Deceptive Appearances

UFC, the mixed martial arts sport, is one of my guilty pleasures. As a martial artist and exercise professional I can appreciate the physicality and skill of the fighters. I love watching the fighters on TV though I would never actually participate. It is interesting to try and predict the winner of the fights beforehand, and even though the fighters are divided by weight group, like boxers, there are often big differences in size and shape. Bigger is not always better, the guy with the awesome body does not always win and sometimes a guy that is utterly dominant can be knocked out by a single punch, in essence; appearances can be deceptive. I love the idea that you cannot judge a book by it’s cover, and we called our business The Wolf Studio because Corina and I see ourselves as wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Last week I went to dinner with 4 other gentlemen from the dojo where I train. As I approach 3 decades in the martial arts it is not often that I am the lowest grade at the table. None of us looked in the slightest like your stereotypical martial artists, there was a doctor, a lawyer, a university professor, a teacher and me, hardly the knuckleheaded stereotype you may expect. We are all polite and calm, in the dojo the transformation is unbelievable. It is unwise to judge a book by it’s cover.

I am embarrassed to admit that I once taught a class where one of the students was a short, attractive blonde beauty therapist. I immediately thought, dumb, vacuous, eye candy… Actually she was one of the best students I have ever taught, she had excellent hands, an inquisitive brain and showed a real talent. If she was over here I would have her working for me, no question. SO LESSON LEARNED!

In the gym we often see guys who look great, they have big muscles and look great in the mirror, but they can only lift light weights. They are the classical example of guys who have the form without having the function. The classic example of this that I always quote is the story of a chap that I was doing some medicine ball training with. The client was a big muscular chap with a great body, he would throw the medicine balls out and Corina would pass them back while I coached him on his technique. Problems arose when he realized that Corina was throwing the medicine balls back easily after he had put in 100% effort, in essence he was being out done by a skinny blonde girl! He had the body, but not the functional strength. The opposite can also be true, I trained a 4’10 100lbs 40year old home economics teacher, she was tiny, yet in the gym she could out-lift the local rugby guys by squatting well over twice her body weight.

When it comes to Corina who is a tall blonde she often gets labeled as the dumb blonde, but once she opens her mouth you soon realize that she is highly educated. Corina holds a first class honors degree in physics and is one of the most highly qualified practitioners in her field, she even wrote most of the code for this website! In running shops I see pepper spray for female runners and I think that this is a good idea, Corina though carries more than 20years of martial arts experience with black belts in Judo, Karate and Okinawan Weapons, not an easy target.

For me I am short and stocky, I am a quiet, polite introvert. I don’t look like a typical personal trainer, I am not  a ‘beefcake’, I don’t go round shouting “good job!”, I certainly don’t count reps aloud. However I am highly educated, and I am an award winning presenter, though I don’t conform to the stereotype I am very successful as an exercise specialist, therapist and teacher. I have great hands, maybe from all of those years doing Judo, and massage is easy for me, in fact after all of the years training and gaining high-level qualifications I still think that my relaxing massage is my best professional talent.

When we get clients into our studio we ask a lot of questions because we know that you are more than just a stereotype, if you are a runner we won’t just print you off a generic running program. Just because you are a runner doesn’t mean that you have tight hamstrings, as we proved during our last workshop, so we measure your body we don’t guess.

We won’t underestimate you, don’t underestimate us!

Alan

Back in White

In 1980 AC/DC released ‘Back in Black’ their first album since the death of Bon Scott and the first with my fellow Geordie, Brian Johnson, as the lead singer. Formed in 1973 (a year before I was born, that makes me… woh) AC/DC have stuck to their own brand of heavy rock through times when they were unfashionable, politically incorrect and socially unacceptable. Throughout this time they have stayed true to their roots, delighting fans and now rocking another generation of teenagers who snigger at their provocative lyrics. The point is they know what they are and they don’t want or need to change.

Growing up I was the smallest in my class at school and in Newcastle where I was brought up, you either played soccer or you learned to fight, at the age of 7 I started at a local judo club. I have been involved in martial arts ever since, I gained a black belt, I taught, I was captain of my University Judo Club, I taught at my own club, I gained black belts in various weapon systems, I was senior student at Kobudo Scotland… and then I stopped, two years ago… No time, no energy, no enthusiasm, too many injuries.

This is a story we hear all too often in the studio. “I was an athlete in college but now I am out of shape.” Life simply gets in the way, jobs, relationships, kids, family and other commitments take up time and energy, but does it change the athlete within?

One of the things that our injured clients are most afraid of is us telling them to stop doing their sport. It is part of who they are, their sport is a crucial part of their identity, it is their friend and family.

I cringe when I hear about therapists, even some of my own students, telling people to take up another sport. For the athlete this is like telling them to support another football team because their own team isn’t doing quite as well. Getting a runner to turn into a cyclist is like telling a leopard to change its spots to stripes… Obviously there are times when a runner needs to back off the running if they are injured, but even on the bike they are an injured runner, not a cyclist.

One of the first things I did when I arrived in San Diego was to find a traditional martial arts dojo and start practicing again. There are a lot of reasons why I chose the art of Iaido and there are a lot of reasons I chose the dojo I did, but the biggest reason is that I am a martial artist and that is what I do. I can dabble in triathlon, I can attend yoga classes and lift weights but I am sure that if you look under my skin I will still be wearing white pajamas and trying to remember which foot is left and which is right.

Alan

PS. AC/DC Back in Black is the second biggest selling album of all time having sold over 49million records!