An Xtreme Xperience...

Last week I had the good fortune to experience a personal training session at Randy Couture's gym in Las Vegas. John "The Natural" Alessio was a knowledgable instructor who asked a lot of questions to determine the areas on which I wanted to focus. I came away with a lot of valuable clinch pointers and encourage anyone who has the opportunity to take advantage of your own personal time in the octagon.

To Bite or Not to Bite?

The ancient Greek Olympic games had three combat sports. They were boxing, wrestling and pankration. Pankration was the ancient equivalent of today's cultural phenomenon, mixed martial arts.

Pankration of the ancient Greek era wasn't without its critics. The people of ancient Greece, specifically the Spartans, were critical of the rules imposed during pankration. This is not unlike what is happening in the UFC today. The Spartans objected to the amount of rules imposed during the ancient pankration matches. They believed these matches were governed by too many regulations. The rules in ancient pankration were as follows:
No biting.
No hair pulling.
No fishhooking. (fingers pulling the sides of the mouth)
No eye poking.

Anything other manuevers were fair game and there was no time limit to the matches.

Today's MMA's scene continues to evolve. During the inception of the UFC and other MMA tournaments, there were fewer rules. As the sport continues to grow, rules creep in and continue to mount. Rules are certainly intended to maintain the fighters' safety, but they also have an influence on the outcomes of the matches. One can comfortably argue that legal hair-pulling by Royce Gracie favorably influenced the outcome of his fight against Kimo.

How will the sport evolve next? It will be interesting to see if the the changes will mirror that of traditional martial arts or evolve in a way that will push combat sports into new and innovative directions.

I like the rawness of MMA. Its primitive nature seems to offer an antidote to the edge that the traditional martial arts is lacking. That's why I continue to train in other combat sports. It enhances and inspires my traditional study.

Coming Around Again...

I've missed teaching martial arts. For a long time, teaching martial arts was a big part of who I was, how I saw myself. It wasn't because I thought that I was a tough guy by teaching, it was because I saw people do things, with my help, that they never thought they could do. By teaching, I learned. Seeing others get inspired by martial arts inspired me.

I stopped teaching 10 years ago. I shut the doors of the dojo that I had owned for 9 years. It was very, very difficult for me to close the dojo and to stop teaching. I felt like I lost a little bit of myself in doing so.

I never stopped learning and practicing martial arts. In some ways, I think by getting exposed and training in the martial arts, the experience broadened my view and appreciation for training overall. I can rationalize that it was good for me and my growth, and it was...technically. Emotionally and spiritually, though, I missed teaching.

With the support of Stacia and a generous offer by my long time friend and fellow martial artist Gary Card, I will begin to teach again. Gary Card is giving me the opportunity to have a space one night a week at his dojo in Lowell.

I'll begin teaching Thursday nights. Emotions run deep as the practice has always been, to me, much more than physical. Some of my old friends and students will rejoin me in the journey and I look forward to the new friends that will accompany me in my endeavor.

I eagerly anticipate teaching once again. I look forward to sharing, working, learning, and growing.

I hope to see some of you. All of you are welcome.

- Joe

Breathe

Breathing...I don't think about it usually. Breathing just happens for me and I've taken it for granted. Recently, situations in both my life and in martial arts training, have shown me how important breathing can be to help your challenges and the stress that accompanies them.

I trained with Keith Florian this week in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Keith is a great technician and strategist for ground fighting. But, my lesson this past week with Keith transended just the physical movements of the discipline.

When we were rolling, Keith would put me in defensive positions that I felt uncomfortable in. He would "pressure" me physically using his weight. I, in response, would hold my breath and try to muscle out of the situation. The pressure I felt from Keith made things extremely uncomfortable for me, and I found myself compensating for this by not breathing. This, in turn, would lead to additional stress.

I've had similar experiences in my daily life, where the stress of a particular situation would cause me to hold my breath and tighten up. The feeling of tightening up and lack of breath felt the same in both situations.

Keith recognized my problem. He told me that everytime I feel pressure, I should focus on my breathing and work my way out of the problem. He then gave me homework. Keith stated, that everytime I feel pressure in my day-to-day challenges, I ahould breathe. Keith said, "This way, the next time we train together, you will have been practicing your martial art without me there."

By controlling my breath, I control myself.

A Separate Peace

Yesterday, Joe and I trained with Jake at Sityodtong in Somerville. As we headed home, instead of feeling the usual adrenaline rush that accompanies my post-workout, I felt a peacefulness, a serenity, that was, at first, hard to pinpoint.

Then, sometime during the afternoon, I realized just what I was feeling. Earlier that morning, I had poured over a makeshift shrine on a ledge above a set of wall mats. The Sityodtong family had paid tribute to Eric Armington, one of their own, who had tragically lost his life two weeks before in a motorcycle accident on Route 93.

Eric's shrine included of a pair of his gloves, his Mong Kon, medals, a framed photograph from the gym's gallery, incense...and a bottle of red Gatorade, artfully placed in the middle of his Twins.

I did not know Eric, but the heartfelt sentiments and carefully chosen items that comprised his tribute made me think...about the person he was and how the age-old traditions of the art we practice only become more meaningful when we interject them with our own contemporary lives.

Kru Mark has obviously gone to great lengths in his gym to embody the Muay Thai culture and the artifacts that adorn the walls only serve to strengthen that awareness. After seeing posterboard collages of snapshots of Eric and his family and friends taped to filing cabinets, I thought about the vulnerability one can experience in being charged with maintaining martial art traditions while also being contemporarily human. We respect and do our best to adhere to the culture of the art we practice, but how beautiful, and wonderfully mortal, to integrate those traditions...with a bottle of red Gatorade.

Stacia

Kenny Florian and Social Consciousness

Today, Kenny Florian came to the Bartlett School for Community Partnership in Lowell, Massachusetts. I am finishing my practicum there and when I mentioned to Joe that Kenny would make a huge impact on the kids there, he called Kenny and Kenny graciously agreed. The kids at this school face what often appear to be insurmountable obstacles on a daily basis.

This morning, they heard from Kenny that there are no such things as obstacles, only "small hurdles." Small hurdles in this school community include saying no to drugs, to alcohol, to joining gangs, to dropping out of school. Today, even the kids who are seemingly jaded and "checked out" hooted and cheered after Kenny had finished his speech. He talked about making the right choices, of staying out of street fights-"only cowards fight in the street,"-the importance of never giving up, and of staying in school.

Today, Kenny Florian gave 200 at-risk kids a day they will never forget. And it's something we should all keep in mind when we're asked to make a difference.

Stacia

Ninety-nine failures

Tatsugami Roshi said, "A tiger catches a mouse with his whole strength." The tiger catches the mouse with the same intensity the way he catches a bigger animal. The tiger totally focuses on whatever action he is taking. He doesn't worry about the size of his "problem." The tiger does not think that because he didn't catch something the last time,he won't catch something the next.

Sometimes we all have difficulty practicing our respective arts. Dogen Zenji once proclaimed, "Hitting the mark is the result of ninety-nine failures." Failures are only a part of the process of success. "It's the last arrow that hits the mark, but only after ninety-nine failures." Failures are acceptable, and even valuable, as long as you keep them in perspective and know that they are a means to achieving your goal. The only real failure is not to shoot the one hundredth arrow.

Each time you practice, do your best. Be tiger-like in your effort. Physically and spiritually, you will benefit.