What the UBBT has done for me

The UBBT gave me a reason to train. It gave me a reason to do things I’ve always wanted to do. It embodies my personal motto perfectly. As silly as it sounds I officially have a motto, it’s on a banner. It was made official after a friend of mine quoted me once, my motto is,

“Live life with passion and always strive to become a better human being.”

When I started the UBBT I was going through a slump and at first I didn’t think I’d have the time or motivation to do it. After thinking about it I decided it might just be the perfect way to break out of my rut. I was right. This test boosted my motivation through the roof and I look at everything a bit differently now. It taught me how to up my intensity, and more importantly, how to maintain it daily and in the long term. It taught me how to actually go about achieving long term goals.

I taught me to live more in the present and suck as much life as I can from every day. The days seem much fuller when you are doing things meant to improve yourself. Time doesn’t pass as quickly when you aren’t wasting so much of it. The acts of kindness assignment forced me out of bad habits I have with dealing with people, instead of just going through the motions of detached friendliness I actually try to be genuinely personal with strangers. I have improved in this significantly and it really makes a difference. People recognize it and appreciate it. Things seem easier when people actually try to help you, when you are kind and approachable. This past year has really opened up my eyes to the benefits of being charismatic.

I am in the best shape of my life right now. How many people can say that? Incorporating the physical requirements into weekly routine over a long period of time helps imbed that routine permanently. I’m at the heaviest I’ve ever been (a good heavy), I can run farther, I can do more push-ups and my stamina has gone up.

The UBBT has taught me how to journal. When I started the test, journaling was the hardest requirement for me; it has since become my favourite. I have grown to love writing and will probably continue to write for the rest of my life, I may even try to write a book sometime. Putting my thoughts on paper forces me to organize them. It forces me to really think things through and come to greater understanding of myself. It’s a way to vent or say things you’ve wanted to talk about, in a safe environment, with the perfect audience.

The UBBT has taught me to recognize change, when to accept it and when to fight it. What you want today may not be what you want tomorrow, if you can see why your attitude has changed and recognize if the change is positive or negative then you are genuinely self aware. If you realize you don’t want to do something anymore because of bad reasons then you can always correct yourself, sometimes the hardest part about doing things is seeing the reasons you do what you do. Over the course of the Ultimate Black Belt Test I’ve become a better person. I’m not perfect, and I could use a lot of work but at least I know where I can improve and how to go about doing it.

I’ve had my ups and downs and I’m not going to get all my requirements finished but I’m signed up for UBB7: The Live Like a Champion Project, and I now have an entire years worth of experience under my belt. I can see where I’ve gone wrong and how to do better. I’m looking forward to it

Self-Defence

What is self-defence? I would define self-defence as the action made to protect oneself from something harmful. This harm could be physical, psychological or even to one’s property or belongings. I was talking about physical self-defence with a few friends and I think I surprised them with my opinions. I feel like writing about physical self defence right now but I’d like to touch on the other forms later.

First off let me say I have never been in a real fight/self defence situation (I did once have to use a little Kung Fu but no blows were thrown so I’m not counting it). I am good at avoiding these situations all together, like any martial artist should be and I have the self control to check myself from allowing a situation to escalate into something bad. I have, on multiple occasions, gotten into situations that would have turned into a fight if I didn’t have the good sense to simply walk away. Sometimes walking away can be difficult, even harder than fighting, but walking away has more positive benefits.

I was out with some friends once when I found myself in one of these situations that would have gone sour if I hadn’t walked away, afterwards one of my friends said he thought I’d never really try to hurt someone in a fight, that I’d be defensive instead of aggressive. I told him that if it was simply a one on one thing where I saw little danger to myself, I wouldn’t try to seriously harm anyone; I would probably defend and try to submit the aggressor or just dismiss the situation verbally. Yes, if some drunk is stumbling around trying to hit you there is little need to use severe force.

I told this friend that, on the other hand, if my health or the health of a friend is in serious jeopardy I wouldn’t hesitate to end the situation in the safest manner possible. Now excluding running away and assuming there’s no way to avoid physical conflict, I would say the safest way (for me) to end a dangerous physical confrontation would be to disable the aggressors in the quickest, most efficient and brutal fashion possible.

What I consider to be a dangerous situation is anything multiple opponent, anything involving a weapon, or where the aggressors are trying to hurt you for no other reason than to hurt you. If you are walking down the street minding your own business and a few random strangers decide they want to hurt you, you are in serious danger, these are people looking to hurt someone for fun and shouldn’t be taken lightly. If my life was at risk or if I risk being serious injured I wouldn’t hold back. I’ve heard too many stories of people getting beat on by a few guys that get carried away and cause some brain damage or a permanent disability. I’d be trying to snap knees, throat strike, knee, elbow, gouge or groin strike, whatever takes them out of the fight the fastest. If you are outnumbered and hit someone you want to make sure they don’t get back up anytime soon.

I don’t want to sound cruel or anything but when it comes down to it, if you’re trying to be gentle you just increase the odds of yourself getting hurt and your own health should be paramount. I don’t think many people understand this attitude or the idea of switching from doing everything possible to avoid violence to using severe violence.

I’ve heard stories involving gangs or groups of people that scare me because of the no win situation they create. For example if you were having a party and some gang shows up and starts causing trouble what can you do? If you fight back and lose, you get hurt and they may come back some other time anyway, if you fight back and win then they will certainly come back or try to get even in another way. Logically the best option to your long term safety would be to let them do what they want or hope the police help. It would take extreme strength of will to let someone hurt if you know it’s the smartest path.

I read something in a book called “Ender’s Game” that really made me think. The main character was being consistently bullied at school by a group of kids, now Ender is very intelligent and he knew that if he didn’t stand up for himself the bullying would continue. He also knew that if he decided to fight back he would have to win and win in the extreme because if he didn’t scare them off permanently they would try to get back at him. So he gets in a fight with the leader of the bullies and hurts him severely, he makes a point of going above what’s needed to send a message to the others and to make sure the bullies will never bother him again. Logically it was a good decision for his self preservation but it isn’t exactly accepted by society and it certainly seems cruel to an observer. If you seriously hurt someone in self-defence you run the risk of going to jail or seen as the aggressor yourself.

So there’s always that Catch-22 hanging over your head. Sometimes the best way to defend yourself is to do nothing and hope you make it out alright, sometimes it may be best to have no mercy. It’s tricky ground trying to walk the line between the extremes. Self-defence isn’t always straightforward.

Ugh

The past week and a half has been pretty rough following a series of unfortunate events. I wasn’t feeling well and had to go to the doctor to figure out what was wrong with me, turns out it wasn’t anything serious and it was fixed fairly easily. It just took me out for a few days. My bank decided it wanted to randomly lock out my cards so I was unable to access any of my money for a day. To top it all off the transmission in my van finally died and I now find myself without a vehicle. I am totally broke and can’t afford to buy a vehicle right now but I have no other choice so it looks like it’s time to get another loan.

I’ve spent the past four days dealing with the bank and my parents, which about as much fun as swimming in hot tar. Things are finally starting to move but I probably won’t have the cash for a new vehicle until late next week and this weekend will be the soonest I’ll be able to start looking because I have three midterms this week. So until then I’m stranded in the city and taking the bus to school. I really hate not having any cash, being a student sucks; I can’t wait to get out of school and into a good job. Money can’t buy you happiness and I don’t need a lot to do what I want to do but not having any can sure hold you back.

I’ve been nothing but stressed, pissed off and depressed all week. I am beginning to actually consider moving back to my parents just so I wouldn’t have to worry about so much. I really don’t want to do it but it might be the smart move in the long run, we’ll see how things go, if I decide to move again it won’t be for a bit, I want to stay where I am at least until the beginning of February. Ugh...

Is my Scale Broken...?

I’ve made it part of my weekly routine to go to the school gym every Tuesday and Thursday. I think it’s been three weeks now and its going pretty good. I go after all my classes at noon on Tuesday and during a two hour spare on Thursday. It feels good to be doing my kilometres again; I’ve been trying to run for at least 40 minutes every time I go. I don’t really mind the gym either since its free and full of students, I usually HATE gyms, especially the big business conglomerate ones that look at you like a dollar sign. I once dropped into a world health club to ask some questions and made the mistake of giving them my phone number. I couldn’t believe it when I started getting weekly phone calls hassling me.

I weighed myself for the first time in maybe three months and was surprised to find I’ve gained 20 pounds. Three months ago I was at about 170 which has been my weight for as long as I can remember. All my life I’ve never fluctuated by more than a couple pounds, so I was really surprised to see so much change in such a short amount of time. I have no idea where it’s gone though, I don’t really notice a change in size, maybe I’m getting denser. Anyways, I’m pretty stoked about being a solid 190 pounds now, so long as my waist line isn’t increasing.

The other day I was super setting sit-ups (on an incline bench with some weights) with some push-ups when I got some attention. I do all my push-ups on my fingertips because it’s easier on my wrists and because it strengthens the fingers, anyway, I was banging out my set of push-ups when I heard someone nearby whisper,

“Dude watch this guy do like 100 push-ups on his fingers.”

This comment gave me the motivation do an extra 10 push-ups on top of the usual, I burnt out at 85 though, it would have been awesome to have actually made 100. That comment made my day and I walked around smiling for the remainder of my classes.