Monthly Archives: January 2017

Lessons from a Dojo

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Martial arts have been a very big influence in my life.  When I was in sixth grade I heard about Red Dragon Karate, and wanted the chance to learn it.  Instead, I found myself in Military school.  After that, I ended up in Irvine, California. There my father found a place for me to learn Martial Arts.

That place was a Martial Arts Supply company in Santa Ana named Musashi Martial Arts.

The owner, David Miller, was ahead of his time. He was a former kickboxer who had written a book about the business of Martial Arts. He held kickboxing, Kali and Jeet Kune Do classes in his warehouse.  

One of the teachers was a man named Ted Lucaylucay.  He was the first student from Dan Inosanto’s school allowed to teach Jeet Kune Do.  Dan Inosanto was very close to the founder of Jeet Kune Do, Bruce Lee – and he had learned directly from the source.

I loved every class.  I followed Ted from that school in Santa Ana to a place in Huntington Beach, where he opened up his own little studio.  I trained with him until he moved away to Washington.  I have never forgotten any of David or Ted’s training.  My problem was that I didn’t always implement their instructions.

After Ted moved away, I began to train in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.  Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is an offshoot of Japanese Jiu Jitsu, which has been around in various forms since the 1400’s.  It was brought to Brazil in the early 1900’s as “Kodokan Judo”  where it was taught to the  sons of Gastao Gracie by a Japanese man named Mitsuyo Maeda. The Gracie brothers modified it and adapted it to its current Brazilian form.

In the art of Jiu Jitsu there is no immediate payoff. You will get tapped, also known as “submitted” many, many times during every practice.  Unlike other martial arts that teach form against mitts or pads and often without any opponent at all, Jiu Jitsu is always taught against an opponent.  As a beginner, everyone you train against is better than you. This taught me humility, patience and how to relax when faced with crushing strength.

I was already trained to relax when punches and kicks were coming at me – but the oppressive grinding, smothering claustrophobic hold of a Jiu Jitsu opponent is another thing entirely.

You cannot learn one move and expect it to work on everyone you train against.  You have to adapt it to your body style and to your opponent. It is a game of human chess and in order to excel, you must think many moves ahead.

In Jiu Jitsu, technique prevails. I had to learn to let go of my anger, because there is no place for it on the mat. Strength is important, but not as much as technique.  You will always encounter someone bigger and heavier.   It is an art where there is no room for “I know but..” You have to listen to your coaches or you will not progress.  You must be able to perform, there is no faking it on the mat.  Those who do not put in the work fall behind.

When I walk into a gym or a Dojo for the first time, I always look for the best person and that will be who I work with first.  In order to become a better fighter you must go against those who are better than you, and learn from them.

Jiu Jitsu has a belt system of promotion.  Belts are blue, purple, brown and black, each of which represent an advancing stage in your training.  I never trained in a commercial gym where they had monthly belt tests, we always trained until our coach felt we were ready, and only then were we given a new belt.  In a real Jiu Jitsu gym, a belt acknowledges that you have put in the time and hard work necessary to be at a certain level.  Each belt represents years of hard work and daily practice.

I have met many people over the years that I would not have met if not for Jiu Jitsu.  The mat is not about winning a match, it is about you and what you can do to improve yourself. It teaches you that you can overcome any obstacle in life with hard work and determination. I have learned that it does not matter what you do, where you came from or where you are today.  If you are willing to put in the hard work you will see results.

I’ve heard it said before that some Christians believe that martial arts are not compatible with Christianity because of the involvement of Eastern Mysticism in the past.  I firmly believe that God used Martial Arts, and Jiu Jitsu in particular, to bring me back to Him.  I cannot tell you how many Christians I have trained with over the years.  Their words, lives and actions all served as a testimony to me.  Whether it was sitting me down to talk about faith after practice, saying a team prayer before a match, or just being an example in the way they carried themselves.

Now, I am the one one ready to share the Good News on and off the mats.

In today’s instant gratification society it is not normal to commit to training in a sport or an art for many years. For me, Martial Arts has been a lifelong pursuit that has had an effect on every aspect of my life.

What is the special thing that motivates you? What do you have a passion to become great at?  Are you willing to put in the hours, days, weeks and years of training?

1 Corinthians 10:31

Therefore, whether you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.

1 Corinthians 9:26-27

Thus I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight as if I were shadowboxing. No, I drive my body and train it, for fear that, after having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.

Decisions & Identity

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Taking responsibility for your actions is the first step towards changing your life’s path, and yet, after those first few steps, there is life – staring you in the face again.  Tomorrow, next week, five years from now – you alone must continue to make good decisions to stay on your new path.  Along the way, you will face let downs, failures, and setbacks.  Don’t let those times define you or your future.

Life After the Army

My Army friend from the last two blog posts is now retired.  When the structured life of the Army became a thing of the past – his deployments were over, the men he was responsible for were home living their lives – he found himself looking for a new identity in his life. One day, he started looking for that identity in a bottle.

Many people turn to a bottle of alcohol, pills – prescription or not – or even food as a means to numb pain.  The familiar mind dulling power of alcohol was a choice my friend made because it allowed him to temporarily forget the pain of the past and blur out the struggle ahead of trying to return to a “normal” life after his life of service.  The problem is, each day brought the same problems and the same pain.

He explained to me that after his retirement from the Army, he was depressed.  He thought about ending it all at his lowest point.  Statistics show that every single day 20 veterans commit suicide.

Thankfully, his survival instincts kicked in and reality hit him.  He had a loving family, he had lived through deployment, and yet there he was, feeling sorry for himself.  He sat there and was completely honest with himself. He was at one of those places where the next choice he made would again affect the rest of his life.

Looking back on his life, he realized that when he was given things. he always ended up failing in the end.  But, when he worked for something, he always succeeded.  He knew the path to overcoming depression and creating his new identity would be hard, but he knew it would be worth it to recover.

A Champion’s Identity

One day a few years back when I lived in California, I walked into the gym to get a workout in with the fight team.  At the gym, that day was a man named Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal, a professional Mixed Martial Arts fighter.  He was not well known in America at that point, but internationally and in Japan, he was a big star in the fighting world. My coach told me that I was going to train with him that day.

Mo and I became friends and we used to go get something to eat together after fight team practice. He signed with Strikeforce MMA, and after one fight he was going to fight Gegard Mousasi for the light heavyweight championship belt. He took his training seriously.

He won that fight live on network TV and a few days later we were enjoying a meal together.  I was surprised by his calm demeanor.  He had just won the championship belt in a major promotion, so I had no idea what to expect.  He was the same man I knew before, except he had become a world champion.

Mo lost his championship belt in his next fight, handing him his first loss as a professional fighter. Once again we were out eating a few days later, and he was still no different.

“Losing is no big deal, sure I want to win, but everyone loses. In my life, I have had more wins than losses, so I never worry about it or feel sorry for myself.  Tomorrow is another day.  I think about all those who will never have a chance like I have in life.  When I win I just go to my hotel room and watch TV, I don’t want to be out celebrating. If I lose, I go out and share the time with everyone else.  It is the losses that make you, not the wins.  The wins are easy.  It is coming back and picking up the pieces and getting right back to what you love.” – King Mo

He explained that all those titles he had won didn’t mean anything. He has no idea where any of the belts or medals even are at this point.  What he cares about is the ability to compete, because that is what he loves, that is his identity. And, in the bigger picture of life, what he believes really matters is your family and those who are close to you.  He then went on to say that having compassion for other people is another part of his identity.

He walks it like he talks it.  We had another conversation a few weeks ago, just after he lost a fight to Cro Cop in Japan, and he told me he was already back working on his craft.

My Identity Crisis

While I had wanted an out from the increasing pressure of wearing a wire for the FBI for eight straight years, there was still a part of me that was crushed when the FBI told me I was not going back to Brooklyn, my days undercover were over. The Mob was my identity, I didn’t know who I was without it.

I had a few weeks alone in Canada to really let the reality of life sink into my mind.  I was frightened, not at the prospect of someone coming after me, but because the real world was an unknown. I had not been around regular people much since I was a teenager.

I would then have another two years in protection to really think over my life.  I sat alone for most of those two years, thinking about my past and worrying about my future.  I was determined to take my fresh start and make life work the right way this time.

I have fallen, I have made bad decisions along the way, and I will fall again.  Each time I learn from it and I become stronger.  I was only able to change myself up to a point.  Then the day came that I let God into my heart, and now I no longer have to make the journey alone.  He has the power to change and guide me.  Now I live with faith instead of fear.

Matthew 6:34

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Deuteronomy 31:6

Be strong and courageous.  Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.

Ephesians 2:10

For we are God’s masterpiece.  He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

2 Corinthians 5:17

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has gone, and the new has come.

God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing. – C. S. Lewis

 

The Turning Point

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DCIM101GOPRO

DCIM101GOPRO

 

I wrote about my friend who went into the Army to change his life last week, but how did the first of many turning points in his life come about?

In the 1990’s my Army friend’s mother passed away.  This threw his life into a tailspin because he had largely relied on her for his lifestyle.  With her went the business, the house, the cars etc.  He still tried to live the same lifestyle and it did not work. He ended up with no car working at a hotel where he cashed his paycheck and carried around the cash in his pocket.

One week he was robbed and he couldn’t pay rent to the friend he was living with, and as a result, he was kicked out.  He moved from place to place.  He knew his chaotic lifestyle was not working to get him ahead, and that it was time to make a drastic change or he would end up on the streets.

He faced his fears and took that first step: walking into the US Army recruiting office. He was then forced to tie up loose ends before going to basic training. It was there that he began to understand what his previous choices had done to his life.

Another friend of mine changed his life around completely in the last few years.  He came to this country from the Ukraine with his parents and they settled into the close-knit Russian community in Hollywood. He was soon part of a Russian gang, doing and selling drugs.  He was taking up to thirty painkillers a day along with anything else he was given.

He started doing armed robberies for the rush and to hustle up money.  In his words, “The devil took over for awhile.”  He was picked up on a weapons charge and it cost his parents around a hundred thousand dollars in lawyer’s fees, but he continued on the same path.

The pills and drugs distorted his thought process, until one night at a rave he nearly overdosed on a mixture of strong drugs.  He describes that experience as being in hell for many hours.   When he finally came home he found his mother reading the Bible and crying because she thought he was dead.

Something clicked inside him that day, and he knew that he would be dead unless he turned his life around.  The guy he did armed robberies with had his house shot at one night and disappeared.  Many others in the Russian community had died from drug overdoses.

He knew that he needed to go to school, establish a career and help his parents pay off the debt. He realized that all of his problems were the results of his choices, and that all the pain his family was dealing with was because of his life actions.  A lot of us never take into account how much our choices affect others, both directly and indirectly.

He took the first step and threw away his pills.  He went cold turkey – no rehab, no group, just stopped.  It was a difficult six months, but after he got over the withdrawals he knew that he could accomplish anything that life threw at him.

My friend Andre, on the other hand, has made good choices since he was very young,  but things haven’t always been easy for him.  He grew up with a father that did cocaine and gambled, never paying much attention to him.  If Andre had turned out bad, it would have been no shock to anyone.

There were key turning points early in Andre’s life. One was when he wanted a BMX bike so badly and his father laid out a challenge for him that seemed impossible for him to accomplish.  When he met the challenge, he decided there wasn’t anything in life he couldn’t accomplish.

He made a decision that he would never do anything his father would do or did, so that he would not end up like him. Andre used his father as a reverse role model.  If his father drank, he never would.  If he gambled, Andre would not.

He went on to get a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and an master’s degree in Social Ecology, both from the University of California at Irvine.  He kept his eye on his end goals, and he uses his story to encourage others and has been a huge encouragement to me personally.

Andre’s Ted Talk, if you would like to see more of his story is here: http://tinyurl.com/TedX-Andre

Regardless of the hand, you’re dealt in life, our current circumstances boil down to our own choices.   It is difficult to accept and many never do accept it, because it is just easier to blame others or bad luck.

My life has had many turning points, and one I remember happened at an Italian Restaurant in Culver City, California. I was at what is called a “sit down” in the mafia world.  It is where two higher ups decide your fate. At the meeting I was told that I was now out of an operation we had going on.

I was so mad that when I left the meeting I was planning revenge.  I felt that I deserved to remain part of the operation and that they were stealing from me by taking it away – nevermind that it was all stolen money, to begin with.  As I analyzed the situation and looked back on everything I was invested in and angry about, I began to see my life for what it was – a series of bad choices that had left me an angry criminal.   I had wasted my life and I knew that I wanted out of it altogether.

It would be only months later that the FBI offered me a way out.  I began to make different choices.

God had another plan for my life, I just didn’t realize it yet.

No matter who you are or what your life has been like in the past, our lives are shaped by the choices we make. Throughout our lives, there will be many turning points where life can become something else.

Big changes in your life can grow out of very small seeds of the choices you make.

Matthew 13:32-32

Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field.  Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”

Deuteronomy 31:6

Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.

The Choices We Make

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DCIM101GOPRO

 

I am not defined by my past, yet it has shaped my future.  My experiences, both good and bad, have shaped my life.  I would never be who I am today without all that has become part of my history.

I was on the phone the other night speaking with a friend I have known for over three decades.  At one point in the conversation he said, “I’ve never had any major problems in my life that I did not bring on myself.”  I have believed this to be true in my own life for many years, but I had not heard anyone say it out loud before.

It is a simple answer to the question that many of us have asked. Why is this happening to me?

In my case, I knew deep down that I was the cause of all my problems, but I didn’t want to vocalize them at the time.

It was only when I decided to start writing down my life that I could trace every single situation in my life that had taken place back to previous actions I had taken.

In my early years when I was alone facing the repercussions of my choices, it was easy for me to dismiss my predicament. It went something like this, “If only I had not trusted…” or “If I had just left when I knew trouble was coming..”

The pattern is simple to decipher with the luxury of time.  I alone was responsible for the situation that I found myself involved in.  The first step was to be honest with myself, admit it and accept it.

The silver lining in all of this revelation was that I could use the lesson I had learned to help guide my life today.  I began to think more about the longterm effects of my choices.

My friend and I went over our past for a few minutes and then he said, “I am very happy now.”

I agreed with him, referring to myself.   Part of growing up for us was realizing that happiness is not our circumstances – it is a decision to remain in a positive mindset regardless of the things that have happened to you or are happening around you.  Often I hear people say, “I want a job that makes me happy,” or maybe it’s a relationship, or more money, or a better family that you think would make you happy.  Happiness has nothing to do with your circumstances and everything to do with your mindset and your decision to be happy.

Together my friend and I chose not to go to school unlike most of the people we were around.  I felt that my career path was laid out in front of me in the criminal world. He was not interested in what I was pursuing because he was on his own path. We stayed close over the years, but he had a couple of lost years before every action he took left him with only one option: joining the US Army.  He joined, and it changed his life.  It gave him structure and purpose – things he had been missing.

This was how he ended up in a blown up Humvee on the road between Iraq and Kuwait.  It is how he ended up in the mountains of Afghanistan getting hit by shrapnel from an RPG. It was also how he was blown off a building in Afghanistan by yet another RPG.  Those were his tragedies, but not only negative results came from his choices.

Two decades ago, when he was on leave from boot camp he came to visit me in Orange County, California.  We had a great time and he stayed longer than he should have.  He ended up missing a number of busses and I could not book him a plane flight out of Orange County in time.  He found a way to take a bus down to San Diego and then another long bus ride across the country to his base.  He met his future wife on a bus on that cross-country journey.  They have two wonderful daughters and have been married for 18 years.

Life could have been much easier for both of us, much less pain, if we had chosen different paths.  Yet, God gave each of us free will.  The ability to make our own choices and live with the consequences.  In his sovereignty, he can use any of our life choices, good or bad, for the ultimate good of his people and for his plan.

God wants to be close to each of us, but our sin separates us from him. He does not force us to ask for forgiveness, but he did give us his son as a sacrifice, so that we have a way to him through forgiveness.

We cannot tell people how to act, can not make them change.  We cannot force them to believe that God has a plan for good in their lives.  What we can do is show them with our actions. They will have to recognize God’s hand in our lives and seek him out on their own.  The choice to be Christian is mine, just as that choice is yours. This is one choice that I look back on now and ask myself, why did I wait so long?

Matthew 7:13-14

Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

Romans 8:28

We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.