Superhero Society

One look at movies over the last few years and anyone can see that superheroes are very popular. X-men, Spiderman, Batman, Superman, Iron Man, The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk and The Punisher have all had movies lately, and Wolverine, Captain America, Thor, and The Avengers are coming soon. It makes sense. What's not to like about someone using supernatural powers or advanced technology to soundly thrash the evildoers of the world? There are problems when these superhero sensations start working their way into our thinking, however.

There are three things needed for a good superhero story: A superhero to save the day, a supervillain who would have ruined the day if it weren't for that pesky superhero and, of course, some person to be saved along with the day.

So if I were to let myself have a superhero story in my daily thoughts, in my daily life, which of those people would I be? Most would consciously choose the  superhero, right? There are those of us, though, that find ourselves playing the victim role.  I think there are very few if any that see themselves as the bad guy.   If I am the superhero, then whoever is causing me difficulty is one of those bad guys and everyone else gets to be the people of Earth whose very existence I will save. What would they do without me?

Some of us take great pleasure in being the superhero, while others feel pressure to play the role. Superheroes are the ones who always feel like they have to save the ones around them. They sacrifice their own health and happiness to pull everyone else out of their problems. Self sacrifice can be admirable, but what good is it to destroy one's own mental, emotional, or physical health to try to save someone else? If we neglect self care, we will soon lose the ability, as well as the motivation, to help others. Something I heard recently, I'm not sure where, "If there were children that you loved, wouldn't they be best served by keeping their mother healthy?" We are not invincible superheroes. We have to keep our own strength up, realize when we need to recharge, and help others from a safe position.

Now let's talk about that nasty old supervillain. If we allow ourselves to see "the other" as a bad guy, evildoer, or even just a rival who should be defeated, we are viewing things in an adversarial way. Yes, there are times to compete against others, but most of the time we would all be better off by working with those who disagree with us rather than against them. Working together with non-like minded individuals can produce surprising results. Imagine playing a game of Scrabble® in which, rather than trying to block points, the players were working together to see how high each could score. How would the game change? Working with adversaries is how our government is supposed to function. The idea is that people on the two sides of the aisle will come together and create better ideas than either would have alone. Too many times we view others as obstacles or adversaries instead of fellow travelers in this existence.

Finally, some people identify most with the victim role in the superhero story. They could be happy/rich/successful if only the circumstances around them were to change. A victim sees their problems as caused or fixed by others: coworkers, relatives, the economy, the government. . . or their problems are due to lacking the right coworker, the right love interest, etc. They believe that none of their problems are their fault, there is nothing they can do about them, so all they do is wait for Superman to swoop in and save them. These folks need to wake up right now. Although circumstances have a lot to do with successes, waiting around to be saved is wasted time. We must stand up and work hard if we want to achieve anything. Yes, it is easier if we are given a trust fund, yes, it is easier with a supportive family, but if those things are not available, it is all the more important to stand up and fight. Being “saved” by someone else won't change the habit of seeing life from a victim's point of view.

Watch all the superhero movies you want, enjoy them, but remember that life is different. Our adversaries aren't always adversaries when we can change our point of view. When we are victims, there is no need to sit around and wait for a hero to save us; we can work to save ourselves. When we feel the pull to be a superhero, we can make sure to keep ourselves healthy first. Remember that just about every superhero has some sort of psychological malfunction. Iron Man -- Egomaniacal thrillseeker, Batman -- absolutely obsessed with avenging the crime against his parents, The Hulk -- don't get me started on the Hulk. We are not superhuman, and we don't have superpowers, but we can do nearly as much good in the world by keeping our own lives balanced.

When the Going Gets Tough. . .

How do you respond when something you have to accomplish is extremely difficult?  What are the steps you take to apply yourself to a demanding project?  How do you react when this thing that you must do is just too big for you?  When it is something you cannot avoid, how do you tackle it? 

Perhaps you start by studying the problem, making plans, comparing what must be done with what you are capable of.  Maybe you call for advice from friends and family, or consult experts for tips and pointers, or maybe you research, study, or do some training to improve your ability to tackle the project, or you might build a team of colleagues/friends/family to work together to get through this difficult endeavor.

There are many approaches to choose from.

How do you respond when someone else, your child, friend, colleague, etc. is the one with the overwhelming task?  Do you give advice, point them to experts, help them study or train, join the team they need to get through their work?

Life is one of those very, very difficult tasks.

There are a lot of people out there who think it is supposed to be easy.  There are a lot of people out there who will sell you a house, a car, a watch, or a phone that they say will make it easy.  A lot of people despair because no matter how much money, no matter how great a job, no matter their personal, political, or social power, they discover that life still is not easy. 

Those people are looking for the wrong answer.  The answer does not lie in lowering the bar until you no longer have to run and leap, but can simply step over it.  The answer does not lie in a device that can organize your addresses, your calendar, and even your 1,500 downloaded songs to have at the touch of a finger.  The answer is not in making life easier.  Continually looking for some gadget to solve the difficulties of life will lead to continual disappointments.

The answer is the same as for other difficult tasks, to study, plan, learn, train, ask for help.  In short, the answer is not in making life easier to handle, but in making yourself better able to handle it. 

Would you expect an Olympic sprinter who wants to set a new world record to wish that the current record were not quite so fast, or to train with the difficulty of beating it fully understood?  Would you expect an Olympic sprinter to train alone, or to train with a coach and teammates?  Would the right path to breaking that record being use of steroids, or training the body with honesty and integrity?

Life is one of those very, very difficult tasks, so live every day in a way that makes you strong enough to handle it.  Become strong enough to ask for and accept help when you need it.  Practice patience so you can lend help when needed.  Strengthen your financial situation so you can give to charities.  Strengthen your emotional well being so you can be a pillar for others when they are weak.  Make yourself strong, so others can lean on you. 

How can all this be done?  Practice.  If you have an extra quarter, drop it in the Salvation Army bucket.  If you have a free Saturday, help a friend move.  If you are feeling secure, listen to someone who is struggling with life.  Practice in little ways every day.  Pick trash up from the ground and throw it in a can, hold a door for someone, buy someone dinner, play someone a song on your guitar, cut off your hair and donate it to Locks of Love.  Ask for help preparing supper.  Let someone else vacuum the carpet this time.  There are millions of things you can do. 

Start now.  

Real Self Defense

There is a crowd out there that strongly believes that the only purpose for martial arts training is to learn to fight.  There are people who look at the “good old days” of how they trained.  They glorify the fact that they went home from their kung fu classes with bloody noses and cracked ribs.

 

There is a crowd out there that believes that the purpose of martial arts training is to win competitions.  For some it is point sparring in tournaments, for others it is kickboxing, and for still others it is MMA in a cage.  These people train to win competitions.  Some of them have great sportsmanship, others much less so.  I have personally seen some embarrassing behavior at tournaments.  I have seen embarrassing behavior on the parts of competitors, on the parts of their parents, even on the parts of their instructors.

 

There is a crowd out there that believes that the purpose of a martial arts school is to make lots of money for the owner.  They reward their successes with Rolex watches, expensive cars, and homes that could house their family times ten.

 

I’ve never really been one to follow the crowd.  I believe in following an ideal.

 

There are some martial artists out there following ideals.  Personally I look back to the Shaolin or Siu Lum temple and why they started training in martial arts.  I look to the ways in which the martial arts can preserve and improve lives. 

 

According to legends the Shaolin monks had beliefs they wanted to spread to the world around them.  When they attempted to travel they would be attacked by bandits.  They started training in the martial arts.  They gained a reputation as the fiercest fighters in the land.  As a result of their reputation, they didn’t have to fight.  People learned not to mess with those bald headed guys in robes.  The original purpose of martial arts was to be able to fight in a world in which its practitioners needed to fight.

 

Do we need to fight today?  Sometimes.  There are, however, bigger threats to our health than physical attacks.  How can we address the things that assail us in today’s world?  I believe that self empowerment, self discipline, and self esteem are some of the best weapons we can develop today.  Through these we can improve our physical health, our mental health, and our spiritual health.  Improving these can stave off the real threats to us: heart disease, diabetes, depression, addiction. . .

 

Can we achieve these goals through martial arts training?  Yes.  Is it the only way?  No.  It is, however, the vehicle I choose to use to teach self empowerment, self discipline, and self esteem.  At the same time, we get to practice an ancient cultural art and learn practical self defense if we are attacked.  AND.  It’s fun.

White Belt Eyes

White belt eyes.  The eyes of the beginner.  

To have white belt eyes is to see that all the skill one wants to achieve is yet to come. 

 It is to accept that all the knowledge one wants to learn will come through time, training and hard work.

To have white belt eyes is to put ego aside and accept someone else as a teacher:  To "empty one's cup".

To have white belt eyes is to believe that the knowledge one has is a raindrop compared to the ocean of knowledge one will learn.

Having white belt eyes means one has stepped out of one's comfort zone, has walked into something new and unknown.

One who has white belt eyes has sacrificed the known and the comfortable for something new and unkown and quite possibly scary.

When is the last time you looked at the world through white belt eyes?

What will you smell like?

After my last trip to Webster Cave, as I do every cave trip, I hosed off my gear and set it out to dry.  While picking it up a few days later I noticed once again, that cave smell.  I really believe that it would take a lot of work to get that smell out of my caving equipment. 

I have this gear that is dedicated to caving, it has a simple existence.  Go into a cave for walking, wading, crawling, slithering, climbing, etc.  It gets fully immersed in cave.  When it comes out it gets hosed off, dries out a couple of days, then goes into a bag for storage until the next trip. 

Because it spends its life that way, this equipment is permeated with cave smell.  It’s not a bad smell, just a particular one.  In fact, when I pull my equipment out to get it ready for another trip I relish that cave smell, it’s almost like stepping into the cave.

I’d be willing to bet that when I get home from a caving trip my wife smells that cave smell on me.  I’d be willing to bet that when she does, she can see herself inside a cave.  Smells can be powerful like that.

There are some people that, rather than immerse themselves in a cave, immerse themselves in negativity.

Have you ever experienced that?   Have you had someone around you who was so focused on negativity that that’s all they talk about?  I have.

I knew someone who every day when they got back from their fast food job selling hastily prepared fish had stories to tell.  Always it was some rude customer or some lazy coworker or some incompetent manager.  Always when they told the story I could see them reliving it.  The stress of the situation came back, the tension showed on their face, the anger overwhelmed them. 

It was downright scary.

So I started working on avoiding immersing myself in negativity.

 Whatever you wallow in, you can expect to smell like.

 Yes negative things happen in life, that doesn’t mean we have to wallow in the negativity.  Get through it, experience it, learn from it, then let go of it.  If you are going to wallow, wallow in positivity.  If you are going to relive something, and share it with others, relive the high points.  Positive things happen in life too.

 

Like I said earlier, when I come home after wallowing in a cave, I bet my wife gets a vicarious caving experience from the way I smell.  I know that if I come home after wallowing in negativity she will get that experience vicariously too.  Is that something I want to share with my loved ones?

Ten Tigers

The "Ten Tigers of Canton" were a legendary group of martial artists in Southern China in the mid 1800's.  They were mainly known for their fighting skills.  

The Ten Tigers program at East West Martial Arts in Franklin is going to be about far more than just fighting skills.  

Inspired by Sifu Tammy's FIRST program and Tom Callos's various programs, the Ten Tigers is about starting from where you are and transforming your martial arts, your actions, and your whole way of thinking.

There will be intense physical training.  There will be private lessons, and group lessons.  There will be huge strides made in your martial arts skills.  There will be much more important things than those included too.

There will be environmental projects, community action projects, empathy training (ever spend a day blind?), reading, journaling, the list goes on.  

The idea is that mastery should go beyond mastery of the physical side of the martial arts.  What good is it to master a martial art compared to mastering one's self.

For more info email franklinkungfu@gmail.com, or call 270-586-2056

This program is an experiment, a chance for change

Did I mention. . .

Did I mention that I hate pushups?

Vehemently.

I've never liked them.

They are good for me though. I've started preparing myself to go through my Ten Tigers program. So right now, every other day I'm doing the following workout.

20 Pushups and 20 situps,
10 minutes of stance work,
20 and 20 again,
Gung Gee Fook Fu Kuen (takes about 5 minutes),
20 and 20,
Fu Hok Seung Yin Kuen (another 5 minutes),
20 and 20,
Sup Yin Kuen (this one's about 7 minutes long),
and cap it off with 20 pushups and 20 situps.

Did I mention that I hate pushups?

I don't like broccoli either, but it's good for me.

Right now this workout takes about 40 minutes, I think with less rest between activities I can bring it under 35. Once the Ten Tigers program starts I'll be doing it daily. It is difficult, exhausting, hard to find time for (I have to make time), and so much fun once I'm done.

I have this theory about working hard for something. If you make working hard a habit, rather than an exception, when something hard comes along it's not so overwhelming. See if you are used to just sitting around, you aren't prepared to face an emergency. If you train yourself for hard work daily, a crisis can just fall into place.

If you take the fighting aspect of martial arts as an example you can look at it very easily. If you train martial arts daily, get in great shape and stay that way, build your awareness and timing, etc., you are easily able to defend yourself if you have to.

By the way, I discovered that those kung fu forms I've been practicing in my workout use a lot of the same muscles that pushups do.

Did I mention that I hate pushups?

If you practice something daily when you don't need it, it will be at your fingertips when you do need it.

If you practice patience every chance you get, with all the small little annoyances in life, you are more ready to remain calm when that other guy fails to stop at the red light you are sitting at.

If you practice love and kindness towards others every day in little ways, you are more ready to respond with love and kindness when your 17 year old daughter tells you she thinks she might be pregnant.

If you practice personal responsibility in little ways every day (put those candy wrappers and cigarette butts in a trash can) you will be more ready to take responsibility for the big things in life.

The harder you work when you don't have to, the easier it will be when you need to.

Did I mention that I hate pushups?

Sifu Steven O'Nan