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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.
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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.

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?

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. 

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

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.