Never be Afraid to Quit

We've all heard the adage: "Winners never quit.  Quitters never win."

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The better adage is: "You gotta know when to hold 'em. Know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away. And know when to run."

Yes, persistence and perseverance can get you far.  You can become very successful by sticking to something for a long time while trying to improve.  It's a skill that can help you in life.

However, knowing when and how to quit something is actually equally important.  At some point, we have to recognize when we're no longer able to improve on a situation despite the amount of resources you've sunk into it.

We all need to recognize the point when, despite any additional effort, failure is inevitable. When that happens, learn from your failure, quit, then divert your remaining resources and energy on other endeavours (or a modified version of the failed one). This is how quitting will lead to future success.

The (Potential) Benefits of Getting Bullied

For a brief time when I was about 10 or 11 years old, I got bullied. On a daily basis, a much larger kid, along with a couple of his buddies, threatened to beat me up if I didn't give him money.  Being a kid from a recently immigrated, not-very-well-off family, I didn't actually have any money to give him.  The experience induced a lot of anxiety whenever I had to go to school and I eventually told my parents.

Even before I got bullied, my parents somewhat prepared me and told me to expect to meet a-holes in the world who will eventually bully me.  It wasn't to scare me.  It was to prepare me so that I'm not surprised when it happens. They told me that when it happens, to stand my ground and not let any bullies push me around. I should try to talk the bully out of doing what he's doing, and if absolutely necessary, not be afraid to throw hands and fight back.

My parents never intervened. They never called my school or the bully's parents.  Eventually, after weeks of not acquiescing to my bully's threats and just standing up to him by saying no, the bullying stopped.  We thankfully never came to blows.  I think I eventually gained his respect because he saw I wasn't backing down from him. We never really became good friends, but everything was smooth sailing and he and his friends eventually left me alone.

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Today, with the best of intentions, schools have anti-bullying programs.  Kids are encouraged to immediately report bullying behaviour (be it physical, verbal or online) to a teacher or an adult.  Some schools have zero tolerance policies on bullying and fighting.  While the spirit behind these rules are commendable, there are some weird arguments that can be made to say that in certain situations, bullying can have some positive effects on kids.

Bullying experiences acts as fuel for success
How many stories of accomplished people in all walks of life have started by being subjected to bullying?

At some point, a lot of great art has been produced in reaction to people being oppressed, being bullied and being put in adverse situations.  Many comedians will tell you that one of the reasons they learned to make people laugh was because they didn't want to get picked on.  Many authors have taken the pain they felt from bullying and put that into creating great works of literature.  The field of acting is filled with people who are constantly seeking validation from other people, especially from "the cool kids" who excluded them when they were younger.

Look into the biographies of some of the wealthiest and most successful professional athletes (especially professional fighters).  You'll see that part of the reason they started their sport was because they were bullied.

Former two-division UFC champion Georges St-Pierre has openly shared that being bullied at school is what started him in martial arts.

Bullying can teach kids conflict resolution skills
With zero-tolerance bullying policies, kids are told to immediately report any bullying to teachers and their parents.  On the surface, this sounds good.  Eventually, if things get bad, you will want an adult to intervene and stop the bullying behaviour.

Here's my problem with it.  If kids who are getting bullied decide to immediately go to an adult as directed, they won't necessarily learn how to resolve the conflict with bullies on their own.  Instead, they will learn that the first thing they need to do when there's a conflict is to look for an authority figure to defend them.

So what happens when these kids grow up to be adults?  What if they have an "intimidating" neighbour who's playing music too loudly at night?  Will they be more likely to call the landlord or the cops immediately to complain?  Or will they talk to the neighbour first and nicely ask to turn the music down?

What if it's just a co-worker being a bit rude or inappropriate in the office?  An adult who as a kid learned to go to an authority figure will immediately go to their boss or to HR instead of figuring out a way to confront the office bully in a way that will help make the bullying stop while trying to keep the working relationship healthy.

Bullying can help kids learn social skills
One factor (though not the only one) that causes kids to get bullied seems to be the fact that they're not as socially adept as their peers.  I'd hate to sound like a "victim-blamer", but most of the time, the kids that get bullied are the ones who haven't yet developed the social skills needed to make friends, making them easy targets for bullies.

This is where parental preparation can be helpful. Teaching kids to be friendly, interested, curious and unafraid of rejection will help them talk to other kids. That will help them start conversations, find common ground and make friends more easily. Building social skills early will prevent a kid from getting bullied.

On a large scale, a lot of the school programs have learned this is the case and have been slowly implementing social skill building workshops for kids.  The great thing about this is that it won't just prevent bullying but will also develop adults with better social skills in the future.

Final Thoughts

Now, I'm not an advocate of bullying.  It's a terrible experience that I wouldn't like any kid to feel.  In fact, the online bullying of today makes it so much more of a difficult experience because it's no longer confined to a specific time and place. It can now happen to anyone 24x7 with technology and social media. In many cases, extreme bullying has sadly led to suicides. In that sense bullying is toxic.

However, like with any poison, it's all in the dosage.  Bullying can provide the benefits mentioned above, but it has to be the right amount and the right intensity.  My thought is that it should be like weight training.  If you start with bullying that's too much for the kid to handle, they will simply be crushed by the psychological and physical trauma. This is where online bullying can be a problem because the bullying doesn't end when the kid leaves the school.

With just the right amount, paired with proper parental preparation and management of expectations, bullying can help a kid strengthen their minds, learn to deal with conflicts, with people in general, and maybe even motivate them to succeed in the future.  The difficult part is finding the right balance that will build someone up instead of destroying them.

White Belt Mentality

Whenever I teach a new group of white belts, the first thing I tell them is that they'll feel overwhelmed with a lot of new information coming at them.  I say that they'll make tons of mistakes and they'll probably get confused. A lot. Most importantly, I'll tell them they shouldn't worry about it.

I'll tell them that they just need to do their best to follow along, keep their eyes and ears open, and learn as much as they can every time they show up.  With constant, deliberate practice of the basics, they'll eventually make progress.

This is a mentality that we all need to have. Even when we become "experts" at any field, practicing and going back to the basics should never be "beneath you". Sometimes it's good to re-examine the basics, to try and then fail as a learning experience. Remaining humble by having a white belt mentality helps us get even better at the things that we've been doing for years and opening ourselves up to learn something new.

Banning Ring Card Girls is Anti-Feminist and Prevents Women's Empowerment

Anyone who watches professional combat sports will notice that there are always scantily-clad women carrying large cards around a ring or a cage to remind viewers what round in the fight we're in.

Apparently, some very well-meaning, though misguided feminist activists and politicians in Australia have decided that enough is enough.  They want to end the objectification and exploitation of women by banning ring card girls (a.k.a. "round progress managers") at a championship boxing match this past August.  They are now even petitioning the UFC not to have the iconic Octagon girls in between rounds in the upcoming event this coming October.

Are current feminists all of a sudden uncomfortable at the thought of women showing their bodies and getting paid handsomely for it if they want to? I was under the impression that a way to empower women is by giving them choices in the types of work they do.  If a woman wants to show off as much or as little of her body in public as she wants, nobody should be able to tell her otherwise
 
I can see where the "objectification" argument might come from, but as for "exploitation", I tend to disagree. None of these politicians and activists actually asked the women doing the ring girl jobs if they've ever felt exploited or forced to do this.

By banning these jobs, these politicians and activists are effectively taking away these women's right to make a living legally. And yes, I do call this work for the simple reason that it takes commitment and discipline when it comes to exercise and diet to maintain the physical condition that these women have.  Also, if you do any research, you'll learn that many of these women have actually used the platform of combat sports as a launching point for extremely lucrative partnerships, sponsorships and careers in modeling, art, broadcasting, podcasting, and other fields.

Maybe it's a question of representation.  Would there be as many complaints and bans if more "plus-sized" women were represented in the job the same way that we now have an increasing amount of "plus-sized" models?  What if we had more women over the age of 45 doing the job?  Or maybe more women in wheelchairs?

Would there also be as many complaints if in addition to having ring card girls during men's fights, we had ring card guys during women's fights?  The all-women MMA promotion Invicta FC debuted Canadian pro-fighter Elias Theodoru as their ring card boy last year.  He hasn't done it since, but I think it would be more interesting to see dudes doing the same type of job in other organizations.

How many feminists and activists would complain if pro-fighter Elias Theodoru continued working as a Ring Card boy on the side?

 

Personally, I've always thought that it was a bit weird to see ring card girls in between rounds of a women's MMA championship fight.  So it would make more sense to have more ring card guys reminding us what round it is.  It would be somewhat sexist and regressive to consider this job as exclusively "women's work" after all.

The point I'm trying to make is this.  The Australian bans are simply an attack on soft targets that make it look like they're doing something when they're really just trying to show off how much more virtuous they are than the rest of us.  If politicians and feminists were really looking to empower women, stop exploitation and objectification, they would be aiming their outrage at real issues of violence against women and lack of education for girls in other countries outside of the Western world.

Professional Combat Sports: The Best at Beating the Gender Pay Gap

Professional sports have always been the target of feminist activists. Whether it's a question of equal pay, proper representation, glorification of violence and objectification of women.  Most "woke" people will probably say that combat sports are the biggest offenders.

I would argue the opposite.  Professional combat sports are probably the only professional sport that promotes meritocratic gender equality for both male and female athletes.

The main complaint many activists have with professional and international sports leagues is that female athletes aren't being paid as well as the male athletes (think FIFA, professional tennis, NBA vs. WNBA, etc).  Putting aside the fact that male sports leagues have larger audiences than female sports leagues, thus creating more revenue, there is a question of allowing women's sports the same opportunity to earn as much as men's sports.

Mixed Martial Arts promotions like the UFC, Bellator, ONE Championship and PFL have actually solved this problem by having men and women in the same fight cards (not fighting each other of course).  In their older pay-per-view business model, the main event fighters who get paid the most are determined by who can put the most butts in seats and have the most people clicking the "Buy" button on their remote controls.

At one point in time, that person in the UFC was Ronda Rousey.  In fact, her fight with Holly Holm still holds the highest record in attendance at 56,214 tickets sold.  Her pay had nothing do with her gender.  She didn't protest to her employer and make hashtags about getting equal pay as the men. Instead, she used her dominant fighting ability to draw a paying audience and made millions of dollars for herself.

The UFC's record for highest-attended event headlined by two amazing badass women: Rousey vs. Holm

When Rousey retired from the sport, the organization had trouble selling the same amount of pay-per-view fight cards with any other headline fight, male or female.  It wasn't until Conor McGregor showed up on the UFC scene that we've seen similar numbers.


The Professional Fighters League (PFL) promotion actually took this "equal pay for equal work" ideal to another level.  Instead of simply using drawing power, this league actually created a regular season that gives fighters a chance to win playoff spots similar to the NFL, the NBA or the NHL.  They are then seeded into a playoff-style tournament for each weight class, where the winners of each weight is crowned that season's champion.  Every champion from each weight class (both men and women) each win $1 million.

Of course, mid-card and under-card fighters don't get paid as well as the main-eventers, but then again, they are all pretty equally underpaid.


Whether it's by equalizing main-event and championship fighters' pay or by counting the number of tickets sold, the bottom line is the same.  Whether you're a man or a woman, your earning potential in combat sports won't be determined by your gender.  That's better than any other professional sport when it comes to the so-called gender pay gap.

Common Misconceptions about Martial Arts

Be it because of Hollywood, semi-false marketing by McDojos, or whatever other reason, most people have the wrong idea of what martial arts are before they even step on a mat, ring or floor.  So to help you future martial artists (and maybe instructors), I thought I'd make a list of common misconceptions that people have about martial arts so you can have a more informed idea of what you're getting into if you decide to sign up at your local dojo.

Size and strength don't matter in a fight as long as you've trained in martial arts

One of the biggest myths perpetuated by both Hollywood and certain martial arts schools alike is that "size doesn't matter" if you've been properly trained in their style. Having more knowledge, better technique and being better trained will definitely increase your chances of winning a fight or surviving a self-defense situation against a larger and stronger attacker.

Realistically, if you have two equally-trained and equally-skilled individuals, the larger and stronger person will have an obvious advantage. If you still don't believe me, think about why both professional and Olympic combat sports have weight classes.

Gabi Garcia vs Megumi Yabushita in a Shootboxing match in 2017.

Fight ended in "No Contest" due to an illegal kick, but really, who do you think won this fight?

 

Martial arts will turn kids into "disciplined" people

With the market for most traditional martial arts schools being kids, they will usually try to sell themselves by saying that they will help your kids become more disciplined. Is that true? More or less.

Any type of structured, difficult activity has the potential to build discipline.  This applies to martial arts, but also activities like dance, learning a musical instrument, creative writing and even team sports. If the person practicing the activity ends up liking it and wants to improve their skills at that activity, then yes, they become "disciplined".  That discipline might transfer to everything else they want to succeed in.

However, while martial arts can be that starting point of a disciplined life for some people, it won't be the case for all people.

Martial arts will make kids "bully-proof"

A lot of martial arts schools will market their kids classes as a way to keep kids from being bullied.  Presumably, kids are supposed to learn how to defend themselves against physical attacks on the school yard.  Yes, that can be useful as a last resort for a kid who is getting picked on.  However, a lot of bullying is now happening on a psychological basis, especially with online bullying through social media.  A kid who's being bullied will benefit more from developing social skills that help them deal and de-escalate conflicts before the first punch is even thrown.  If the conflict turns physical because the de-escalation tactics didn't work, only then will the fighting skills come in handy.

Being in a martial arts school might help some kids who are being bullied by allowing them to make more friends with common interests, and thus allow them to develop the necessary social skills.  Yes, being able to overcome adversity in a controlled environment will help develop the self-esteem needed to stand up for themselves.  But that's not something that a kid will learn after a month or two of punching and kicking in a karate class a couple of times a week.  This is a process that can take years not only of training but of interacting with people of different walks of life.

There are "secret techniques" that are "too dangerous" for full contact competition

No, there aren't.  The myth of "secret techniques" are perpetuated by lazy and/or delusional people who want to pretend that they can knock down a gang of attackers using nothing but a wave of their hand.

There are no such things as "no-touch" knockouts and "chi-blasts" that require very little effort to stop a resisting attacker.  If there were, with the ubiquity of the Internet and video technology, we would have seen legitimate practitioners by now.  If someone, somewhere in the world of martial arts was truly able to "summon their inner chi" and shoot fireballs out of their fingers or lightning bolts out of their butt, it would already be on the Internet and they would be making millions of dollars by dominating opponents at the largest MMA promotions in the world.

Effective, but illegal technique done in competition

Sure, certain attacks like eye poking, small joint manipulation, attacking the groin and biting are illegal in rules-based competition. Yes these can be effective, devastating techniques, but there's nothing secret or mysterious about them.  They're just not allowed in competitions because we want to see a bit more of a fair contest and less fights ended by serious injuries.

Martial arts are the same as self-defense

This kind of goes back to using fighting skills against bullies.  Fighting techniques learned in a martial class might be able help if you're being physically attacked.  However, avoiding a situation that can lead to that physical attack is actually more effective as a "self defense" measure.

That means not hanging out too much in bars and night clubs.  That means learning to be more aware of your surroundings when walking to your car at night.  That means avoiding dark alleys alone in the middle of the night.  That also means handing over your wallet and/or car keys to stranger pointing a gun at you.  These are things that most martial arts schools will pay lip service to, but won't really practice.

Again, if you get stuck and you can't avoid a situation, some techniques learned can save you, but you're better off not being in that certain situation in the first place.

You need to register as a "deadly weapon" when you become a black belt

Anybody who tells you that they're registered as some kind of weapon because of their martial arts black belt rank is either a liar or delusional. This kind of person is definitely not the type of person you want to be giving martial arts instruction to you or your kids.

A simple Internet search will tell you that there are no laws in Canada, the US, the UK or in Western Europe requiring that martial arts practitioners of a certain rank be registered because they can deal out deadly force with their bare hands.  It is true that some people have the ability to kill with their superior technique (think of a Brazilian jujitsu black belt who can choke out 95% of the population), but no government registration is required.

The closest thing that I can think of are anecdotes from martial artists living in former Eastern Block and USSR countries who were asked by the government to register their martial arts ranks during the Cold War era.  That's about the extent of it but even then I haven't been able to corroborate that.

Conclusion

For people looking to sign their kids or themselves up to a martial arts school, it's important to know these common misconceptions. You're not to blame for not knowing any of these, but hopefully reading this will give you an idea of what it is you're signing up for.  Enjoy and happy training!

Violence Might Be a "Good Answer"

Our modern, relatively peaceful society will always teach that when it comes to resolving conflicts, "Violence isn't the answer."  I would respectfully argue that this adage is B.S.

I'm not advocating that we should go around starting fights and walking around being bullies.

What I'm advocating is that everyone at some point in their lives should be put in a controlled setting that simulates, in the most accurate way possible, a real-life, violent situation. In order to create a society made up of individuals who are unwilling to resort to violence, everyone in that society should know what it feels like to be in a violent situation.  And they should know that from a young age.

This comes down to a very strange observation that we notice when you look at high-level martial artists and professional fighters.  If you ever meet such people, you'll notice that these people are usually mellow, calm and very unlikely to get into heated arguments that lead to physical confrontations outside of competition or training.

The other side of the coin is that most of the people who encourage violence are the ones who have no concept of violence and its consequences. That is, people who have never even trained in any type of martial art, combat sport, or even military service.

Why is that?

One "tongue-in-cheek" hypothesis is that martial artists and combat athletes have trained so hard that they're too tired to get into useless fights. Another is that because they've reached such a high level of skill in fighting that they have gained confidence in what they can do, thus reducing any insecurities that would generally goad the average person into a physical altercation.

My hypothesis:
People who are trained in fighting and martial arts, people who have knowledge of the damage the techniques they practice can cause, know that the consequences of a fight can be dire. Once you get into a physical altercation, anyone of the parties involved are risking loss of consciousness, broken bones requiring surgery and months of rehab, permanent neurological damage, permanent physical paralysis, and of course death.  Of course, getting in street fights can also have life-changing legal consequences.

When someone is properly trained and are taught these consequences, they are more likely to avoid violent situations, unless their and their loved-ones safety are threatened.

This kind of exposure also prevents verbal abuse and bullying at a young age.  Learning that being verbally abusive can quickly escalate into physical aggression and its consequences is a great deterrent for this kind of behaviour.

I know it seems counter-intuitive, but exposing your kids to controlled, violent situations and clearly explaining the potential consequences will lead them to avoid violence.  Teaching kids martial arts is probably the best way to do this.  It would stop bullying, it would stop disrespectful behaviour, it will develop physical and mental resilience, instill discipline and hopefully prevent future violent crime.