beauty_in_the_sai said:
Hi everyone! I was just wondering....If you weren't in martial arts, perish the thought but, what sport or hobby would you be in? Or if you are lucky and have the funds and time to do something else too, what are you into?
I'll answer this in a different manner. Instead of what would I do, I'll tell you what I did do.
I was out of the martial arts for a somewhat extended period of time, since I couldn't yet find a school to my liking in my new area. During that time, I would pass some of the time by going to my other hobby of working with computers, and even getting into the thick of online gaming. Very addictive stuff (online gaming), as expected.
I became more heavily involved with some of the other online discussion boards, such as Glocktalk.com, Thefiringline.com, etc., and got to meet some really good folks, some in person.
All of this came at a terrible cost, though. When I went to the doctor's office for the first time in many years to simply get a prescription for Allegra filled, a routine blood pressure check showed something alarming, that I was getting some very high diastolic readings. So, they scheduled a routine physical exam, and the bloodwork showed some skyrocketing cholesterol levels (300), elevated triglycerides, in addition to the blood pressure. Very unusual for someone 6' 0", and 170 lbs.
300 mgs of Avapro a day has calmed down the blood pressure to normal levels. I know that this is something that will be with me for the rest of my life, since it runs in the family. I don't mind this too much, since I don't experience any side effects from this.
I tried modifying my dietary habits for a while, taking in saturated fats and cholesterol very sparingly, eating very healthy diets, but this only knocked down the cholesterol to 285.
At that point, I was getting pretty discouraged. Here I was, a yudansha rank holder in two martial arts styles, being described as a candidate for having a heart attack while still in the early 30's. Not nice, and certainly depressing.
Then one day, while doing some shopping, I accidentally saw a Karate dojo that taught Wado-Ryu, so I stopped by and observed a class. I liked what I saw, that they drilled their students with some strong fundamentals, that the instructors had very watchful eyes, and all of the students had great discipline. While the instructors were sometimes blunt about things, they never belittled anyone, and you could see that they commanded a healthy respect from the students (not fear).
I hit it off very well with the chief instructor, and they let me come in as an advanced student (Shotokan and Wado are similar enough), and let me wear my old brown belt in an unofficial manner until I took the test for shodan in this style. I signed up that same day for a long term, stuck with it since then, becoming a yudansha there as well, training on a regular basis, and becoming an instructor at this school.
During the spring of this year, the physical I took this year showed a drop in cholesterol to 215 (despite stopping the near-vegetarian diet I was trying to use earlier), and I know that this has been a life saver.
Anyways, I hope this answers your question. I don't intend on ever going through another stretch of time without the martial arts ever again. While I did enjoy the world of computers and online communities for a good period of time, it could have cost me my life, literally.
