Take a moment to watch this brief video (you must watch the end to appreciate the significance).

This video reminds me of a famous Thomas Edison quote. In his words, “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

I’ve seen truth in these words at all levels. I know professional fighters who have starred in main event title fights on national television who still doubt their ability. The physical talent is there, but the mind is still trying to hold them back from reaching their true potential.

The mind is certainly powerful. There is no denying this fact. Unfortunately, the mind’s power can work in both directions. The mind can either propel you forward or hold you back. More often than not, the physical talent and potential is present, but the mind prevents the athlete from moving forward.

There are times when you need to turn off that little voice inside your head. Turn it off and go! Don’t think about what you can or cannot do. Just go. Think less and do more. Challenge yourself. You’ll be surprised at what you can accomplish.

As mentioned in the past No Excuses article, I often see athletes who constantly search for a new and better plan. If something isn’t going right, they rarely take personal responsibility. It must be something else, right? Wrong! Often times you simply need a reminder of what REAL work is all about. Hard work is interpreted differently by different people.

For a combat specific example, we occassionally call for additional rounds of sparring when the athlete thinks he is in the final round. For example, the athlete believes he is sparring 6 rounds, but we may call for 8 or 10. Initially, you may be mentally conditioned to assume that you are fatigued in what you believe to be the last round. When you are forced to “suck it up” and continue however, you’ll often surprise yourself (and realize that you have more gas in the tank). Clearly, this isn’t something that the novice should attempt, but as you climb the ladder, you need to do more than is expected of you.

Ross

Posted by Matt Bryers | No Comments »

Taking a cue* from Jon, I’ve been plowing through Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig. It’s been mostly plane and train reading, which is perfect. It’s the kind of book that necessitates periodic interruptions (and the occasional nap). And since it’s about rethinking the way we find balance in our lives, it’s also the kind of book that’ll probably come up on OpSLED more than once.

One very small point covered is that when stuck, just look at the problem. Don’t try to solve the problem, just look at the whole scenario. Not, “what is wrong,” but just “what is it?” If you skip this step, you’ll try to solve a problem that wasn’t broken, or apply a solution that fixes the symptom but not the problem. Or you might find out that there isn’t actually a problem at all: It’s not supposed to work that way**.

So how is this relevant? Well, it turns out I might be a cat person after all.

My fiancé (yes, that is still fun to say, even if it annoys all sorts of Seinfeldians out there) recently brought up getting a cat. My initial response was that I’m really not a cat person; I’m a dog person. So this immediately led to thoughts about how getting a dog isn’t really feasible due to work/travel/etc. So getting a pet just wasn’t possible at this time. Unless it was the famous goat riding jousting monkey that we’ve been talking about since high school.

And I had the obligatory thoughts about how cats are sinister and dastardly and just generally the Iago of the animal kingdom. All the things that a dog person would naturally think.

Of course, she had arguments on the flip side: cats are cute and fuzzy and cleaner, etc. But I wasn’t biting (unlike an ungrateful cat).

But the reading got me thinking, and I started to identify why I wasn’t a “cat person.” I couldn’t think of a reason. It’s not that the critters don’t have their drawbacks. That was never the problem; dogs can be a pain in the ass too. It’s just that I’d set up a giant divide for myself, and it was a crappy divide. It cut out 50% of the fuzzball pet joy. So I’ve divided to chuck it. And now there’s twice as many pets out there to make us happy! Great!

* so I just found out that the correct spelling is the billiards cue, not the “get in line” queue. Opsleds, big and small!

** This reminds me of selling cars. I had an older couple come in insisting that new brakes didn’t work because when they drove the breaks were always shuddering and thumping, and they’d had this problem in multiple newer cars. It turned out that they were engaging the anti-lock breaks nearly every time they came to a stop. I had to explain that (1) the shuddering is actually helping you stop, (2) it doesn’t mean that you should take your foot off the brake, and (3) probably you should drive a little less aggressively.
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Posted by Mike | No Comments »

Its funny I just wrote a post about being stronger in life, and strength training, and now I’m gonna tell you that sometimes stuff sucks. I don’t personally think this is me sucking less, its just my body sucking less.

For about 1-2 years I have been experiencing ongoing shoulder pain. Come to find out I have a torn labrum, bone spur, and tendonitis. How do I get this stuff? If you read about me earlier, I am can be very abusive to my body. Heavy lifting, hardcore martial arts training, and just general stuff that over the years has taken its toll. I’ve always had this do or die attitude because I am so scared of letting my life slip me by, and not ever doing things that challenge me.

But in doing so, I have now broken down my body and facing surgery in 5 days. I will be out for 6 weeks. No lifting, training, fighting, etc. Shoulder completely immobilized. Freakin sucks.

I’m actually having a real hard time dealing with it. I’m scared that when I am not able to exercise I’ll become a dick (I need to get my energy out), I’ll become weak, and I might gain fat. I’ve been very healthy lately and slowing finding out what my optimum weight is by still maintaining my strength, but losing a few pounds a week. I bulked up over the holidays and hit 265. I am now down to 235 and feeling really good. My strength really hasn’t changed either. I gain weight very easily and I like to eat. I am mostly a fit guy, but I battle with some extra pounds. That is how I suck everyday. I battle my urge to pound food like I did 5-10 years ago. So like I said, I’m scared I’ll go right back up in weight, and lose all my strength.

So my challenge for the next 6 weeks is to not suck at being healthy, calm, and focused on healing. It ties back to my previous post. I need to be a healthy healing mental warrior so I can get back to being a health brutal physical fighting warrior as soon as possible!

Posted by Matt Bryers | 1 Comment »

I look around at the people I work with, the people on the street, restaurants, mall…. wherever and I see people who have given up on themselves, their body, and being a warrior in life. I guess you can look at that and see it as a dumb statement “Warrior in Life”, but seriously, thats the way you need to look at it. Everyday you face battles, whether it be struggling to finish a deadline, dealing with home issues, sporting events, or your personal issues. As warriors we need to be strong, not only physically, but mentally. And they are not necessarily separate.
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Posted by Matt Bryers | No Comments »