Vulnerability

Years ago, a former mentor of mine wrote in his book : "I'm actually stronger when I'm feeling my vulnerability because I'm not expending so much energy trying to protect myself." Those words immediately rang true to me though at the time, I couldn't really understand them. It has taken me years to find true meaning in those words that left such a mark on me.

Given my training, experiences and upbringing, detaching is about the easiest thing for me. I can compartmentalize like nobody's business and up to this point in my life, I have always resorted to this anytime there was even the remotest of chances that I might get hurt. While that kept me from much emotional turmoil, it also left me with ephemeral relationships. When this mentor is question and I had a falling out, I didn't really feel a thing. I acted like I did because I didn't want others to think me callous but the truth of the matter was that I didn't particularly care. Not emotionally anyway.

But this man was like a father to me-- surely the first positive male role model in my life. I should feel something out of just gratitude if nothing else. I wasn't particularly troubled by the nature of our fallout. I didn't see any other option for him and put in his position, I would have made the same choice. But I didn't shed a tear. Nor did it cause me a moment of heartache. I daresay that even now, I do not miss him.

And I think there's something wrong with me that I'm like that. I feel strongly about my position in our disagreement. Perhaps if I felt I did something wrong, I would feel some longing for our relationship. As it stands, I feel nothing.

But since my kidney problems, everything has changed. The friendships I've made or developed after my problem are richer and deeper. I care and miss people for the first time. I wonder if something got fixed in me when my kidneys went south. Or is it just that my long term brush with my mortality has caused me to look at my relationships differently. I don't know. I do know that I'm keenly aware of my emotional fragility. It has caused me problems especially with one woman I love very much but I wouldn't give up this emotional fragility to make our interaction smoother. It would be like asking a blind man to go back to being blind after regaining his sight.

Things just feel different now. Things aren't better or worse. Just imagine seeing everything in sepia tone and then one day, it's full color. I'm rather new at this full-spectrum emotional exchange so I'm making many mistakes. I'm a fast learner though and I'm sure I'll catch on quickly. I just hope everyone indulges me until then.

Make 'em Cry

I made a point in my group class a couple of weeks ago and I think it bears repeating on my blog. There's been a lot of talk about whether or not all the anti-war movement emboldens the enemy. They anti-war folks (pretty much everybody here in SF) seem to think that it's nonsense to believe that their actions actually encourage the enemy. Let me say that I don't particuarly have a problem with the anti-war movement as a group. This is America and they are welcome to believe what they want. But what I would like them to do is take responsibility for their actions. It's fine for them to say and do what they are doing. They should just grow up and recognize that there are consequences for their actions.

The problem is pretty simple actually. I would guess that most folks who are in the anti-war movement have never actually been in a fight and if they have, it's at the losing end. Getting picked on as a kid pretty much disqualifies you from being able to speak coherently about conflict. There are some exceptions but they are few and far between.

Let me say this: I've been in a lot of fights. Recreationally and professionally. In the ring and out of it. As a bully and on the side of the Angels. I've won a few and I've lost a few. I've fought to impress the ladies and for my life. Given all those circumstances, one truth is consistent throughout. If I hear my opponent whimper, cringe or even make the slightest indication that I've affected him or he's not enjoying the fight, I become stronger at that very moment. However, I felt previously, at that moment, I know that I have the mental endge and I've won the fight. That's cold, hard truth.

To the rest of the world, we look like a bunch of spoiled whiners. And that in and of itself makes us a target. Add to that our wealth and our standing and you understand that being nice is no guarantee of safety. We need to learn what every kid who grew up in a rough neighborhood knows. Being nice is never as good as being strong because your safety should never be dependant on the whims of another.

Group Class Hierarchy

My group class is progressing nicely. We've started some light technical sparring and I think it's really reinforced many of the lessons I've tried to instill in my students. Knowing that my students will read this, I still have to admit to a mild amount of frustration. As a group, this is easily the most intelligent group of guys (in terms of raw IQ) I've ever trained but their self-preservation instincts leave quite a bit to be desired. This has caused me to reevaluate the training process to a certain degree. Normally, when I'm training fighters, it's just a matter of teaching tools. The instinct for self-preservation is there. Only the technique or lack thereof is rough. But with my current batch of students, it's as if the instinct just isn't there so teaching the tools ends up being rather pointless because they don't have the internal impetus to use them.

Do I have to teach them the self-preservation instinct first? I'm not really even sure how to do that. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that only one of them has ever been in a real fight. But they've all taken their dings in the last few weeks and they hasn't been a substantial shift in their attitude which makes me think that it's probably my fault. We'll see what happens next week when everybody's a bit more sore. Hopefully then, they won't be so nonchalant about getting hit.

Another interesting thing is that sparring brings up with this group a dynamic I'm sure most of them are unfamiliar with. I always say that when a group starts sparring, you really get to see who's a bit (or a lot) austistic and who may have a touch of Aspberger's. When a group starts sparring, heirarchy develops and here in egalitarian San Francisco, we don't like to talk about heirarchy. I think that's a reason everybody is so out of sorts here. We're fundamentally animals and animals need a firmly established heirarchy to feel safe. In our attempts to deny that or pretend it doesn't exist, we fight our biology and that's generally a losing battle.

How hard you want to go in a sparring match is largely unspoken but definitely communicated. Right now, my guys are all to absorbed in themselves to really communicate with each other physically. Instead of being receptive, they are all focused on doing what they want to do. Hopefully, they'll get past that or they won't and that will ultimately determine their level of ability.

It's one of those counterintuitive truths that in order to fight really well, against a skilled opponent, you have to be open, receptive and sensitive. That's a hard thing for beginners to understand when they are still scared of getting hit, the pain, looking stupid, etc.

One of my teachers said to me once, "When you are no longer distracted by the pain, you can then begin the business of training." He was right. Pain, fear, being tense... all keep you from being receptive and reading your opponent properly. And if you can't do that, it doesn't much matter what you have planned after that.

Fred's My Man

When Henry Kissinger met with Zhou En-Lai, the Chinese Foreign Minister, during President Nixon's visit to China, he asked him what he thought of the French Revolution. Zhou En-Lai replied, "It's too early to tell."

Truthfully, I'm not so tied to what a person thinks about issues. Things break in their own time and at their own speed and all a person can do is make the best decision they can make with the best information that they have. In my own career, I made decisions that turned out well without much thought and those that have turned for the worse despite epic quantities of hard work. What is important to me (and it's the only thing that is) is integrity.

I don't much care what a person says he believes. I'm concerned with his actions. How does he treat his wife? Is he a good friend? Those are the things you cannot lie about. Integrity, simply put, is consistency in thought, word and action. Operationally, I think it means that a person has a particular code and judges his actions against that code. That's missing in most politicians these days. What they have instead of a code is a poll. In place of a spine, they have the cobbled-together opinions of their consituency.

What is a politician's role. Is it to mindlessly respresent the will of the people or is to use his judgment to make decisons knowing that he probably has more information that those he is responsible to? Where I come down on this is obvious. Strictly representing a mob may go a long way to getting you elected but it is not good governance. The problem with American society today is that too few people are willing to believe that others just know better than they do.

What's lacking is trust and rightfully so given the shenanigans of many in power. From Abramson to Jefferson, corruption runs amuck and why should we trust those who only seek to enrich themselves it seems? That's why integrity is so important. It is the only way a Republic works. We should expect it from our politicians and reward it when we see it.

I applaud Senator Thompson's position on the Iraq War. He put it very well. People don't think enough about what might have happened if we didn't depose Saddam. I supported the need to depose Saddam but early on, I knew that this was going to get messy. Why? Simply put, on the ground, where the rubber meets the road, I could not tell the difference between a Sunni or a Shia. I could not discriminate between a foreign fighter and a native insurgent. I simply would not know who I was to shoot and that's a problem. Also, a counter-insurgency only works when you convince the civilian population that violence is not an option for them. That's why we didn't have very many problems in Japan or Germany. The respective populations were so shattered by war, they were content with anything else. You have to break the pride of the people or you cannot rebuild the country. If I was in charge, I would have levelled Falluja after the first uprising. I would have cordoned off the area and brought in the bombers. I would have killed every living thing within my perimeter. I would have gone Alexander-on-Thebes on them. At most I would have to do this one more time, but everybody would get the picture and settle down. Instead, with all our whining, we embolden our enemy. Those who don't believe this is true have never been in a fight. The first whimper you hear from your opponent makes you stronger. But we, as Americans, don't have the stomach anymore for this type of war. I don't know if that's a good thing. So a conflict that could have been short gets dragged out. But that doesn't change what Senator Thompson says to begin with. WE WOULD STILL HAVE TO BE THERE. War sucks. It's never clean and it's filled with mistakes. It's not a video game. You win it the same way you win a fight-- with will. As the old saying goes, it's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.

Having said all that, Senator Fred Thompson's my man because out of all the candidates so far, I feel he has the most integrity. Granted, I don't know the man personally and I haven't seen him very much of him on TV but from what I've seen, I would be more comfortable putting my life in his hands than any of the other candidates. Okay, he's an actor and specializes in this type of thing but then I'm not your normal observer either. My life and the lives of others has depended on my being able to read people accurately and quickly, at that. Fred my man. Give him an honest look. I think you'll see what I see.