Blog

by James Eke

So you are part of a martial art school or maybe a gym and you are trying, or motivated by your teacher or trainer to get into better shape.

It makes sense. We all want to be healthy and strong. At least we think we do.

The thing is we are too busy. There isn’t enough time. There is too much to do. I’m too weak. I’m too old. I’m just fine how I am.

I totally agree.

Actually no. I don’t. Sorry to burst your bubble of delusion. Your excuses and complaints are weak. You are being weak.

You have one life.

You have one body.

You have huge potential.

Being strong is a choice. So is being weak.

It is so easy to fall victim to that voice in our heads that tells us that we are fine just how we are. We sit in an office all day so why the heck do we need to be stronger, why do we need to be able to do a pushup or a kettlebell swing or get ourselves off the floor without grunting and groaning?

The answer is simple — because if we don’t we will just get weaker.

We don’t have armour, we don’t have cyborg parts, what we have is this body. Believe it or not, the body is both strong and prone to the opposite. If we don’t work at making our body able to do the things that it is capable of it will forget that it can do it. That’s why a pushup is hard for some, getting off the floor is hard, walking, running or anything else is hard. It shouldn’t be though. These are things that we as humans do.

Truth bomb: You are a primate and should be able to do a whole range of things. You should be able to climb. You should be able to crawl. You should be able to roll. You should be able to lift, to throw, to pull, to push, to jump, to bend and a variety of other things.

If you do the martial arts you need to be able to do these things without injury.

Those pushups, those situps, those whatever else? They help you be strong and able to do the training. They help you live your life.

Here is another truth bomb: you are probably going to get a whole lot older. As you get older, guess what, all those things you maybe don’t like doing that your teacher is telling you to get better at, yeah those things, they get harder. You won’t realize it until it happens. Then those stairs that you used to just run up suddenly feel like a mountain. The sprint to catch the bus now feels like less than a jog. Getting off the floor feels like you should have someone helping you. Age will change you, like it or not.

A fitness regimen helps us maintain strength and ability that allows us to live an active life and to hold it together as long as we can.

Take a look at any elderly person who is at the top of their game in something physical like sport of the martial arts. You most likely will find someone who has pushed their body hard in their youth and continue to understand the need for physical fitness.

So, what are you going to do?

You can moan about the workout that you are being told you are going to do in class. You can do half the effort required. You can skip out. You can do whatever you want to do. It is your life.

Or here is the other option. Get stronger. Stop complaining. Be grateful that there are people who believe you have awesomeness inside of you. Do the work. Do extra work. Make yourself into a superhuman.

Being strong is a choice. Being weak is a choice.

Which one are you going to choose?

by James Eke

This life is full of choices.

Do we do this? Do we do that? We like this. We don’t like that.

What we choose and how we choose it in a lot of ways defines the way we operate.

We live in a time where we want what we want right now. Order a pizza and it is a few minutes late and we freak. Something not going the way we want right this second and we lose patience. Things taking too long and we give up. Something is tough so we cut corners thinking that it is ok and we’ll fix it up later.

In our training what we learn is that patience is important. Nothing good or great comes easily. The best things are those that we have to work at, that take time, that require sweat and the need to endure.

The same holds true for everything in life. You want to go to a doctor who went through some hard times studying to become a great doctor, not someone who just had things handed to them and slid through.

Jobs, friendships, relationships, homes, life — it all requires effort, steadfastness and the vision to see that this thing is actually good for me despite the fact it is causing some effort and maybe a bit of grief. Like they say, ‘hard work pays off.’

Of course you can quit. You can look at the thing you have and think, ‘well, this is too tough and I want what is at the end but I want it right now, and don’t feel like waiting,’ so you give in and give up.

The world is full of people like that. People who find out you train in the martial arts and will talk for hours about how they ‘used to’ train. Of course this means they quit. They gave up. It was too hard, took too much time, required too much effort and commitment and they turned their back on what could likely have been the best thing in their life.

Look at your own life. What things do you give up on? Who have you given up on?

We all look at life in a way that seems to say we will be around forever. Unfortunately this isn’t the case. Life has bookends on either side. The stories between are all those things you have done for good or bad.

Training to have a realized life means looking at our lives and really examining what it is that we do and the things and people that make us better — and then sticking with those that amplify our life and make it better, healthier, stronger.

We want to get into better shape but don’t want to do push-ups or even get off the couch — well guess what? Life isn’t like that. You have to do what is hard and work at it and never stop. It doesn’t mean though that it will be quick and easy. Getting good at push-ups can be really hard. But you start small. One push-up, every day. Build on it. When you can do that you make it two. Before you know it you and stronger and better. Maybe you’ll be pounding off dozens of the things and won’t be able to remember not being able to do a single one before.

It might be easier for you to push people away because things aren’t always easy and people can, well, suck but those people who matter deserve to be treated that way. Regardless of the bits that you don’t like.

Martial Arts training is no different. You start unable to maybe do a roundhouse kick right. Your teacher tells you how to do it but you just keep doing it your way. One day you realize that the teacher was right. You’ve injured yourself or have such bad habits with your technique that fixing things is way harder.

So what does a person do?

First off, slow down. Breathe. Look at the people, things and everything in your life and ask yourself if in the long run this effort is worth it. You’ll know. You’ll say to yourself, ‘this guy despite the hard bits brings so much to me,’ or ‘this Jiu-Jitsu thing is hard but I could actually be a Jiu-Jitsu black belt in 10 years and that is crazy and amazing and will be harder than I know, but worth it’ or ‘I want that job so bad and I am going to have to do a lot of work to get it but in the end it will be incredible.’

The best things take time. They take effort. They take patience.

You might get disheartened. That is part of life. You might even make some rubbish choices and end things with this or with that but the cool thing about life is that you can always admit you were wrong to throw in the towel and say you are sorry for that mistake and get back at it. You’d be surprised at what is possible if you just don’t give up. In the end, having faith and believing in someone, something and yourself is what matters the most.

So, don’t give up. Keep at it. When you stumble and mess up, pick yourself back up, take three deep breaths and get back at it.

Have faith. It will work out, you’ll see.

by James Eke

So you want to take a break from training.

Maybe it is an extended vacation. Maybe it is due to the demands of a relationship. Maybe you say you are burnt out. Maybe it is work/life demands. Maybe you are just simply good with making excuses.

I am not going to be nice about this next bit. The real reason you want to take a break is you. You.

It is that couch. 

It is that TV. 

It is those buddies.

It is that whatever.

It is really just you though. 

In this life we make choices. We choose between what is easy and what is hard. Usually, most people choose the easy path. 

Martial arts training is hard.

Being fit is hard.

Being healthy is hard.

Only it isn’t. Saying it is hard is what people do to make themselves feel better about it either for sticking in it for now or for quitting. 

The truth is that being healthy, fit and a martial artist who trains regularly and seriously isn’t tough at all. It is about commitment, creativity and constant application of energy.

What matters to you, what matters the most, well let’s face it, you work at it, stick with it, take care of it, love it, and never let go of it. The things that don’t matter, well we treat them that way. We don’t just turn our backs on what really matters to us. These things are like ghosts that haunt us when we are away from them. We feel their loss. We need that fix. We feel not quite like ourselves without it.

When you find something like this, committing to it and keeping at it all the time is what you live for. 

A day away from something like that and we freak out a little and look forward to getting back to it tomorrow.

When this thing that you love so much is your training, there is nothing quite like it.

Now don’t think that what I’m saying is you need to drink the Kool-aid and cut everything else out of your life. That idea is just ridiculous. We need to work. We need to sleep. We need time to chill. We need friends. We need lots of things. When we fully embrace our martial arts training though we come to see that it is a fire that we need to make sure stays constantly fed. When we don’t the coals grow dim or die out completely.

All that potential we had. All those things we had learned. All the growth we went through. It all just fizzles out.

So what do you do?

You need to keep at it and realize that your training is this living and dynamic thing. It needs to be fed, exercised, used, played with and understood. This takes time and commitment and effort. It takes endless injections of creativity. Most of all though, it takes you.

You are the key thing in your training. You need to realize that you are what you need to make sure shows up to train. You are the only thing that you can control. You are the only thing that you have any control over.

Most people don’t realize their potential. 

Most people don’t realize what their training actually can bring into their lives.

Most people don’t understand that their training will give them super powers.

Most people just don’t get it.

Do you?

by James Eke

Edith Garrud won’t leave my mind.

If you haven’t listened to the podcast on her, stop reading and listen to Warrior’s Way Podcast episode 36.

Go ahead, I’ll still be here when you return.

 

Oh, you’re back. Thanks for listening (leave a review!). Hopefully you got something out of it. I know I did.

Edith to me is the best of what the martial arts and a good martial arts instructor is all about.

Imagine being her. You train in this little-known thing called Jiu-Jitsu, have been taught by some of the true cream of the crop Jiu-Jitsu black belts that the art has, folks who have had their skills amplified by training collectively with the genius that was Jigoro Kano who wanted to see Jiu-Jitsu not just improve but become something amazing. Eventually Kano would found a new offshoot of Jiu-Jitsu the world now knows as Judo. Others, like Mitsuyo Maeda would eventually travel to Brazil and help lay the foundation for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Edith however, took the lessons she learned and decided to give it to those who needed it the most – women being beaten and killed in the UK for wanting nothing more than to be allowed to vote and be seen as a useful part of society.

She taught these women in secret so that they could protect themselves as well as the leadership of the Suffragette movement.

My teacher Dan Inosanto has long reminded us that a fighter doesn’t necessarily bring anything to the world while an instructor builds community and empowers people. A good instructor changes lives.

Edith Garrud understood this. 

She empowered the lives of the women she taught. 

For them this wasn’t some fantasy or pastime, this was Jiu-Jitsu learned to defend themselves against bigger and stronger people who wanted to put them down, keep them down and never allow them to rise. 

Hopefully history and more importantly, the future, will remember the work done by Edith Garrud.

There aren’t many like her.

Truth is, we need more of people like her.

Are you like her?

Do you help the people around you to become more?

Do you help others?

Do you train even when it is easier not to?

Do you lead others to aspire for more?

Those of us who train in Jiu-Jitsu do so on the shoulders of the great people who have come before us — people like Edith Garrud. 

Next time you choose not to go to class, the next time you don’t help someone out, the next time you put yourself first, think of Edith Garrud. Think of her and those women, not really all so long ago who not only loved Jiu-Jitsu but were forced to train in secret. Women who trained knowing that they likely would have to use the skills they were developing against people who wanted them to just go away and be silent. 

The next time you are anything other than everything Jiu-Jitsu and training is about, think about Edith and what she would say. Or better yet, ask yourself what Edith Garrud would do.

If you’re a listener of Warrior’s Way Podcast you’ll have been hearing about a lot of interesting people and some interesting books and articles to read. Here is a quick list of some that you should check out, we’ll do our best to keep it updated:

Warrior’s Way: A Guide To Lifelong Learning in the Martial Arts by James Eke

A Wolf In The Woods: Combat Essentials For The Martial Artist by James Eke

Dan Inosanto, Absorb What Is Useful

Gichin Funakoshi

The Art of Peace by Morihei Ueshiba

Hagakure by Yamamoto Tsunetomo

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki

Art Of War by Sun Tzu