# Don't start training if your life's not perfect.



## geezer (Jul 7, 2010)

Down in the Wing Chun sub-forum, a young man was expressing his discouragement over how generally messed up his life was, and at how hard it was to find the kind of training he was looking for. And, even if he found the kind of school he wanted, he was short of money, didn't have a phone, and had transportation problems. His situation had given him a really negative outlook and he was considering _giving up_ on the MA.

Some folks responded that if his life is really as messed up as he says, then he should forget about the martial arts and _concentrate on getting his life straightened out first._ 

I disagree. I remember what it was like for me at a certain time in my twenties when I didn't have a direction either. Training MA helped to give me direction, discipline, motivation, and above all a more confident and positive outlook. I know it sounds hokey, but it's true. I even had better luck with girls. My wife of twenty-one years recalls that by the time we met, I was a probationary instructor. She watched me teach, and was impressed by the confidence with which I conducted the class. If she had met me a few years earlier, she wouldn't have given me a second look! And as for a career... when some of the grand schemes of my youth faded away, I chose a humble, but solid career as a high school teacher... using the same interpersonal skills I learned through MA training.

So on that other thread when people told the young man to get it together _before_ training in MA , I think they had it wrong. If you wait for your life to be perfect, you'll never start anything! What do you guys think?


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## Bruno@MT (Jul 7, 2010)

I don't think life should be perfect. However, you should have enough stability that you can actually train. If you have no money and no way of getting to a dojo, then it is indeed not a bad idea to figure those things out first.


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## Tez3 (Jul 7, 2010)

Bruno@MT said:


> I don't think life should be perfect. However, you should have enough stability that you can actually train. If you have no money and no way of getting to a dojo, then it is indeed not a bad idea to figure those things out first.


 
correct!

 I think you'll find on that thread the young chap said he had no money and no means of getting to training should anyone provide free training for him so the advice was to try and sort things out first then get training. It's not helpful to tell someone to go training anyway when he doesn't have the wherewithal to go, that's tactless.

Geezer you're saying that you had no direction etc, this young man was saying he has no money and worries about bills, different situation. What worked for you isn't necessarily what will work for everyone, besides we weren't saying give up on martial arts at all, just to get himself sorted so he could continue.
Rather than start a new thread you could have given him some practical advice about how he could afford to live, eat, keep a roof over his head AND do martial arts.


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## Bill Mattocks (Jul 7, 2010)

I agree with you.  Once you establish a pattern of waiting for things to fall into place before you do thus-and-so, you never do much of anything.  While _'Be Prepared!'_ might well be a good motto for the Boy Scouts, not much of anything ever goes according to plan anyway.

Can't train in the art you thought you preferred?  Train in the one you can.  Can't pay for it?  Ask if you can trade training for coming in early and washing mats and windows (hint: I know a sensei who does that regularly).  Too far to go?  Find a person with whom you can share a ride or learn the bus routes.  In other words, *do what you have to do*.  You tend to value that which has a personal cost to you.  You tend not to value that which is merely handed to you.  If it hurts to get it, you'll cherish it.

I have, from time to time, posted stories here of martial arts students who have overcome many challenges.  Age, mental and physical handicaps, prior criminal backgrounds, health issues of all sorts.  From blind judoka (there actually seem to be a lot of them about) to karateka with one arm or no legs, these people overcome.  Your pockets are empty?  Get real.

There's a young man who comes by the dojo where I train from time to time.  A nice young man, pleasant enough.  He wants to take up martial arts training so that he can lose weight.  He wants to lose weight so that he can join the military.  He has many plans for his future.  He tells us these plans every few months when he drops by.  He's never taken a lesson, he'll never join the military.  His life will be lived by _'woulda, coulda, shoulda' _in my opinion.

I have a relative whom I love dearly, but his life is that of a victim.  He would be successful, he'll tell you, if only people would give him a chance.  He could really shine, if only others could see his potential.  He doesn't want charity, he just wants opportunity.  But, he waits passively to have it offered to him, to be recognized and given that shot he so desperately wants.  Asking him what he thinks others owe him is useless; suggesting that he stop waiting to be given a chance and go out and make his own falls on deaf ears.  That's not right; it's not fair.  He should not have to tell others how good he is, they should be able to see it themselves.  It's not his fault, it's theirs.  Of course it is.

I have failed at many things in my life and succeeded at relatively few.  I have started things and quit doing them, for a variety of reasons.  I have kept at some things and not others.  But I regret none of them.  I only regret those things I never even tried.  I've never succeeded at anything I didn't try, though.

You can make more money.  You can find more love.  You can start over again and again in life.  You can go broke and still get rich.  What you cannot have is your life over.  Once time has fled, you are screwed.  Live your life as you would like it to be.  You may fail, but you'll never succeed if you do not try.



> [SIZE=+1]TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF TIME.[/SIZE]
> by Robert Herrick
> 
> 
> ...



Generic advice to those who can't:

You're not a winner if you win.  You're a winner if you try.  If you don't try, you're a loser, and I have no time for your pathetic mewlings.  Get off your half-moons and live your life, or take your sad story down the road.

At the end of your life, you won't regret those things you tried and failed.  You won't regret those prizes you reached for and missed.  You will regret those opportunities you failed to seize, those options you failed to take, those doors you refused to walk through.  *Have a "V" for 'Victim' tattooed on your forehead*, it reads the same in the mirror so you can remind yourself every morning that this is how the world sees you, because you saw yourself that way first.

My opinion only, of course.  A former whiner, complainer, and pathetic loser who somehow managed to discover he had a set and started acting like it.

I'm 49 years old tomorrow.  I started MA training at 47.  I'll never master my art, but I will give it everything I have.  I will never regret starting; only not having started sooner.  A famous Jewish saying goes _"Too soon old, too late smart!"_  But don't be like me, start now.  Do whatever you have to do, start now.



> God pity them both! and pity us all,                       Who vainly the dreams of youth recall;                                               For of all sad words of tongue or pen,                       The saddest are these: "It might have been!"



-- excerpt Maud Muller, by John Greenleaf Whittier



> *Time *
> (Mason, Waters, Wright, Gilmour)
> 
> Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
> ...


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## Tez3 (Jul 7, 2010)

Another Jewish saying "fine words butter no parsnips"

No one was telling this young man to give up but they were suggesting he finds ways to work out so he can train, if that meant a few weeks, yes weeks,delay while he found another job, somewhere that would train him for free etc that's practical not airy fairy words. The only person talking about giving up martial arts was himself, the rest of us were telling him not to and how to find ways of working it out, I think that's the point that's been missed. 
Bill you've only said what we were saying, I think Geezer has the wrong end of the stick frankly.


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## Bill Mattocks (Jul 7, 2010)

Tez3 said:


> No one was telling this young man to give up but they were suggesting he finds ways to work out so he can train, if that meant a few weeks, yes weeks,delay while he found another job, somewhere that would train him for free etc that's practical not airy fairy words. The only person talking about giving up martial arts was himself, the rest of us were telling him not to and how to find ways of working it out, I think that's the point that's been missed.
> Bill you've only said what we were saying, I think Geezer has the wrong end of the stick frankly.



I don't often agree with geezer, but I agree with this - don't wait.  It becomes a habit, and habits like that create life's losers.  I was never prepared for anything, even though I pondered, planned, and attempted to control the order of my life.  In the end, you have to hold your courage in one hand and your junk in the other and jump.  Losing is only promised to those who don't try, and waiting to try tends to become a habit.


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## jks9199 (Jul 7, 2010)

Since I'm one of the ones who suggested he get his act together... I'll chime in here!

I don't actually think that you need your life in perfect order to start anything.  But if your life is so screwed up that you apparently have no phone, no transportation, and nobody seems to want to work with you... something is out of whack.  In that particular case -- he needs to get his life back on track, not continue to make excuses and do pipe-dream "do-it-yourself training" while bemoaning how nobody will work with him...  He's also locked on one style, and apparently won't consider any others.  Until he gets rid of his excuses, he won't train.

Let me use one of my students as another example of what I meant when I said that if the poster there were serious, he'd find a way.  He has drive, and really wants to get his black belt.  (He started as a fellow student under my instructor many moons ago.  He wandered away, did other things... and is now my student.)  Over the last few years, he went through several jobs (some of them at bare subsistence), some medical issues, family drama... and kept bouncing around.  Some was his fault, some wasn't, and some was just bad luck.  He quit a job to start a new career -- which included a lot of training, then had a falling out with the unethical practices of his employer, and was stuck in a non-compete situation.  Meanwhile, he couldn't go back to the company he'd quit 'cause they'd folded and opportunities in that field were down to nil... and so on.  Funny thing, though... He kept finding time to practice what he'd been taught, making time to contact me and make arrangements for training...  and he worked on pulling his life together.  And, yeah, when it was a question of train or pay a bill... He paid the bills.  Today, his life is much more on track.

Each situation is unique.  But you have to also be realistic -- and sometimes, that means you have to either accept that you may not be able to train in that style right now, or work to make it happen.  The poster in that thread?  He's apparently not willing to do either.  A certain poster  even offered him a bicycle, and was turned down...

It's like being in shape.  You don't have to be in great condition to start training.  But you do need a certain level of fitness and health; you gotta be able to get out of the house, and into the training hall.


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## Tez3 (Jul 7, 2010)

Bill Mattocks said:


> I don't often agree with geezer, but I agree with this - don't wait. It becomes a habit, and habits like that create life's losers. I was never prepared for anything, even though I pondered, planned, and attempted to control the order of my life. In the end, you have to hold your courage in one hand and your junk in the other and jump. Losing is only promised to those who don't try, and waiting to try tends to become a habit.


 
Geezer is right in one respect but he's wrong in this particular case, he's not read what we have written. It was never a case of ...'wait'... it was a case of sort your life out and take the help that was offered to get you training. JKS is right, this chap didn't want to train in anything other than one particular style then said no one including his family and friends would help him, he had no money, no phone, no car and his life was awful. We said get sorted out so that you can train, he's been offered all sorts of help but refuses to see anything other than he has nothing.
It's the lad himself who is seeing the dark side, everyone else is trying to make him do exactly what you are suggesting, get training but to also see that it was important for him to sort his life out as well.


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## MJS (Jul 7, 2010)

geezer said:


> Down in the Wing Chun sub-forum, a young man was expressing his discouragement over how generally messed up his life was, and at how hard it was to find the kind of training he was looking for. And, even if he found the kind of school he wanted, he was short of money, didn't have a phone, and had transportation problems. His situation had given him a really negative outlook and he was considering _giving up_ on the MA.
> 
> Some folks responded that if his life is really as messed up as he says, then he should forget about the martial arts and _concentrate on getting his life straightened out first._
> 
> ...


 
Sigh..in case you missed what I said to you in that other thread, here it is again:
http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1304957&postcount=61

Did you read every post in that thread, or did you just pop on, read a few and form an opinion of the few posts that you read??  If you took the time to read everything, you'd see that this OP of that thread, really doesnt have the means to start training.  Seems like he has no transportation.  He claims to have a bike but its broken, yet he was offered one by a member here.  Claims to have no money.  Claims to have no phone.  Claims to have nobody to give him a ride.  Claims that no schools are in the area.  Claims that he has no backing from family or friends.  

So, going on all that, does that really sound like someone who should be training?  How can he?  I never said that the martial arts are not good.  Show me where I said that!  I said for him to get his **** in order and THEN worry about training.  

Speaking for myself only, but please do not put words in my mouth or distort my posts, for the sake of you going to that members defense.


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## MJS (Jul 7, 2010)

Geezer...you list AZ as your home town.  Would you be willing to train that member?  I mean, you seem so upset about the way he was treated, even though numerous suggestions were made and all shot down with one excuse after the next, perhaps you could volunteer your services.


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## mook jong man (Jul 8, 2010)

MJS said:


> Geezer...you list AZ as your home town. Would you be willing to train that member? I mean, you seem so upset about the way he was treated, even though numerous suggestions were made and all shot down with one excuse after the next, perhaps you could volunteer your services.


 
What are you talking about ?
Geezer was the one who offered him the bike.


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## MJS (Jul 8, 2010)

mook jong man said:


> What are you talking about ?
> Geezer was the one who offered him the bike.


 
You really dont want me to answer this question do you?  Ok..I will....  I guess I'm just wondering what the big deal is here, what the reason for this thread was....

Like I said, nobody said that MA training wasn't a good thing, simply that it seems to me, and pretty much everyone else in that other thread, that there were more important things to worry about first, before taking on MA training.

This thread, much like the other one, will probably implode shortly.


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## Laus (Jul 8, 2010)

I haven't read the other thread, but for those who suggested to that young man that he find other ways to train let me relate a little part of my own experience with training during tough times.

I started training while I was in college and living at home. The following year I went on to a university in another city and had to live on my own. Two years in I was flat broke and could barely afford the rent, much less training. Still, I managed to keep training for my last two years of school, unemployed (aside from summer jobs) and living well below the poverty line in one of the most expensive cities in this country. How? Loans & grants I'd managed to scare up (the only reason I was even able to go to school at all) paid for the transit pass, and I worked out a deal with my instructor to do some busy work around the dojo and its office to pay for the membership. I did the same thing where I practiced yoga, exchanging a few hours of my time every week to scrub floors and the like in exchange for unlimited free classes. Cancelled my gym membership and started using the school gym (which is included in the tuition) for my workouts.

I'm done school now, but having gradutated in the worst of this recession we're apparently having, I'm still without work and thus quite broke. I'm on my way into the military, but bureacracy being what it is the process is slow. So, I sucked it up and moved back home in the meantime, worked out a deal with the people who paid for my education to delay repayment and got into a governement funded training program which keeps me busy and gives me a tiny bit of income. Managed to work out a budget with what little cash flow I get from that to pay for a Y membership, which coveres both workouts and Aikido, and found a good Karate dojo who's rates are not exorbitant. Whats left goes to gas and bills.

I once had an over-developed sense of victimhood myself. I don't know if that's what's going on with that young man or not, but I can appreciate what that feels like. My point is, if its something you really want you find a way. That's something I learned from training. I hope he does too.


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## Jade Tigress (Jul 8, 2010)

*ADMIN NOTE*

*Thread locked pending review. *


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