Lesson Learned the Hard Way

Once the tournament was over, I had lost a legitimate 18 pounds. I feel great at my new weight. I decided to give myself a little treat and indulge in some fast food. I clocked out for my lunch break and drove over to Wendy's.

Spicy chicken sandwich, french fries, sweet tea. Mmmmmmm.

Afterwards, I started feeling sluggish. This had not been happening while I was religiously eating healthy stuff. Actually, sluggish was not a strong enough word. I felt sedated. I honestly felt like someone had slipped something into my meal.

I guess in truth, they had probably slipped a lot of things into my meal.

So, the pre-tournament diet will become my usual diet. Unhealthy foods will be rare, soft drinks will be treated like the CANDY they are and will be consumed extremely rarely. ( A 20 oz. Coca-Cola has as much sugar as 18 Jolly Ranchers.) I will try to focus my shopping on the outside edges of the grocery store (That's where they keep the produce, meat, and dairy the heavily processed foods are in the middle). I'll read labels, look for wholesome foods and just be aware of what I am eating, and why I am eating it.

When I Will Retire From Competition.

Lately, with every tournament I compete in, I wonder afterwards how many more I will do. You see, there just aren't many instructors out there competing. There really aren't many school owners out there competing. It all makes me wonder what it seems like to others for me, a school owner/instructor to still be out there competing.

Some may think I have something to prove to others, that I'm out there to make a point. Some may think I have something to prove to myself. Neither of these is the case, and it really doesn't matter what people think. What matters is what I and my students stand to benefit from me competing.

You see, every time I have competed so far, I have learned something about myself, about competing, about running a competition, about training for competition, about my art, and the list goes on.

So I guess the answer is that I will continue competing for as long as it continues to make me a better martial artist, and a better martial arts instructor.

Knowing When to Let Go.

Once, in sparring, my partner grabbed my arms with his hands. He smiled slightly, considering his advantage. I stepped back into a horse stance pulling him off balance, then kicked him in the gut with a lead leg sidekick. It was light contact, so he squeezed tighter. I shuffle stepped towards him, hooking my lead leg behind his ankle and shifted to a bow and arrow stance. This caused him to fall backwards. Still he held on, pulling me down on top of him. Now that I was on top, I freed my right arm and punched him in the side of the head, then freed my left and punched him in the jaw on the other side.

He didn't know when to let go, and so kept getting himself into more and more of a predicament.

Often life throws challenges, hurts, injuries and insults our way. There is a time to hold tight and fight, but there is also a time to let go.

Several years ago, my mother and father paid me a visit. My then fiancee, and now wife cooked them dinner. The reason they had come was to tell me that my Mom had been diagnosed with cancer. They had a plan for how to fight the cancer, but the odds were against her. The only thing in my power to do was to support her in her battle.

As time went on, the cancer progressed, there came a point when my mother knew the battle was lost. She chose to let go of it.

I got married at her house, three months before my planned wedding. My mom passed away a week later.

Part of me still holds on to the grief and pain. Part of me is still angry at that disease that took my mother from me.

Every time I feel that way, and find myself holding on to the anger, I have to remind myself to let go of it.

Anger won't bring her back, and it won't heal me.

I let go of the negative feelings over and over again. I hold on to the love she showed me throughout my life, to the memories, to all that she gave me. I hold on to all I learned from her, and I share that with my wife and children.

Self Doubt

It's Tuesday morning, 4 days before the national tournament, and self doubt has shown its head.

"What if I don't make weight?" "What if I didn't practice enough?" "What if, what if, what if, what if. . .

So then I exercise the rational part of my brain. First I answer the questions honestly. If I don't make weight, I'll spar the big guys, if I didn't practice enough, I won't perform my best. . . All in all it is really small potatoes.

Then I remind myself that the tournament is the FAKE goal. I've already accomplished the real goals. I'm in great shape, I know what it takes to lose 20 pounds, my forms are looking better, I've gained self esteem. . .

The tournament is just icing now.

Pain and Suffering

Sometimes, as a father, I have to witness my beautiful little girl suffer. Sometimes small things, like when the "new Shrek movie" was sold out and she had her heart set on seeing it. Sometimes bigger things like when I had to pull a splinter from her foot. Eventually there will be some really big pains in her life that I can not prevent, or change for her.

Pulling the splinter from her foot was agonizing for me. She screamed, she cried, but she bravely held still while I worked on it. It was really imbedded in there. It broke my heart to be sitting there causing her so much pain as I poked and prodded and pinched and squeezed. I finally got that little sucker out of there though.

If I had left it in, it would have been worse, infection, doctor's office, antibiotics. . . I know that the best thing her daddy could do at that point was to cause some pain and get that splinter out.

We all have to go through some pain sometimes. A good workout leaves sore muscles. There is some pain when stretching muscles. There is also pain when stretching our boundaries, when stepping out of our comfortable box. It takes courage to get out and try something new. I think it is even harder to watch someone you love do the same, even if you know it is the right thing for them at that time.

Sooner or later, someone will call my daughter a dirty name, some friend of hers will hurt her feelings, some romantic interest will break her heart. As her daddy I will not like seeing her suffer, but I will let her suffer, I will be there to help her through it, but I will let her learn from her suffering. I will not take away the lesson that comes with it.