Is it the picture or the frame?

All I can say is "wow." I had a conversation with a very dedicated martial artist who's practiced a traditional art for many years.

He did everything and believed everything the style stated. He never ever doubted the system. Until he had an encounter that made him almost loose everything. He was lucky...He only lost his confidence in his art after the incident. I told him it wasn't his art that let him down, it was him working with his art. It was as if he never saw the picture in the frame, he only saw at the frame around the picture.

I was really suprised that he never thought about other aspects of martial art training. I guess I shouldn't be all that suprised. He never thought he had to look at his study and pull the concepts and training practices apart to self inspect. He simply thought that he didn't have too.

I think a lot of people are like this too.

I think most martial artists either want to blindly believe and don't want to have to think. All they have to do is do what the "Sensei" says, while others believe that if they get tattoo's and hit each other hard, all is good.

That martial artist was lucky. His ego was bruised but he's not dead.

Where's the fight, inside yourself or out?

"Take what is useful"

"Take what is useful" is a famous quote from Bruce Lee. It is a great piece of advice. In fact, many martial artists these days are taking pieces of useful techniques and using them. The "take what is useful" quote is a direct attack on another phrase Bruce Lee coined. That phrase was "classical mess."

Now, "classical mess" to me means, blindly following a process and protocol. Tens of thousands of martial artists do this continually. Why? Because it is easy to do. The martial artist doesn't have to think. Many martial artists don't want to self inspect, they are looking for the next best parlor trick.

So, "taking what is useful" is a very good thing, but if you want to go deeper into your art you must self inspect. You, as a martial artist must understand your strengths and weaknesses and build around them accordingly. This means understanding your physical attributes and your martial mindset. It's hard to self inspect. However, if you don't, just pulling useful techniques off the shelf will only get you partially complete in your art.

My concept of Martial Arts Fusion, the class I teach is built around:

- A solid use of technical martial skills, drawing from a variety of disciplines.
- The skill sets developed by my students will be different in each of my students, based upon their physical attributes and martial mindset.
- The concept of flow and proper body mechanics in chaining become vital to continued development.

I look forward to sharing these with you and look forward to seeing you on thursday nights. All are welcome.

Some videos you might find interesting...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2VGqi-6W9Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2tsG5H0v7s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7ImMi2DCGs

Real Tough Guys...

Yesterday was a great training day at Sityodtong. My coach, Jake Steinmann, really pushed me hard. I wanted to quit during the last couple of rounds. I had no gas, my legs felt like lead and I was struggling with all my might to get all the air I could between the bells. Jake was constantly encouraging me, being positive, and passionately motivating me when my tenacity started to fail.

There's something gained in a relationship when you work through a physical challenge and someone helps you get through it. In the fighting arts, there's a bond that is created that is difficult to describe. The person experiencing the challenge exposes their vunerability and indicates, to his or her trainer, a need for help. The other person, because he is dedicated to his student, helps him or her to overcome the obstacle. In the fight game, this obstacle is usually a physical one, like getting through the last 30 seconds of a round. However, the impact of the comraderie developed often lasts far longer than the physical exercise. Often, it lasts a lifetime.

Yesterday, I watched Patrick Cote go through his conditioning exercises at Sityodtong. He ran sweating from station to station to complete his circuit. Patrick is fighting for the UFC middleweight championship in October against current champ Anderson Silva. With each circuit becoming harder and harder, Patrick kept up the pace and sprinted in the later rounds of circuits. While no one yesterday morning was helping him complete each circuit, every single person there was pulling for him. I spoke with him briefly after he completed his workout. Patrick is a sincerely genuine person and I wish him all the best. I'll be pulling for him for his middleweight title shot. BTW...for those of you that are interested, Stacia says he is WAY more handsome in person.

Kenny Florian came by to give Stacia a poster for her classroom. He didn't have to swing by Sityodtong and drop it off to her. It was an off-training day for Kenny and he was going to fly out to LA to do a promotional signing for the UFC later that afternoon. He is pressed for time these days. Kenny and I will be friends when he is no longer a UFC star. He was my friend before that and he'll be my friend after too.

That's the way it is when you share an experience with someone and there is genuine sincerity between the two people. Tim Cartmell once told me that we'll always be friends, even if we never did martial arts together again.

Those are the true tough guys. People that sincerely give something of themselves like Jake, Kenny, and Tim.

Last but certainly not least...Jake has a fight in NY on October 3rd. He's been training very hard for it, and I want to wish him the best of luck.

Kenny Florian is fighting on the UFC 91 card against Joe Stevenson. Best of luck, my friend. "Get his neck!"

"Game"

There is a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Gi manufacturer named Gameness. Gameness is an interesting word. I never really thought about or understood the significance of the word until recently. Gameness is usually an expression referred to the tenacity of a dog in a fight.

For the record, I am absolutely against any type of activity such as dog fighting. I believe that if you want to train something to fight, you should have the balls to train yourself and step up and YOU fight. Otherwise, for someone to train an animal to fight just so they can live vicariously through them as a "tough guy" is a disgrace...that type of person is just a coward to me.

But gameness or tenacity and determination is a huge attribute in any endeavor for success. As I tell my folks in class, you have to keep working the technique and push through, don't give up after the first try if it doesn't work. In life, most things don't work in the first shot.

It's too easy for people to give up on things these days. It's hard for kids to develop "game" when everyone gets a trophy. In a lot of ways, the school of hard knocks that teaches some folks gameness is the best lesson those folks can learn.

Without the pressure it is easy

I've been watching both political conventions here in the States. I actually enjoy the carnival antics of the overall show. I love to see the passion and the conviction that is displayed by the folks speaking.

Speaking at a convention is easy. This is what politicians do, they speak. The only pressure the politicians might feel is speaking in front of a large crowd. But, any good politician lives for that very thing, speaking in front of a huge audience. The real pressure will come for them when those politicians have to "do" what they said they will do before their next re-election. Up until that time it's just words politicians say - really no pressure.

Same can be said about a personal relationship. Things are usually great in the beginning of a relationship. There's very little pressure. The pressure you might feel is how good do you look, or am I saying the right things to impress the other person. Where the rubber hits the road is how does the relationship manage when there is tension between the two people involved and how do they react to each other when that happens? That's where you see the real side of the other person involved in the relationship.

Feeling pressure is interesting. In a grappling situation, pressure feels like someone is squeezing you, you feel their heaviness or tightness, maybe making it difficult for you to breath. In a life situation, pressure might make you short of breath, a tightness in your chest and possibly make you react in ways that you might not want to react in (anger, outburst, frustration, desperation or worse etc).

Many people train in martial arts but never feel pressure. They think they do, but really, they don't. This is a huge unfair mistake by their instructors.

Life without pressure, is impossible. Everyone has pressure in one way or another.

In life, you see how people really are and really will really react when things don't go easy and they feel pressure.

Train in your art with pressure. Be reasonable and push yourself a little bit every time. You'll learn something physically and learn something about how you can deal with things mentally.

The next two months here in the States will be a floor show of political rhetoric. This for the politicians is the easy part - just words, just words...

"Music is the silence between the notes"

I don't remember where I heard that phrase. However, it had a profound effect on how I view things. The phrase made me stop in my tracks and think about what does that sentence exactly mean? How does it apply to other aspects of my life?

Where I work, people concentrate on the end result. We call it the bottom line. The bottom line is the only thing that matters. Everyone rejoices when we achieve it. Everyone becomes concerned when we fall short of it. In fact, everyone drives to meeting the goal so hard, that we don't pay attention to what is going on around us during this drive. If the bottom line was a song, we would just focus on the end of the song. Nothing else within the song would be as important, as long as the end was played correctly.

Last week in class, I taught the rear naked choke. It was important that my students understood that the "choke" or end result (bottom line) is not the sole thing to focus on. To achieve success with the technique, you have to pay attention to all the little things that contribute to a successful completion of the technique. Only focusing on the end result will produce a shortsightedness in your growth in your martial arts development. To get better and continue growing, you have to pay attention to the silence between the notes.

It's September and I look forward to new students coming to class. It's a time to start to do something for yourself.