Martial Secrets

Martial Artists are different. I have said it before and will say it many more times. We expect more from ourselves so be nice, treat people well, don’t be a bully, and if you see that maybe that is your true nature, well, good for you for seeing a less-than-flattering aspect of yourself.

Me? It took a long time for me to see that often I didn’t listen very well back in the day. Sometimes I had the kooky idea that what was said didn’t mean anything, or that a new policy was for other people. So being the far-from-perfect individual I am, it took several smacks to get the point through my head.

Then I decided to change my behavior. Yup, just like that, I sought out articles on “How to Listen,” read a book or two, and applied what they said.

What? Really, just like that, you can change. Yes, just change. What we think about, we do, what we do becomes habit, and what becomes habit becomes us, is how the old phrase goes.

So if you have something that you would like to change, apply that Martial Artist difference we possess: that drive that makes us keep coming back to the dojo, reading everything we can, going to seminars, squeezing the last bit of information we can from any source we can get out hands on. Repetition, and, well, repetition. Take that desire and intensity and spread it around into other aspects of your life.

Here is a little trick I picked up from where I don’t know and then changed it a little bit to suit my needs. Each year, sometime in November, I write down my goals for the coming year. They are broken down into three categories: Mental, Physical and Spiritual. Then I put three things, sometimes less, but never more than three, in each category. Put it on a three-by-five card and stick it in my desk. I have been doing this for a long time. I remember at work showing the list to a co-worker and she was amazed that I did such a thing (this was around 1989) and still brings it up today when we meet for a lunch or such.

I would strongly suggest you give it a go as well. I try to make the three items specific, but I don’t restrict myself. Sometimes a general statement is fine, but you should move down through the general statement to find the core of the general statement, and create an action item you can wrap you hands around. To use an example of mine, I started with “Be More Patient,” and then moved to the question, “How is this demonstrated?” I went with, “Keep you mouth shut; the world is not going to stop turning if (insert subject).” So my card says, “Patience; be more quiet.” This list might also include something simple like, “Submit “The Little Black Book of Violence” to the publisher by September 1^st 2008.”

You get the picture. I chose November to write down my yearly goals because that is when I first started; with what month are you starting?

“Hey, I was up in you neck of the woods,” said Big Jon Crain, an Isshin-Ryu karate practitioner from the other end of the phone. “I was up in the Okanogan and was looking for a dojo to work out at and I walked into one and who was running it but Dan Keith!”

Big Jon Crain taught me how to break rocks and Dan Keith I had trained with back in the early eighties, now these two connected. When Dan walked into the dojo he said, “Jon what are you doing here?” (They had met at Martial University, a now-defunct yearly seminar I used to run) and Dan had Jon teach a weapons form to his students.

Earlier that week I was having dinner with Matt Stone and a Vince Hardy (YiLi Chuan Kung Fu) and they had hooked up with Lawrence Kane, my co-author on several books, to do a fundraiser for a very ill teenage boy. A couple days before that I got one of my parents saying, “I train with Sifu Dejesus; I’m in your latest book!” Sure enough, he was right there in the pages from the shoot we did at Sifu Dejesus’ school.

What makes this work – Isshin-Ryu, Goju-Ryu, Tae Kwon Do, Gung-Fu – how is it all linked up? Jon will say it was Martial University, I say it is good people meeting good people. Each person mentioned is an open-minded seeker in the arts – that is good in my book. Not one of them has forsaken their base art, not one of them is threatened by another’s art, and not one of them has an agenda other than the art(s).

Here are the keys, in my opinion, to having a strong and open architecture:

1. Little ego. Everybody needs an ego to survive, but can you make it small enough and pleasant enough to be around?

2. Be quiet. Are you learning or broadcasting? If you mouth is open, other than to ask a question, you aren’t learning.

3. Good manners. If you would not behave that way at a dinner party then don’t do it.

4. Laughter. Each one of these people has a sense humor about themselves.

Every person mentioned in this post follows these basic guidelines and if asked they might have an addition or a change but frankly, I do not think they even know it because it is just part of them.

Yes, fire them, send them packing. I know that sounds harsh but really, ask them to leave. If you are a business you have the right to refuse service carte blanche, no questions asked. If you work with a health club or such it is a little more tricky as they will complain about you, but just stick to your guns.

Now I am not suggesting being a jerk about it. However, to be frank, I have made the mistake of extending the courtesy that, “With a little more work this student is going to come around,” and that was not what happened. What did happen was I gave an inch (of courtesy) and they took the proverbial mile. You need not make a scene of the firing, but you can just pull them aside. I have stood outside the dojo on the sidewalk and fired students, and after hours in the dojo when other students have left. Here is the formula.

• Be swift.
• Use few words.
• Explain why they are being asked to leave.
• When done, shut up.

Here is an example.

“I have spoken to you several times about injuring other students, I have worked with you on your control, and have given you time to correct your behavior, and that has not happened. I cannot place other students at risk. Here is the remainder of your dojo dues for the month. You cannot train here any more. I wish you well.”

Correcting a mistake is usually painful and difficult but it has to be done and done by, in this case, me as the instructor. You see, I made a series of bad decisions. I started training somebody I should not have, and then I let him or her hang around.

I remember when something like this happened in the dojo when I was a green belt. My instructor handled it a different way. After several warnings, he took the guy to the back of the dojo and said, “You’re strong when you face lower ranks; I am tired of you injuring my students… defend yourself.” And then pow, pow, it was fast and when it was done my sensei reached down, took the brown belt off the student and said, “This is mine. Now, get out of my dojo.” Ah, the old days.

The Osmonds, yeah, I know I am older – I prove it by remembering that hit by that toothy, bubblegum band of brothers from the early seventies. However, a bad apple will spoil the whole bunch soon enough if it is not soon removed from the other apples. Yeah, a little lesson from the Osmonds and nature. Any person that has been involved in sports or business can tell you about the “Office Gossip” or the person that is “Locker Room Poison.”

Lou Piniella (a future member of the Baseball Hall of Fame) managed the Seattle Mariners baseball club from 1993 to 2003. There was a guy on the team during that time that became Locker Room Poison. This player, his name is not important, was good, not great. He added to the team on the field with his play but he talked out of turn to the press about what he saw as problems on the team…gossip, and it was not good. Think the press ran with those stories? You bet they did. Did it take Lou Piniella long to figure out who it was? No, no it did not take Sweet Lou long at all. Oh, he tried to fix the problem, but it was just this player’s nature; he kept talking to the press in negative ways about the games, and the players. Not a man to put up with much of this sort of thing, Piniella then began to search for a replacement, As soon as this player hit a bad patch, he was replaced on the field, and then quickly traded to get him off the bench and out of the baseball team’s organization.

Lou Piniella removed the rotten apple as soon as he could from the metaphorical bunch to stop the rotting process. So, as the song goes, “One bad apple don’t spoil the whole bunch, girl.” But if Lou Piniella wrote the next line it would be, “Yeah, but he is out of my locker room as soon as possible.” Skilled leaders recognize this bad apple phenomenon and address it quickly and with little mercy.

You know the story: Hollywood, or a large promotion at work, changes the person. You see it in real life and portrayed on film and the small screen. The story of the lost way is so ubiquitous that it is in myth and sacred documents alike from every culture on the planet. You know the tell-tale comments people often say that indicate the lost way: “Power changed them,” “Success has spoiled them,” or “I don’t know them anymore.”

I have to say that I don’t believe power changes people. Instead, power allows them to act the way they want to act. What you get to see is people behaving in ways that are consistent with their true nature, unrestricted by the gravity of the rules that once governed their universe.

True leaders take on acquired positions of power with humility, respect, and an eye toward responsibility because they know themselves and they know that with power comes greater responsibility, which then comes more opportunities for failure.

These true leaders’ outer trappings may change but internally they are the same person they were before their promotion to department head, Master Sergeant, or Black Belt.