How Martial Arts Shaped Who I Am

I am grateful that I got to experience the life of an apprentice. It started with being a backup instructor in the kid’s class. At the time, I was around 14, and was asked by my instructor to come in and help a couple of days a week. It was incredibly challenging. I learned very quickly that different people, especially children, do not process information in the same way that I do. I also learned that there are a lot of details, errors, and corrections to be noticed that I had not yet developed the ability to recognize. Today, I love teaching, and realize that every person is a puzzle. As a teacher, you have to meet people where they are and figure out, not only how to help them accomplish their goals, but also how to make the information digestible. It is vastly complex, challenging, and rewarding.

As I struggled, Rob was there to help guide me. Like everything else, I got better with practice and consistency. Soon, I began bonding with the kids and was really feeling like a teacher. Many mistakes were made along the way, but I was eager to learn and improve. At around 16 years old, my dojo life was great. I had recently been promoted to first degree black belt in Shin Gi Do Kenpo-jujitsu, and I was now working and getting paid as an instructor. Overtime, my responsibilities grew. Every day after school I would go to the dojo, teach, train, and return home. I also had my first girlfriend at the time and a developing social life. Working at the academy gave me the confidence to better assert myself as a young man. Things were great.
 
Looming in the background were struggles at home. My mother was at her wit’s end. Health issues with my grandfather had escalated. Her brother had suffered a brain aneurism, was left partially paralyzed, and had to move in with us. On top of that, my mom was looking after my nephew while my sister was dealing with some personal issues. Things were super tough for her and, looking back, I see she was on the cusp of a nervous breakdown. My independence kept me out of the house and this caused a lot of strife between us. She has confided in me that she felt rejected. As I was finding myself, she was feeling abandoned and overwhelmed. After much arguing and some threats, she followed through and kicked me out of the house. I ended up angrily walking 8 miles from my home in Santa Ana to my girlfriend’s house in Westminster. The next day I talked to Rob and I made arrangements to stay at the school. I was nervous at first to be living at the dojo, but I soon found it to be more comfortable than one might expect.

I felt like a monk. I woke up early each day, put away my bedding, went to high school, returned to the academy, trained, taught, showered at a local gym, laid out my bedding, and went to sleep. I took lots of side work and scrapped for money. I did gardening, babysat, washed cars, and was an excellent dog sitter.  Finances were tough, but I think the experience was good for me. I wasn’t on the streets or anything, but the added difficulty of day to day life gave me discipline. A couple of years later, I graduated high school and moved out of the dojo. Over the next few years I gained an AA degree at a community college and continued teaching and training. The relationship with my mother took some time to heal. It took a half-year for us to be able let our guards down and a couple more years to really be able to talk things out. We are in a great place now and can understand the situation with clearer heads. When I moved out, she was hurt and angry. My leaving was hard on both of us, but things turned out ok in the end.

​In my early 20s I did a lot of no-gi jujitsu competition and oftentimes would place. I was a submission hunter and can only remember winning a couple of fights by points. I felt confident in my skills and really enjoyed the challenge of competing. In a few years, Rob made me an offer to be co-owner of the school. He knew that he would be retiring in the not too distant future and that this was the next step towards me taking over. We made our deal and I took on more responsibilities and was involved in the finances and business side of things. In 2014, Rob sold the rest of the school to me. The transition went smoothly as he still stayed on as an instructor. Changing ownership is a delicate process, even when done within the school. Since the business of martial arts is based so much on relationships, it can be jarring to students if a transition happens too quickly. Rob stayed on for 2 additional years helping out before retiring completely and moving on to new projects.
 
Now, with the school rebranded to match its modern style, Williams MMA is going strong. In 2019 the school was having its best year since I took on ownership. The following year was not so great, for obvious reasons, but we managed to make it. Through state grants, government loans, and most importantly, the support of generous and loyal students, we survived the toughest parts of the pandemic. Now, we are rebuilding, stronger than ever. I am thankful for the people I have had in my life to support and keep me strong all these years. I look forward to a long career of paying it forward by doing the best I can for my students.
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by Sensei Tim

So, when I see a student sparring standup with their hands below their shoulders I yell “Hands Up”. I then ask “When should your hands be up”? The answer I expect is “Always”. As a beginner I expect your hands to be up and protecting your head at all times. In practice, I realize it’s much more complicated than that. There are times (many) when your hands need to be in alternate positions. So why do I continue to insist on the practice? Simply put, Habit. This should be your normal, without thinking about it, when you’re tired, completely out of energy, so you don’t get knocked out posture.

Habit or Muscle Memory enhances your cognitive thinking. It takes over when executing technique and then returns your body to a normal ready position (Hands Up) or stance. It does the job of moving your body and limbs through a precise sequence with repetitive and accurate results for any given attack or defense. Reaction can become automatic, without thinking so the brain can focus on strategy.

This is why we practice the same thing over and over and over. The trick is getting the student to do it correctly, exactly the same every time. To do this, you move in slow motion breaking down every change in movement step by step. You would be surprised what’s involved in just a simple punch. Once you got it and understand it, you can start speeding it up little by little. And then, it will be there when you need it.

Bruce Lee:
"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”

How Martial Arts Shaped Who I Am
 
   I was born in Orange County in January of 1989, and I spent the first 16 years of my life in Santa Ana. For the most part, I had a good childhood. There were some dark factors looming, but I had the support of my mother, who, though she was away a lot working, always had my back. My father was completely out of the picture. The reasons at the time were very vague, but the rejection I felt from being unwanted made it easy not to care. My mother and I lived with my grandparents who took care of me most of the time. The neighborhood I grew up in was not very welcoming to me. By the time I was 5 or 6 I was cruising around my neighborhood and got my first taste of bullying. Most of my neighborhood was Hispanic, and though I was part Hispanic, I looked mostly white and didn’t speak any Spanish. There was a strong disconnection with me and most of the kids in my neighborhood, and the older ones tended to go after me. It started with the typically teasing and mean words, but eventually escalated to getting rocks thrown and me and occasionally getting into fist fights that I never started and never could finish. It also didn’t help that I had a mild speech impediment and anxiety, which added to that separation between my peers and I.

   In first grade I got kicked off of a jungle gym while at school recess. It sent me flying off, getting the wind knocked out of me, and leaving me panicked and shaken. At the time my asthma was pretty severe and not being able to breathe for that half minute or so scared six year old me pretty good. I am sure the fall and experience wasn’t as bad as I remember, but I was small. My mother did two things in reaction to that kick. First, she pulled me out of school and sent me to a more diverse one in another neighborhood. Things were much better there. I still got bullied but it was much less severe and fighting was less common. The second thing my mother did was sign me up for Karate. I had been asking to go for quite a while, very much inspired by my adoration of The Power Rangers television show. I was very excited to get involved in my first sport.

   I had just turned seven and started my martial arts journey. Sensei Robert Spencer was the head instructor. At the time he was 25, a second degree black belt in Kenpo-Karate, and had experience in Aikido and submission grappling. We connected early on. See, at seven, I was not a gifted athlete. Asthma kept my stamina low, I had thick lenses on my glasses and was barely functional without them, and I had little to no coordination. Nothing came easy, but I loved fighting; especially with Rob. I would always instigate sparring and play fighting with him whenever I had the chance. I would be bruised and thrown around but never wanted to quit. I had heart, and I think that made him take a liking to me as a student.

   Over the next few years I inched my way through the beginning ranks and into the intermediate ones. I still used a similar belt system to mark progress with my MMA students. Rank is a good showing of success and growth and I loved testing and getting my belts. Soon the bullying was more or less manageable as I was able to assert myself with some of the neighbors; specifically the ones closer to my age. I don’t condone kids getting in fights and when asked about it, I always differ that kids listen to their parents. On the same note, I don’t think anyone should put up with abuse and we all have a right to protect ourselves. There were some scuffles that showed I could defend myself, and that negated a lot of the trouble. Also, I think some of the older bullies grew up and lost interest in me. Martial arts did give me more confidence and I at least felt like I could scrap a bit, which to me was a huge success, whether or not I would win.
When I was 11, some family struggles pulled me out of training. My grandfather had his second stroke and was left immobile. There were some other more personal things I will not get into, but what I will say is there was a lot of stress and pain that fell heavily on my mother. I missed training but was also happy to have fewer obligations amidst the chaos. Eventually things settled down and I made requests to get back into fighting.

   At 12 I was entering 7th grade and again entering a new school. It was a perfect time to return to the dojo and Rob. It was hard; really hard. My conditioning was awful and my asthma seemed worse than ever. I didn’t realize the effect sitting, stressing, and only playing video games for a year would have on me. It was incredibly frustrating. I went from being one of the most promising students and a bit of a teacher’s pet to not being able to hold my balance nor my breath.  I was deeply discouraged. Soon after noticing my frustration, Rob pulled me aside as reassured me that with patience and consistency, I would get my stamina and skills back. I had a lot of self-doubt, but chose to trust him.

   7th grade was the worst school year of life. Everyone was mean to me. At that point, I was at peak physical awkwardness. For example, we would have to run around the school’s field for PE. It was roughly a quarter mile. Half way through, my arms would get so heavy that I would have to let them hang at my side as I ran, and kids would call me out for how ridiculous I looked. Fortunately, my speech issues were clearing up, but still lingered. I had been forcing myself to speak slowly and work through my hang-ups, but now my voice was changing, and with that came all the cracking and awkward pitches that creep up during puberty. It went on like this for what seemed like forever, but was probably 3 to 4 months. Lots of kids saw me as an easy target and bullying escalated. I would always speak up and defend myself, but nothing seemed to help. I was sad, lonely, and angry. Eventually, around that 4 month mark, someone hit me. I refused to start a fight and wouldn’t put hands on anyone unless they did so first. My worst bully, a kid that was held back a year, would follow me around with his 8th grade friends, saying terrible things to me. Finally, he decided to shove me. I shoved him back. He laughed at me, looked away from me and at his friends, and then came around and socked my in the center of my chest, knocking the wind out of me.

   I recall hunching over, waiting to catch my breath. I was in the adult class at the dojo, and had now had the wind knocked out of me plenty of times. It wasn’t like that jungle gym when I was a pup. The bully and his cohorts were laughing at me as I stayed patient. As soon as my breath returned I squared up to the bully, kicked him in the stomach, and went in for a double leg takedown. He hit the pavement; I stood up and then began striking him. After a few moments and a dozen or so shots I realized he wasn’t going to try to hit me again. I proceeded to walk away and was soon stopped by a very upset teacher.
               
​   From that point on more kids would put hands on me, and each time I would scrap, and each time I would hold my own. Each time someone fought me was the last time they fought me, and eventually, everyone left me alone. Now, looking back, as an adult, I see there are many sides to this experience. At the time I saw things as black and white. There were bad kids coming after me and I had to protect myself. Now, after working with kids and teens almost 2 decades, I realize that they had their own struggles, traumas, and reasons for acting how they did. None of that makes bullying justified, but I realize how complex my peers were. I also do not think violence is the answer to all confrontations. Sometimes that escalates things to extremes that otherwise wouldn’t manifested. What I also know is that teenagers are very un-evolved humans. The tribalism and alpha stuff is a big part of the culture. Getting in all those dumb scuffs made people respect me. I was lucky how things played out in that scenario. In another, I might have gotten jumped and stabbed. What I can say, having knowledge that makes me more capable of protecting and asserting myself helped me. 8th grade was an amazing year. I joined the flag football team. Some kids that were mean to me before were cordial, while others completely ignored me. It was around this time I began helping out at the school as an assistant instructor, but we will continue that in Part 2.
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