Social Media
  Williams MMA
  • Home
  • About
  • Programs
    • ADULT MMA
    • KIDS MMA
    • TEEN MMA
    • PRIVATE TRAINING
    • NEW STUDENTS
  • Schedule
  • Contact
  • Blog
  • Special Events
    • Kids Day Camp
    • Kids Party
    • Women's Self-Defense
  • Pricing

Does Martial Arts Combat Bullying?

8/3/2019

6 Comments

 
Picture
There is no cure for bullying. Unfortunately, it is just one of those bad things that most people have to experience as they journey through life. Over the years, many parents have signed their children up for martial arts classes hoping it will help them protect themselves from bullies. Does it work? Well, it does to an extent. The answer is complicated.

Martial arts can be immensely helpful to a child if the bullying becomes physical. As long as the child has had the opportunity to train with real sparring, they will have an edge on protecting themselves against an actual attacker. A good martial arts school should train their kids to be able to fight their way out of bad situations and so they may escape the threat. A big challenge is to also teach them about restraint, escalation, and reading a bad situation. I don’t want my student’s getting into fights. I encourage them to avoid violence to the best of their abilities. With that said, I also don’t want my students hesitating and being physically harmed. So, when there is no way out, I believe people need to be able to throw down in order to get out of those bad situations, but with the intention of protecting themselves, not harming another.
Picture
Well, what about the real majority of bullying? The psychological attacks children make on each other? The dark things that come out of people when they have a computer screen to unload their hate onto? What can martial arts do for that? Well, there is something to be said about an individual who is confident in themselves. When a child has something they are proud of, it shows. When a person knows that if things get physical they can protect themselves, that confidence deters those that are looking to prey on the weak. That confidence has a lot of value, but it doesn’t necessarily stop verbal abuse or the keyboard warriors.
Picture
The only thing I have seen to be truly effective against this is communication. Victims have to communicate with parents, teachers, and mentors. Too many kids suffer in silence. Sometimes they think being mistreated is normal or that they are at fault. Overtime, hearing terrible things said about themselves becomes normal and they may start taking them as truths. Parents and mentors need to make it clear that communication is available and encourage kids to reach out. If kids have no one to talk to, they may feel alone and trapped. Communication doesn't necessarily solve the problem, but it is the only way to pressure those in positions of power to get up and do something.

In the end, I believe martial arts is a great tool to combat bullying. Though not a cure all, it gives kids tools to stay safe and an improved self-confidence that can help deter bullies. With that said, mentors need to make sure children know they can communicate with them and reach out for help. Addressing instances of bullying is essential. It is not something that just goes away on its own.
6 Comments

Rebuilding Myself - Part 2

6/20/2019

1 Comment

 
Picture
If you haven't read part 1, click here

If you are involved in any kind of sport, you are going to get hurt. It just comes with the territory. One of my biggest struggles in training, especially as I was exiting my 20s, was how to rebuild myself after an injury. See, when I decided I was good to go and train again, I would go hard. I was always in a huge rush to get back to my old self again. If I wasn’t miserably sore the following training, I was dissatisfied with my efforts. Don’t get me wrong, it is important to have hard training days. Pushing oneself to the edge has a lot of value in it, but it isn’t the way to bounce back from an injury. I am impatient with myself. I wanted my old conditioning back and I wanted it back yesterday. These recent, consecutive, and long lasting injuries gave me a kick in the butt. Maybe I should be patient. Maybe I should go easy… Maybe I should practice what I preach since I advise my students to pace themselves.
Picture
Let’s talk about pull-ups. I hate pull-ups. I am a short, stocky guy and pull-ups and I never mixed well. With that said, prior to my shoulder sprain, I could tolerate 12 reps in a row. For the first 8 weeks of my injury, I physically couldn’t do a single rep. I couldn’t even hang from the bar. By the time the shoulder was feeling ‘good’ I could only do 2... These were sad times. I went back to weight lifting and started trying to build up my strength. When I was finally feeling strong enough to try again, I could only bust out  5.

Eager to rebuild, the old me would have gone right to doing 4-5 sets of these. I would have wanted to push it, so that when I lifted up my water bottle, my hand would shake. There were a lot of problems with this approach. For one, I would be so sore that it would make training and teaching miserable for days. Everything I would do had a nice layer of discomfort over it. Also, I was limited as I really wouldn’t be able to do any more pull-ups for days afterwards.  I was just too darn sore. Plus, I put myself at risk for hurting myself again. Training with fatigue is a really good way to re-injured yourself. So, learning from my mistakes, I decide to try the following: I would start by doing 5 pull-ups, just the one set, 4-5 days a week. It wasn’t terribly hard, I wasn’t terribly sore, and it was sustainable. The next week I did 6 a day. The following I upped it to 7. This week I am back to 10. If there was a day that I was especially tired, I would take it off. There was always tomorrow. I just stayed consistent.
Picture
I started applying this method to anything that was feeling weak from injuries. Since my back was still recovering, I didn’t give myself a dedicated back day. Instead I would work out my back 3 days a week and kept it easy. My core was also very weak, so I started to hit a little bit of ab work each day with no need to overdo it. Last week I started getting back into running. I didn’t need to do 9 miles week one to jump-start my shin splints; I can take it easy.
​
See, I haven’t had any terrible, life-altering injuries. I have been really lucky. Instead, I have many small, common injuries that I have been too stubborn to let myself recover properly. People reading this have probably made the same mistakes as me. Take it from an experienced overdoer that you need to ease back into things. Listen to your body. If it tells you to rest, then rest. The human body can recover in some amazing ways, but it needs your support. Almost everything I like to do for fun is physical, and it is frustrating being on the bench. I have learned that pacing myself is the fastest way to get back to doing what I love and the best way to keep doing it.
1 Comment

Rebuilding Myself - Part 1

6/13/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. After managing to stay alive for 3 decades, my body decided to throw a little bit of a tantrum. The culprit was most likely my recurring complacency with warming up. Sometimes, I wouldn’t warm up at all. Other times, I would warm up, take a 30-minute break between lessons, and then get back to work cold. What was the consequence?
Picture
First, I managed to sprain my left shoulder just a couple of weeks before my 30th birthday. It wasn’t pleasant. I couldn’t lift my arm above my rib cage, couldn’t carry more than a pound of weight, and I was told it could be a 3-month recovery time. I lost a lot of strength as I impatiently waited for time to pass. I made many visits to my chiropractor who hooked me up to the TENS unit (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation), trying to loosen up some of the stressed muscles around my shoulder blade and neck. I did some yoga, complained, and counted the days. Eventually, enough time had passed that I was able to do some strength training. Soon after, I was doing some light sparring. Things were really looking up.

Then, things took a bad turn. I was demonstrating a takedown on a fairly large person. This was a move I had done live and shown many times. It was cold that night and I had just spent an hour sitting in my office chair. The second I lifted his large leg I felt a twinge in my lower back. It was as if a small cluster of nerves twisted up in a little circle just right of my spine. “It wasn’t a big deal,” I thought to myself. I barely felt it. The next morning I woke up with a very stiff lower and middle back. Throughout the day it worsened. It would get especially upset if I was sitting or standing for more than 10 minutes at a time. I later discovered I couldn’t really engage my core and, if I was lying down, I couldn’t lift my feet from the ground without that small cluster of nerves yelling at me. 
Picture
This injury was not as bad as the shoulder and I was grateful. After two weeks I could lift weights and do some stand-up fighting. After three weeks I was able to go rock climbing with only minimal discomfort. Still, I couldn’t do much core work and therefore couldn’t practice jiu jitsu. If I tried, my back would seize up for the remainder of the day. My BJJ purple belt continued to collect dust.

After talking to my BJJ instructor and partner, Andrew Kuiland, and a couple of other wise individuals, I decided it was time to make a change. If I was going to continue living my life the way I wanted, I needed to start taking care of my body. So, I made a plan…

To be continued
0 Comments

Consistency

5/22/2019

1 Comment

 
Picture
There are many roads to the mountaintop. Some are easy, but take a lot of time. Others are quicker, but much more difficult to tread. What matters, regardless of the road you choose, is that you keep going. Don’t turn back. Do not give up. Finish it.
 
As a martial arts instructor, I get a lot of students asking me for advice on many different things. I feel obligated to stick to things that I know are true, fearful to not send them in the wrong direction. See, I am very aware of how little I actually know. I mean, let’s be honest, I teach people how to hit each other for a living. I am no sage. However, I do have a handful of experiences and a bit of success that gives me perspective on how to reach a goal. With that, I still try my best to stay mindful of the fact that I am in a mentorship role, and that I have a responsibility to be careful with what I say.
 
With questions like:
“How do I lose weight?”
“How do I get stronger?”
“How do I improve my relationship?”
“How do I become a black belt?”
 I try and stick to the most basic truth: Be consistent…

Picture
Weight loss is one of the toughest of these subjects I encounter. Body image issues, fad diets, and societal pressures make it so. I need to make sure that I am not adding to the mix of negativity and potentially hurting someone in a bad state. With that said, I always stand by one truth: consistency is what works. Intermittent fasting is a very popular style of eating. Do I think it works? Yes, if you stick with it. The Keto diet is super popular right now. Does it work? Yeah, it totally works, but you have to stick with it. Do calorie restrictive diets work? Well, yes, as long as you are being healthy about it, and you stick with it. There isn’t a magical weight loss hack. There is no secret that will be answered if you sit through an hour-long infomercial and pay some fee. You just have to start doing it, and then keep doing it.
Picture
Those people you see at the gym in amazing shape aren’t lucky; they have dedicated hours of their week, every week, to get to where they are. They didn’t start going to the gym on January 1st and stop by mid-February; they kept going. These people have had some setbacks, an injury, or perhaps a tragedy in their life, but they went back.
 
Yes, there are techniques and methods out there we should research to get the best results, but those will not replace the work. You need to be making the right choices over and over again. Yes, some people have it a lot easier than others, whether it is due to their genetics, available time, or resources. Regardless, none of those things matter as much as dedication. There are people in the best shape of their lives that cannot afford a personal trainer, and there are others with the means to hire a private chef, but are unhappy with themselves. It is always about the work. It is about the long term, no matter the excuse.
 
So, for those out there who are struggling with some kind of goal, find a plan that you can stick with and then sticking with it. I’ve been in the martial arts game for a long time. I was never talented and am far from being a natural, but I put in hours and hours of time each week to get better. That is the only key that I know applies to us all. It is a simple truth, but it doesn’t make things less difficult. Good things come at a cost. Success takes a bit of sacrifice every day.
1 Comment

Rootin’ For the Underdog

2/25/2016

3 Comments

 
Picture
Rafael dos Anjos is out and Nate Diaz is in as the opponent of the equally loved and hated Connor “The Notorious” McGregor.  Nate Diaz isn’t going to bring with him the same raw talent and precision as Anjos would have, but as a fan, I don’t care. I am sure many people are bummed out, and I definitely sympathize with any fighter sidelined from a training accident, but I am incredibly excited for Nate. All logic in me says McGregor is going to chew up Diaz and spit him out. Most would think this is going to be short, sweet, and an easy win for the Featherweight champ. In spite of what everyone is expecting I am itching to put my money on Nate. 

See, Nate Diaz is an animal. Maybe less animal but more specifically he is feral. The fighter, like his brother Nick, doesn’t give a damn what anyone thinks or says about him. Nate craves challenges, gritty fights, and smack talk. Nate may not be prepared for this bout, he most likely isn’t going to win it, but he is going to come to the fight with everything he has in him. I think this raw, uncivilized individual has the potential to steal a win. Now, there is always the “strikers chance” that someone can get a lucky with a perfectly timed shot, but that is not what I am thinking about. I am thinking about Diaz coming out fierce and violent and getting McGregor loose and then pulling a flying triangle. I am thinking about a mean, aggressive upset for fans! Is that really going to happen? Probably not… but I really, really hope it does. Don’t get me wrong, I am a McGregor fan, but Diaz is a veteran, rough around the edges, ugly as they come, gamer, and I believe that every dog has his day. I would love to see UFC 196 be that day for Diaz.

3 Comments
<<Previous
Forward>>

    Archives

    August 2022
    July 2022
    May 2022
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    February 2016
    January 2016

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly