What Training can do

I want to relate an occurrence that happened to me on this past Monday, the 26^th of January, and then tie it into our training methods.  And not just ours, but really, all training methods.

So, I was outside, scraping the ton of ice that accumulated on my car, just to be prepared in case we had to go somewhere. Like, Whataburger, or Burger King, or Sonic. I know, not the healthiest of foods to choose from, but a person has to have some vices.  Mine happens to be cheeseburgers. And coffee, and Twinkies, and….but I digress.

Anyway, as I am cleaning off the ice, my scraper breaks, and I lose my footing at the same time. Those two things might be related as the ice was thick and I was pushing really hard….

….as I am taking flight, weightless, and least prepared to be struck (remember the principles of Center-line theory!)

As time slowed down, I grasp the fact that there are three places I could land: on the concrete driveway behind the car, in an iced-over thorny-bush, or in a snowbank.  The concrete driveway is a non-starter.  I’m old and slapping out on concrete would probably get me a broken arm.  I saw that happen in Japan, during a fight, when one of my classmates got thrown by an angry Judo-guy, and when my classmate did a perfect ukemi and broke his arm in 3 places. To be fair, he was a tad inebriated at the time, so maybe it wasn’t perfect….

The thorny bush was also out, since it was iced-over and I could see losing an eye and getting punctured in many vital spots, so….no.

That left the snow-pile.  Which really wasn’t a snow pile, as it had been really cold and really wet and so it was an ICE pile. But I had made up my mind in that 10^th of a second of choosing. I slammed into the ice-pile on my left side, trying to cushion some of the blow with my left arm.

I am happy to say that I landed pretty well, nothing broken and the wind NOT knocked out of me, and at that moment, not being injured took most of the sting out of being embarrassed.  I got up holding back the swear words that were dying to be released, and tried to look nonchalant, as though I had planned the whole thing.  Luckily for me, nobody was around to see the comedy as it unfolded.

The next morning, Tuesday, I felt like I had been hit by a truck and left in a nearby ditch to recover.  I mean, I hurt like I haven’t hurt since I was in my 20’s and fell off a roof at a military base in Colombia….well that is a story for another time.

Today is Wednesday, I hurt even worse, which is normal as it’s the second day after the injury. I have a regular Chiropractor appointment on Wednesdays so I just asked the Doc to look me over and see if my assessment was correct, i.e. no ribs were broken, nothing stabbing into my lungs, etc. He suggested I continue to use moist heat, and continue to apply my Jow, and keep an eye on things.

(And keep an eye out for more ice.)

How does this relate to our training? In spite of the fact that I slipped and banged into an ice-pile, I realized that I had had the time to choose where I would land, and I made it happen.

That kind of response only comes from concerted effort and disciplined training.  It comes from long hours in the dojo, throwing and being thrown, working on kata, working on awareness, working on building the reflexes so that when something occurs, it doesn’t just happen to you, it happens with you, and you have the mental and physical resources to do what is necessary for survival.

I’m not patting myself on the back here, for having accomplished a fantastic flip and break-fall, I’m patting the backs of all the people who had a hand in my training.  I am saying thank you to all of the people who took the time to share their knowledge with me, so that one day, when I needed it, I could keep myself relatively safe from injury.

This is just one facet of what can be achieved by hard work and consistent training. Does it have to be every day?  No, but doing it every day is better than doing it every other day, or a couple of times a week, or whatever our daily lives allow us to do, with all the varied responsibilities we carry.  Make the time, even if it is only 15 minutes a day, to train in some facet of the arts. 

Do a kata (or two), stretch and exercise, and for mental processes, visualize different situations where your training will be called into play. Really see the situation and see your actions or reactions. The more clearly you can imagine things, down to very detailed things, the better it will be.

Get up early if you have to, or stay up late. 15 minutes a day is not too much to ask of your body, to be able to survive.

And last, don’t listen to the little voices in your head that always seek to defeat you:

“I’ll work out twice next time.”        

No, you won’t. Something will come up.

“I’ll work out an hour longer tomorrow.” 

No, you won’t. Something will come up. It always does.

“I’ll exercise while the (kids, the family, the wife, the job, whatever) are doing their thing.”

No, you won’t. Something will come up. It always does.  Logistics of getting people to where they need to go, getting to work, getting groceries, running around paying bills or doing chores.

That is why martial arts studies are difficult. If it was easy, anybody could do it.