem finding me. The way I stand, the way I walk.

The next and final entry in the archives is my self-defense walk. When I eventually found the Kung Fu school that I would stay with, the teacher was very active in teaching women’s self-defense workshops, and a big part of those workshops was analyzing how you walk. So, we would take turns walking across the room and then we would judge…

Do you look comfortable? Do you look athletic? Do you look afraid? How long of a step do you take? Do you take too little space or too much space? Do your arms swing or are they stiff? Are you using your eyes to look around or are you staring at the ground?

Every little detail was broken down and brought into our attention. And through the process, I developed a walk that I’ve been using now for over 20 years. It just says I’m confident, but not cocky. I’m comfortable, but not afraid. I’m aware, but not anxious. And I know where I’m going, I’m not lost.

So, that’s been my walk for over 20 years. Until this day when I took a walk in the woods. As I reconsidered this most basic activity—walking—I remembered a quote from Musashi in A Book of Five Rings. I remember him writing that he walked into battle the same way he would walk in the street. There was no difference between his normal life and his warrior life.

That, of course, would be the ultimate wisdom, because it’s all the same. Again, you don’t compartmentalize your training. You don’t say that’s who I am and what I believe over there, but here’s what I believe and here’s what I do over there. No. It should be the same.

I think I’ve also mentioned in previous podcast my Karate teacher, who made the point that if you want the benefits of self-defense to be with you all the time, then you need to practice all the time. But that doesn’t mean doing horse stances and punches, it means the principles of your Karate or your practice should be the same principles in your life. The overlap is constant.

You’re never not practicing your martial arts. You’re living your martial arts.

So, it was pretty clear that I still needed to close that gap between training time and just living time. I needed to update my software. I needed to take a look at what I’ve learned and figure out how to integrate it into everything I do. I needed to figure out how to get rid of old fears and old ideals. How to get rid of old pains that I’m still carrying around.

Overall, just let go of the baggage. Put down the suitcases that are just loaded with old issues—issues that I’ve beaten on the mats, but just haven’t applied to my life.

This, of course, led me to practicing an old exercise which always pays dividends. It’s always interesting. And that exercise is simply people-watching. Just find a place like a mall, or the gym, or a coffee shop, and look at people. Look how they walk in, watch how they walk out.

It’s incredible how much you can tell about people by how they carry themselves from A to B. You might see an old person who is struggling with small steps, and they’re hunched over, and you think, “Boy—it takes a long time to end up that small.”

Do you know what I mean here? Bone diseases aside, or aging issues aside, some people really show that they’ve been beaten down by life. They walk with timidity, afraid to look up. Or maybe they’re also grouchy and angry and they hold themselves in this little ball, ready to explode. Boy, that makes me sad.

Like anything, it comes down to repetition. If you’re always straightening yourself up, taking a big breath, and putting a smile on your face, you’re going to look a lot different than if you keep repeating negative thoughts and allow yourself to slouch and hunch over.

Over time, all of those repetitions add up. You’re either going to be one of those spry old people with a spring in their step and a twinkle in her eye, or you’re going to be one of those curmudgeons who’s curled up and weak, and ends up slipping, breaking their hip, and dying of pneumonia in the hospital. Sorry if that got dark.

But, of course, you can see all kinds of personalities walking around. You can tell, almost always, hey—that person must be a gymnast or a dancer, because that woman’s posture is just so good, and her shoulders are set back, and she has that light gait.

Yeah, here comes Mr. CrossFit guy. That guy is not only carrying suitcases, I think he has a footlocker on his shoulders. Take a look around. Every walk tells a story.

And it may not be fair, because certainly, this is an example of judging a book by its cover, but you know what? I’ve judged a lot of books by their cover… and been right! If I see a picture of Fabio or some open-shirted, flowing haired fellow holding a woman on the cover, and it’s all pink and purple, I know that’s probably a romance type of book… and I’m probably not interested in it.

On the other hand, if there’s a steely-eyed fellow holding up a fist or a sword, and somewhere in the title I see the word “secret”, there’s a good chance I’m going to pick that book up.

I can tell you for sure, as someone who is in charge of hiring staff to work in a company, that when people walk in for their job interview, you can tell right away whether this person is going to fit in or not. Just yesterday, a gentleman walked in for his interview…

He was on time—excellent. That tells me something. He was dressed up, wearing a suit—wow. I like that. He had his résumé in hand—very professional. But, big problem.

The way he walked in told me immediately that this was someone who didn’t have much confidence. Who wasn’t comfortable being there. Who only wears this suit at funerals and job interviews.

My heart immediately felt bad for him because I knew he was uncomfortable. He was making me feel uncomfortable! That wasn’t me—he was projecting this feeling of insecurity and not being good enough and then I absorbed it and reflected it.

I should point out that his chin was down and his eyes were downcast in a very submissive posture. His steps were very small and light relative to his height and weight. And as I walked up to him with my full stride, a big smile, and putting out my hand to say hello, he basically retreated. He stalled for a second like he wasn’t sure what to do and shifted his weight back on his heels as if I was going to attack him.

Now, you may think it’s unfair to immediately think this guy wasn’t right for the job, but keep in mind, I’m talking about a Karate school. I’m looking for adults who can demonstrate to children how to stand tall, how to hold their space, how to project confidence, how to be comfortable with themselves, how to smile. I’m looking for real-life superheroes.

I’m not saying he wasn’t a really nice guy. I’m not saying he wasn’t smart. What I’m saying is the way he walked revealed years of not believing in himself. Years of being pushed around. Years of hiding his personality. Years of being uncomfortable.

Again, my heart felt sorry for him. I know that if he took martial arts classes, it may change his life the same way they changed my life. It’s also true that his personality might make him a huge success in a different context at a different job… and I truly hope he finds a job.

But enough about him and enough about me! How about you?

How do you walk? Does it reflect who you are today or is it a faded picture of who you once were?

Let me ask, have you ever taken a video of yourself walking? It’s not so hard to do nowadays. Just put your phone down and record yourself walking across the room or walking down the street. I’d be very interested to know what you think of your own walk.

Do you see confidence? Do you see pain? Do you see a relative, someone you once modeled yourself after? Do you see someone emerging from a cocoon or someone retreating into a cave?

My hope is that you see someone who is not weighted down carrying old baggage. If you’re carrying around old baggage, you will not be ready to accept new blessings and new benefits. And where do these new blessings and benefits come from? Well, partly from your efforts.

If you’re listening to this podcast, there’s a good chance that you’re in a martial arts class. I certainly hope you’re at least going to the gym or trying to work out at home. My point is whatever training you’re doing, remember, the point of training is to change.

The goal is to take those changes that you experience in your training and carry them with you into your normal life. You keep doing that until there is no disconnect. You always take the qualities that you discover about yourself in your workouts—how tough you are, how smart you are, how relaxed you are, how powerful you are—and you bring those with you everywhere you go.

I’d like you to try this… after your next workout, I want you to specifically name something that you improved. Maybe it was your breath control. You took the time to take deep breaths and focus yourself. Maybe it was your posture, your bearing. Maybe you figured out how to set your hips and shoulders so that you always felt powerful.

Maybe it was more emotional. Maybe you threw yourself into the training fearlessly and you felt very, very brave… and you’re proud of that. Maybe it’s because someone was a bit aggressive and reckless and you almost lost your temper, but you didn’t. You figured out how to just keep your cool.

Maybe you’ve been struggling with an injury and you went to class anyway, and you’re proud of yourself for not giving up… for finding a way to adapt to the circumstances and still move forward with your goals.

There are so many blessings and benefits that you get out of your training, it is absolutely a failure—a sad failure!—if you leave them in the dojo, or in the gym, or in your basement. What is the point of training if you leave behind the benefits?

If you have a friend who does no martial arts, no training, no self-improvement, and you work hard to make yourself better, but you leave all of those benefits behind, then what’s the difference between you and the person who doesn’t do any training?

If you’re still stumbling around, weighted down by old fears, old pains, and old ideals, well, then you missed the point. Your investment is not paying you back for your time and your effort.

Please, make the connection between how you train and how you live. Like Musashi, walk into your house the same way you would walk into battle. Pursue your goals the same way you pursue your partner when you’re sparring or grappling. Update your software so that the best of you is with you all the time.

Does that all makes sense? Am I ranting incoherently? I hope not. But just in case, let me try to wrap this up.

My advice to you today—don’t drag your feet, carrying old baggage. Instead, walk lightly, ready to take hold of new blessings. Don’t walk in someone else’s shoes. Instead, wear your own.

Don’t walk in line, following the herd. Instead, make your own path. Don’t walk small, letting stress hunch you over and break your back. Instead, walk tall, letting the power you feel when you train hold you up and keep you straight.

And don’t walk in fear—fear of judgment, fear of danger, fear of failure, fear of confrontation. Instead, walk like a warrior. Walk with a smile. Let that smile be your shield and your sword.

Keep walking for a happy life! 🙂