Newsletter 785
Rhonda!

Happy Thanksgiving!
I give thanks for many things,
I give thanks for working out,
and what working out does for me.

Who would have thought,
in these robotic,
wartorn,
poverty stricken times,
there would be such a unique and fun way
to find personal responsibility
and martial excellence?

Before we talk martial arts,
I want to share a thought.
I was sitting somewhere,
working on my laptop,
and I had this thought.
So I emailed it to myself,
and it’s been sitting there,
and thanksgiving is a good time to share it. Here we go:

Your duty is to observe the universe, to listen to both sides, to never take a stand against one side or the other, until the truth pops out. The truth is not a viewpoint or opinion, it is merely what is.

Now,
let’s talk martial arts.

It was a shock when Rhonda got knocked out.
And I don’t understand why it was a shock,
because it was inevitable.
It was inevitable as soon as Joe Rogan claimed that
Rhonda wasn’t once in a lifetime,
she was once in history.
It seems that we finally got the ultimate ‘adjective.’
Not star,
not superstar,
not once in a lifetime,
but once…ever.

As soon as I heard that I knew Rhonda was going to lose.
I just knew.

Part of it is that when you listen to fighters
and they describe what they are going to do to their opponent,
they are living in a fantasy.

‘I’m going to do this.’
‘My striking is superior and he can’t match my grappling.’
‘I’m going to pound his face into the floor.’
I know,
when I hear this sort of thing,
that the fighter is in his own mind,
trying to psyche himself up,
but it is a lost cause.

There is just a hollow feeling,
a ‘spirit-less’ feeling,
to such words said before a fight.

The winner,
on the other hand,
doesn’t boast about what he is going to do.
He is serious.
He has no fantasy distracting him.

Here’s the weird thing:
Rhonda didn’t say such a thing,
it was Joe Rogan.
But it was so unique,
and everybody was so pro-Rhonda,
I just knew she about to fall.

Now,
here’s the thing:
when people think they are the best,
there is no place to go but down.
When they are serious,
and look at each fight as a challenge,
a mountain to climb,
there is no where to go but up.

Rogan,
with his statement,
left Rhonda no where to go but down.

I don’t say Rogan made her lose,
there was just a predict in his words.
There was a summation
of the position that the world put Rhonda in.

Tell the truth,
she is probably going to be more alive,
more determined now,
than she was before.
Now she can climb again.
Now she can go up.

Now,
the fight itself.

Rhonda tried to box a better boxer.
Holly is a champion boxer,
Rhonda apparently had a fantasy of trying to outbox a boxer,
so she didn’t go to the ground.

I think everybody agrees,
Rhonda would beat Holly on the ground.

What a miscalculation on Rhonda’s part.

And,
what will she do next time?
Will she work on her boxing game?
Of course.
But the heart of her strategy
should be her ground game.
How to avoid Holly’s fist
get under it,
and take that girl down.

Truth,
I watched Rhonda simply run into Holly’s fat fist time after time,
and I cringed with each impact.

Man,
Rhonda can take it.
But it was not smart.
It would have been a lot smarter to assess the distances involved,
and respect Holly as a champ in her own right.

Here’s the truth:
we all strive to be the best we can be.
To strive to beat somebody else,
however,
is only a partial proof,
for it comes at the cost of another human being.
The true art is being the best you can be
without beating somebody else.

Weird,
eh?

That said,
I watch the fights,
I learn from them,
and I appreciate them.
With all my talk,
one has to appreciate the measuring stick.

Okay,
nuff said.

Go to this course for the complete data
on how to assess distance in a fight.

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/matrix-kung-fu/

And,
have a lot of great turkey,
make up for your gluttony with lots of work outs,
and here;s looking forward to…

Hanakwanmass!

Have a great work out!
Al

BTW – Thanks to you guys who wrote in and stated that you were part of The Fifty. You certainly are, and thanks.