{"id":203,"date":"2015-10-07T19:35:39","date_gmt":"2015-10-07T19:35:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/?p=203"},"modified":"2015-10-07T19:35:39","modified_gmt":"2015-10-07T19:35:39","slug":"kung-fu-grandpa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/?p=203","title":{"rendered":"Kung Fu Grandpa"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I don\u2019t like to fight.\u00a0 Heck, I don\u2019t even like to argue.\u00a0 I still remember the last fight some twenty years ago and one particular sucker punch.\u00a0 An overhead right, launched unexpectedly, sounded like somebody had dropped a lush watermelon from a third-story balcony.\u00a0 Somebody lost control and somebody else lost consciousness.<\/p>\n

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But not so very long ago, I asked myself, \u2018Can somebody become great at age sixty-whatever?\u2019\u00a0 And myself answered , \u2018Sure, why not?\u2019\u00a0 Why not indeed, I pondered.\u00a0 Then\u2026 how?, I wondered.\u00a0 I am already amazingly fit, strikingly handsome and not a little delusional, so when I stumbled upon a documentary called Fightville<\/em>, I found myself somewhat mesmerized by the mixed martial arts (MMA).\u00a0 The physicality was impressive, the fighting skills, the training\u2026 but what really caught my attention was the drive, the discipline, the determination, the focus.\u00a0 Figure out how to bottle those attributes \u2013 no news here really \u2013 and you are likely to become great at any age, at any endeavor.\u00a0 A great husband, a great grandfather, a great writer, a great anything.\u00a0 Seems I am searching for the mysteries of the tough guys.\u00a0 After all, we are almost always fighting something.\u00a0 A bully, procrastination, fatigue, a deadline, the finish line\u2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cContinuous training and fervent disciplining of the body unveil hidden knowledge, paving the way for mastering the secret of things.\u201d \u2013 Kazumi Tabata<\/em><\/p>\n

So, as you might expect, I started studying.\u00a0 Part of my studies involves watching many hours of two well-built young men, usually heavily tattooed, beating the crap out of each other in an enclosure aptly named a cage.\u00a0 Two decades removed from the sound of that watermelon dropping, turns out I can finally\u00a0watch these battles\u2026 as a student.\u00a0 How to inflict pain, how to avoid pain, how to recover from pain.\u00a0 How to win, how to lose.<\/p>\n

Seems one of the most necessary and important lessons to be had is losing.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaturity is a big part of success in fighting, because it means you understand the game \u2013 that losing is part of the game,\u201d said\u00a0 Ricardo Liborio.\u00a0 \u201cIt doesn\u2019t mean you let yourself get conquered , but to know that you can win again, at the right time you can be great.\u00a0 The key to doing well in competition is to accept<\/em>.\u00a0 Accept<\/em> you can lose, you can not perform.\u00a0 Take this big bag of rocks out of your backpack, take the pressure off, and you\u2019ll do better.\u00a0 Once you understand that, man, you can do well.\u201d<\/p>\n

With any luck, you learn what you did wrong, you learn what didn\u2019t work, you learn what you need to\u00a0do to be successful the next time.\u00a0 Do what you tell yourself and don\u2019t take \u2018no\u2019 for an answer.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sam Sheridan would have us believe, \u201cYou need to develop a feel for what a fight is like, the intensity of the moves, how desperation fuels the struggle.\u201d
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And so it goes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t like to fight.\u00a0 Heck, I don\u2019t even like to argue.\u00a0 I still remember the last fight some twenty years ago and one particular sucker punch.\u00a0 An overhead right, launched unexpectedly, sounded like somebody had dropped a lush watermelon from a third-story balcony.\u00a0 Somebody lost control and somebody else lost consciousness. But not so…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wild-dog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":16948,"url":"https:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/?p=16948","url_meta":{"origin":203,"position":0},"title":"Solving The Crime Of Life","author":"JDW","date":"June 4, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Once you decide you are an artist - and mean it - the rest falls away like the clothes of a lover. - Barker Ajax Books can provide clues for how-to-be. \u00a0 The nerve of some people.\u00a0 Just because he says he's my doctor. 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Five miles straight\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Running Free"","block_context":{"text":"Running Free","link":"https:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/image-22.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7737,"url":"https:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/?p=7737","url_meta":{"origin":203,"position":4},"title":"Late In The Afternoon, He Liked To Listen To Random Tunes","author":"JDW","date":"August 23, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Late in the afternoon, before the young redhead dragged her tender butt home from another day in the salt mines, wherever, he liked to listen to random tunes. On YouTube.\u00a0 Anything you can think of.\u00a0 He usually thought of good times.\u00a0 Why the hell not? 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