Chasing Carrots

Two things about me; I’m not a numbers guy and I don’t like carrots. I don’t believe in chasing numbers nor that metaphorical root attached to the end of a stick to spur the jackass to move forever forward. I will not live my life that way and I don’t manage my team that way. No soul in it. Besides, carrots make my stomach hurt.

When I was twelve, I took my first martial arts test and my master instructor asked me, with a heavy Korean accent, “What is your goal here.” I was twelve and the only thing I could think of was to get to black belt. That was the ultimate goal, right? Get to black belt. When I told him my answer, he squinted and nodded with a deep, “Hmmm.” I thought I got the answer right. I was wrong.

I was focused on the time between tests and the quota of techniques required to pass each belt rank test and from that I calculated how long it would take to get to black belt. It was time, numbers, and goals. I was a jackass.

As I progressed through training, I began to see something. I realized that the “Do” in Tae Kwon Do, Judo, Hapkido, and Aikido is “The Way”. The way is the goal and the goal is the way. In fact, there is no goal, only the way. The stress was gone from cramming to learn techniques, skills, and academics for the next test and then next one. I began to appreciate the way and do things better for the intrinsic rewards of being, rather than outward achievement. After that, the “tests” were just another day and belt ranks were just a symbol of where I was along the way. I became an actual martial artist, rather than a good test-taker, chasing the next rank. I was being, rather than simply knowing.

The way is the goal and the goal is the way.

When we’re focused on a number, a quota, or a goal, we’re chasing after the extrinsic carrot at the end of some perpetual stick. Even if we reach it, the goal moves and becomes another thing to chase after next month. If we’re going to have a goal, then that goal should be to live the “way”, doing what’s right for all the right reasons, connecting with humans on a human level, being diligent in helping them to achieve their goals and enjoy what we do because we love doing it; not because of some number, some goal, or some other form of carrot. Do that and the numbers will come and the end of the month will simply be a stress-free Tuesday.

Similarly …

It’s not about getting an “A” or a 4.0 GPA; it’s about truly learning and understanding the material and being interested in the ability to think, contemplate, discuss, and play with that material. If you can do that, no test should scare you and you will no longer have to regurgitate memorized academics or plagiarize textbooks to fill in those essay questions.

It’s not about losing weight; it’s about living a healthy lifestyle, but in a way that you enjoy it. It’s not about joining a gym, unless you love reps and sets and staring at a flat-screen TV while you walk to nowhere. It’s not about buying the latest diet book, unless it speaks to your soul; something that you can and would love to live with.  Maybe it’s martial arts; maybe it’s tennis or an outdoor boot-camp.  Otherwise, it’s work; it’s something you have to make yourself do, because it’s supposed to be good for you. Humans don’t work that way. Logic and reasoning are a hard sell. We must do it for the intrinsic values, for the love of the way or we’ll all be just like the 80% of people who sign a gym membership and never use it.

Quit chasing carrots.

Rob Wilson

Value is in the Empty Space

The application of a cup is not in its material or its shape. A house is not useful for its walls, roof, and pillars. The purpose of a doorway isn’t about its frame or arch, however grand or rudimentary it may be. When we envision these things, we see the shape, style, and materials. We focus on the tangible things, but the real value is in their emptiness.

The empty space in a cup is what makes it useful. A doorway is a passage from one place to another and that is its importance. It’s about who fills the room and what takes place there, not the flooring or its walls. Money is as useless as the paper it’s printed on, if it takes no action. Its influence is in what it can do. Without the emptiness a doorway is a wall. But, emptiness can’t exist without the tangible. This is yin and yang.

Skills are a foundation and framework, but that’s just the tangible part. It’s the character that fills the empty space that makes a person truly valuable. You know; the “intangibles.” I mean … what good is a shiny chalice if it’s filled with muck? I’d rather have a paper cup filled with a nice cabernet. When it comes to filling a space, it’s the quality, not the quantity that makes the difference.

We often think of time as an empty space to be filled, but being busy isn’t the same as being productive. When we have a free moment, we almost feel guilty as if we need to be doing something … anything. More of our time is spent doing, rather than being and we constantly feel like we’re behind the eight ball. Life has become … cumbersome (Thank you, Seven Mary Three). In most cases, the eight ball is an illusion and one that we created. Down-time is where we regroup, recharge, and relax, preparing us for what is to come. Enjoy the Silence.

We fill rooms with inanimate objects that eventually become clutter. When there are too many people in a ballroom we have no space to even move. Meanwhile, David Bowie is singing in the background, “… sway through the crowd to an empty space.” Now that there’s room, Let’s Dance.

Without silence, there is no music. Without pause, there is no dialogue. Without the emptiness on a page, there are no words. Without the space in a pool there is no water and therefore, no swimming. However, an art studio produces nothing without the artist. A corporate building is just brick and mortar without the intellectual property, people, and culture within.

A dojo is only as good as its instructor, I don’t care how “traditional” or grand the design and build-out is or that it’s located next to an anchor store.

The tangible and intangible swirl in harmonic balance, but it is the quality of the intangible that gives the tangible its value. But … what about the materials and craftsmanship? Oak over pine? Leather seats, rather than cloth? Stone and marble instead of plywood and stucco? Yes … absolutely. Given the choice, most of us like, enjoy, and value the finer things; nothing wrong with that. But … a jackass driving a BMW 7-Series is still a jackass.

While the tangible can increase the monetary value of the space it creates, it cannot elevate the quality of whom or what fills it.

Rob Wilson

Ki and the Art of the Message

Ki, as in the martial arts Aikido and Hapkido, means life force, inner potential, and universal energy. It’s where your head’s at, your connection with the universe, your state of mind; positive or negative, light side or dark side, yin or yang, Ki can be strong or weak. In Star Wars terms, it is “The Force”.

Our Ki is shaped, influenced, and affected by many factors, such as our background, experiences, beliefs, interests, training, parents, environment, circumstances, etc. Even daily elements like, traffic, deadlines, news stories, money, people, and so on have their short-term effects. Because of this, we often experience the world as we are, and not as it actually is. This brings me to the story of Kali Muscle.

An incredible physical specimen, Kali Muscle was always an athlete. In high school, he excelled in football, wrestling and track; all city in all three sports. He was also the senior class president and got a scholarship to Fresno to play football.

In his second year at Fresno, he ran into a little trouble. His money was low, couldn’t pay rent, and couldn’t buy food, so he went to the one man he thought he could go to for help. He asked his coach if he could get some advance money from his scholarship and the coach looked him in the eye and said, “Sir, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do to survive in this world.” That message changed everything.

Kali came from a tough background growing up in a crime-ridden area in Oakland California. He had his first gun when he was in elementary school. With what he knew about the streets, Kali took what his coach said in a negative way. “So I went out, committed some robberies and ended up doing seven years in prison.” – Kali Muscle.

Kali experienced that interaction with his coach as he was, not as things actually were. We are all like this. Two people can read the same book and come away with two very different viewpoints and messages, yet the book is exactly the same in both cases. What we come away with or the message we receive depends greatly on our Ki and less so on the actual material being delivered. Kali’s coach was delivering what he thought was motivating tough talk. That tough talk mixed with Kali’s desperate situation, directed the flow of Ki in the wrong direction. He didn’t need tough talk; he needed help. Hindsight is 20/20, but sitting down together and listening would have formulated a much better solution.

Fortunately, Kali is incredibly resilient and resourceful and climbed his way back to success. You may have seen him on that Geico commercial, “Happier Than a Bodybuilder Directing Traffic”, or in an Old Navy commercial or ads for Taco Bell, Snickers, and Honda. Maybe you’ve seen his book, “Xcon to Icon”. Read it.

Our Ki is our responsibility. But, as an instructor, coach, teacher, leader, manager, parent, or presenter, the responsibility is just as strong, because we have the ability to affect the flow of someone else’s Ki.

As Yoda says, “You will find what you bring in.” Be mindful of what you bring in, because ultimately, your connection with the universe, your inner potential, and your Ki is up to you.

It’s not what you look at that matters. It’s what you see.

Rob Wilson

Zombie Fitness

There’s an excellent book written by John C. Parkin entitled, “F**ck It”. I know, right? Very concise. In one section he talks about his enlightening experience one day at the gym. He was on the stair climber when a power surge struck the building and he felt the jolt through the machine. It made him stop and as the pedals he was standing on slowly sank to the floor, he looked around and saw the inside of this gym in a whole new perspective. People pretending to be rowing, running, climbing hills, and lifting logs while they watched MTV, CNN, some soap opera, or listening to their headphones, trying to blank their minds of the absurd reality of what they were doing. No one was happy and their minds were totally disconnected. It was a ridiculous scene in his mind. He went to the locker room and thoroughly enjoyed his shower there, knowing with all clarity that he would never step foot in that place again.

I completely understand. The typical gym is a virtual world, but this isn’t The Matrix. We don’t want to sleep through life. We thrive in reality. Being in a large indoor area with lots of other people isn’t the same as being together. There’s no interaction. Spending an hour on a stair climber isn’t really climbing stairs. When you get to the top of real steps, like the ones at the Philadelphia Art Museum, you throw a few punches, raise your arms in victory, jump up and down, and suddenly you’re Rocky Balboa. Trust me; I’ve seen it a hundred times. Everyone does it. I’ve done it. No shame in it. That feeling doesn’t happen on stair climber, I don’t care if the lighted green dots tell you you’ve just summited Everest.

Humans are intelligent, dynamic, social, spiritual, and intellectual beings with a soul. We are not robots. Separate the mind from the body with machines surrounded by a plethora of digitalia and you’ve gone against human nature. Furthermore, separating this muscle from that muscle with isolation machines and you’ve gone against our natural function. Regimented counting of repetitions, calculations, and percentages has turned fitness into an overcomplicated science project. It’s no wonder everyone hates “working out”. It’s work!

Look around that 25,000 square feet of cold fluorescently lit atmosphere and you’ll see unengaged humans going through their soul sucking programs and you won’t need cable to see The Walking Dead. We spend most of our lives in some form of indoor environment, surrounded by electronics, WiFi waves, and digital noise, separated from others inside our individual office or cubicle. Our day is regimented enough and the last thing we need is a highly structured exercise program in the same indoor conditions. Work is still work and if we had our choice, we’d rather play.

We want freedom, adventure, and at the same time need to be challenged physically and engaged mentally. We want to climb that mountain, run that race, challenge that course, and interact with others.

Cross Fit, Tough Mudder (and many other similar races), Ninja Warrior, Parkour, free running, and ropes courses are exploding in popularity because they engage our inner spirit. Martial arts, yoga, hiking, jogging, and outdoor boot camps are proliferating, because the mind, body, and soul are all in it together.

We are unplugging from the Matrix, and curing the zombie infection.

Rob Wilson

Zen and the Art of Nonconformity

Morihei Ueshiba, also known as O-Sensei is the founder and father of Aikido and a very recognizable character with his signature long, white beard and bald head. In 1964, O-Sensei was informed that he would be presented with the Order of the Rising Sun from the emperor of Japan. He asked his students if he should shave his beard out of respect for the emporer. His students asked him not to do so, explaining that his beard is part of the Aikido image. Ueshiba agreed and kept the beard.

He was a nonconformist, but not at first. He learned, trained, and studied the traditional martial ways. But, with an open mind he had an epiphany that led him to develop Aikido, the art of peace. If Ueshiba never had that thought and lived his life following the traditional line, Aikido would not exist and Hollywood would never have seen a six-foot, four inch pony-tailed American dude named Segal toss guys through windows in forty films. That would have been a terrible loss.

Albert Einstein once said, “It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed”. Steve Jobs championed the “misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes”.

Bruce Lee was a nonconformist. He recognized the shortcomings of traditional martial arts styles and invented Jeet Kune Do, the style of no style. He was often asked if Jeet Kune Do was a martial art or a philosophy of life, to which he responded, “It’s only a name.” They were getting hung up on the wrong thing. Lee gave it a name (Jeet Kune Do), merely so that it can be referred to, that’s all.

You see how the mind of a conformist works; they want to categorize it and put it into a neat little box. But the game changers, the nonconformists, the edgy ones, don’t work with boxes.

Ueshiba, Jobs, Einstein, and Lee were unbound by accepted beliefs, customs, traditions, rules, styles, techniques, etiquettes, philosophies, and practices. That’s not to say they didn’t know these things. In fact, they mastered these things and removed the walls of perceived restrictions.

This is the same concept of Zen: “In order for us to truly master anything, we must first learn proper form and traditional technique, then forget those restrictions as we reach the point in learning where our art becomes second nature and can be done without conscious thought. Thus we transcend the “laws” that govern that particular art.” Charlie Parker, the great jazz saxophonist said this, “Master your instrument, master the music, then forget all that bullshit and just play.”

My philosophy, my skills, my art, my persona, and my character are truly mine. I am not a conformist. I am a free man. That’s not to say I haven’t studied, learned, and achieved at the academics, been inside the box, followed and towed the line, apprenticed and interned for many years. I have. But in doing so, I developed my own wisdom from my own experiences, had my own successes as well as failures, and developed my own style; the style of no style. It’s free-flowing, outside the box, edgy, smart, full of wisdom, and transcends “laws” and boundaries. I still have my teachers and mentors and always will, but my style is my style and if I want to put a round peg in a square hole, I will. And as I continue to seek knowledge and wisdom, I view it through the eyes of a respectful rebel, a diplomatic nonconformist, an uncommon traditionalist, a serious humorist, an extraverted introvert, a nerdy athlete, a positive realist, and a master apprentice.

Act without acting. Be without pretense. Communicate without pomposity. Be approachable, friendly, down-to-earth, knowledgeable, helpful, genuine, and funny. Above all else … be you, because you are all the validation you need.

Rob Wilson

The Bank

The following is how one incident inspired me to seek the truth about martial arts and real-world self-defense, how that situation came about, and where I screwed up.

In the summer of 1996, I had a retail job that paid commissions on sales, so I was eager to work the weekends. Mondays were my regular day off with one other floating day. On one particular Monday, I picked up a friend to play some hoops and grab lunch. On the way to the courts, I stopped at my bank to make a deposit and get some cash. I parked in the parking lot and made my way towards the doors, leaving my friend waiting in the car. “I’ll be real quick”, I said.

Mistake #1: I was in a self-induced hurry. Not very Zen-like.

I had my wallet in my hand, a check, and a deposit slip. As I was walking towards the doors, I fumbled with these objects.

Mistake #2: I got completely distracted.

I passed a vehicle with a woman in the driver’s seat, frantically calling for me from her car in Spanish. I didn’t speak Spanish, but I understood she needed help. I went to her and she was speaking fast with tears in her eyes and her hand on her chest. I tried to convey to her that I’d go inside to get help, but she tried to keep me with her, grabbing for my arms. Her face showed genuine fear.

Mistake #3: I mistook her fear as fear for herself and not for me.

As best I could, I tried to assure her that I’d be right back with help. As I made my way to the doors I glanced back at her, still fumbling with my wallet and papers. Her arms were outstretched towards me as if to will me back to her. I raised my hand to motion that I’d be real quick. With my other hand I started to pull the door open. As I turned to walk into the bank, a large gun was pressed into my forehead. The guy pushed me backwards outside with the barrel of the gun.

“Shit!” I was angry and disappointed at myself, because I knew I messed up. I didn’t see where the second guy came from, but he pressed his gun into my right ear. I knew I was at their mercy.

These two guys were on an adrenaline high, and maybe another substance, because they were jumping up and down as they held the guns to my head, yelling “Get down”, “Get inside”. I realize now that at any time they could have slipped or twitched and pulled the trigger.

I interrupted them and calmly asked what they wanted me to do and one said, “Get inside and lay face-down.” So, I did. I wasn’t on the tile for long before I started to hear the sounds inside the bank. It was like someone was slowly turning the volume knob up from zero. I could hear commotion, crying, and people talking. One bank teller behind the counter was hysterical. I could sense that the two gunmen where no longer there. I looked up, then stood up.

After spending a few hours locked inside the bank answering questions from the local FBI, we were all released. While I sat there, I had time to think. There I was, a black belt, physically fit, and street smart, rendered clueless and useless in an instant.

Mistake #4: False confidence in the real world.

This one incident changed my focus. So for the past 17 years I’ve sought out, studied, researched, trained, and learned from the world’s foremost experts on real world violence, mindset, psychology, intuition, awareness, academics, and tactical skills.

Martial arts is still a very important part of my life; there’s much more to it than fighting. It’s a spiritual thing, a Zen thing, a mind-body thing. It is a way of life … a journey. If martial arts is my yin, then reality based training and research is my yang. Together, they are my passion.

I’m often asked what I would do now if confronted with the same situation. First off, I’d like to think I wouldn’t let myself make the four mistakes mentioned above and therefore, avoid the entire thing. That is martial arts. That is reality based training.

But what they’re really asking is, what about the part with the two guns to my head. They want to know if I would pull out my Hong Kong book of Kung Fu and go all Jackie Chan on them. However, my answer is simply, “I don’t know.”

Reality is dynamic with an infinite number of variables. Every situation is different and luck certainly plays its part. The best we can do is educate ourselves and train for reality.

Growing up where I grew up, I’ve seen and experienced real world violence. I know what it looks like and feels like. I’m able to talk, relate, and use analogies from experience. When I began my search for the truth eighteen years ago, Zen Dojo wasn’t a thought. I just wanted to know what works in the real world. I just wanted to learn. Now, I’m proud of what it has become. However, I continue to research, look, train, study and seek out the experts, their teachings, stories, training, and wisdom. Zen Defense is one of the best self-defense systems (and there are very few good ones), because I’m open to reality and continuous learning. It’s not a perfect system and none are, but that doesn’t stop me from trying.

Rob Wilson

What Do You Seek?

The door separated the icy, slush covered sidewalk from a warmer vestibule. As it closed behind me and my father we looked up a tall, narrow flight of old wooden stairs. We looked at each other and ascended as we removed our scarves and gloves. At the top and to the left was his office. “Welcome.” The Korean accented greeting practically startled us. Ki Sik Cha was standing at his office doorway and I met my first martial arts instructor. He shook my father’s hand and exchanged pleasantries. When we sat down, Grandmaster Cha looked at me and asked, “What do you seek?” I was twelve, so my obvious answer was, “I don’t know”, as I shrugged my shoulders. “But, yet you are here”, he said. I replied, “Well, yes.” Then, very matter-of-factly, he said … “You have come to the right place.”

He stood up and walked me into the dojo. No one was there yet and what I saw widened my eyes, my heart skipped a beat, and I swallowed hard. Heavy bags hung from the ceiling and weapons hung on the walls along with scrolls of wisdom. It was like something out of a movie. He saw my reaction, put his hand on my shoulder and looked at me. He said, “You are going to be a martial artist.” He was and is … right.

Now, that was either insightful wisdom on his part or the best sales-closing line ever, but in all honesty, he had me at, “What do you seek?”

I wanted to learn and I wanted to train. I wanted to be a martial artist. Shortly after I began my training, my uncle took me to a book store to find a book specific to the art I was studying. He was all about reading books. We decided on and purchased “Korean Karate: The Art of Tae Kwon Do.” It was hardcover and over 300 pages. At that point in my life, I didn’t read much other than comic books, so this book might as well have been a dictionary of the history of the world. The whole time, my thought was that I’d go through these motions for my uncle, but I’m not actually going to read this thing. I thanked him, took it home, and sat it on my dresser where it would sit for several months.

One day, and I can’t remember why, I picked it up and began reading through it. Hmm … it’s been said that when the student is ready, the teacher will present himself. It was amazing. This is what I was learning. I couldn’t put it down. I was learning a different perspective, nuances, philosophies, training methods, and so on. When I finished, I used my own money and bought another book by Stephen K. Hayes. Today I own close to a hundred books on various forms, teaching, philosophies, arts, and Zen. Why? Wasn’t training at my martial arts school enough? Yes … and no.

Jeff Gitomer (Sales Guru/Business Trainer) has said, “Formal education and training will teach you how. Self education will teach you why.” Those who know why will always go far beyond those who simply know how.

Read. Read books on your business, subjects you’re interested in, people whom you admire and respect. Learn from the gurus, the ones who’ve made it, and the ones who have knowledge, wisdom, and experiences to share. Attend seminars, train with other teachers, and do lots of research. It will take you down one rabbit hole and into another, off on tangents and other things completely different, but yet somehow you see and make connections to your formal education.

Formal education is very important. It teaches you the subject matter you must know. Self education is ongoing and what you’re drawn to, read, study, teach, and learn and it makes you who you are. It differentiates you. Your real-life experiences, belief system, personal philosophy, and knowledge are all developed, intertwined, and built upon your self-education. It becomes who you are. It becomes your “Why”.

Never stop seeking knowledge. Never stop learning. There is so much more to learn and so much that you already have. Confucius said, “To know that you know, and to know that you don’t know – that is the real wisdom.”

Rob Wilson

The Beginning of My Zen Journey

When I was fifteen years old and in 9th grade, I got to school by walking nine blocks through a rough neighborhood to get to the elevated train, a.k.a. “The El”. Okay, it was my neighborhood and I was very familiar with it, so it didn’t seem that rough at the time. Looking back with perspective, yes it was rough in many bad ways. That’s another story.

I climbed the steps of the El stop, showed my transpass to the attendant and walked through the turnstile to wait on the platform for the train. Four stops down the tracks I exited into another equally bad neighborhood. I felt gut wrenching trepidation every day when I stepped off the El stop and looked down the seven-block long hill with the crime-infested housing projects at the bottom. My school was on the other side of those projects. For a fifteen year old, skinny, blond, white boy, it took a lot of intestinal fortitude not to shit my pants. I did this five days a week.

I got mean looks, cursed at, called some pretty hateful things, and taunted, but I just kept walking. One day after school, on my way back up the hill, I looked up and knew I was in for a physical confrontation. Three guys, probably double my age and much bigger and heavier were walking toward me on the same sidewalk. Do I cross the street? Do I run? No. At that time, my thought process was to keep going. Any deviation would show weakness and that would cause a lot of other problems. Looking back, it was probably a bad decision.

The first punch to the head somehow came out of nowhere, even though I was expecting something. The second punch from the next guy caught me in the forehead. I think he broke his hand, because I heard him yelp and saw him retract. The third hit me on top of the head. I didn’t go down and I kept walking. I did not run. I didn’t look back or at them right away, but half a block later I did look back. They were continuing on their same path in the opposite direction. The one on the end was holding his hand.
I got on the El and rode home. I put ice on my head, took some aspirin, and ate dinner. The next morning, I got on the El and went to school.

Today, I can’t imagine my two teenage boys having to deal with that and I would never want them to. But, for me it was life and I didn’t know any different. It just was what it was.

When I was twelve, I woke up one summer night to gun shots. I went downstairs and opened my front door. There was a woman in a bra and panties leaking blood all over the sidewalk. When I was fourteen, I sat on my front steps one night and watched as an older neighborhood kid, high on some bad drugs, toss around four police officers until they finally subdued him. At sixteen I got into a confrontation with a gang leader, but we didn’t get physical. I stood up to him and we parted ways. Later that morning at school, I learned that he attacked a kid that looked like me in the hallway and put him in the hospital. I guess he had to make a statement.

I learned to utilize a combination of skills, such as diplomacy, respect, awareness, observation, confidence (mostly fake), posturing, assertiveness, awareness, intuition, and interpersonal relations just to negotiate my way through life. Street smarts? I guess so, but for me it was the norm and again, I didn’t know any different.

Growing up in and around that environment can make you hard, untrusting, and confused as to which way to go. At fifteen, you’re trying to find your way in the world as a man and what does that mean. I had good parents, but the surrounding influences take their toll. Should I be tough and act tough and beat the crap out of people for looking at me sideways? That would give me a rep as a badass, right? No. It wasn’t in my nature. I like people. Join a gang? No. I never really felt the need to be part of some club. No freedom there. Stand on the corner all night smoking cigarettes with the rest of the neighborhood idiots? No. Didn’t seem like much fun to me.

Philadelphia is the fifth largest (most populated) city in the country and ranked fourth in terms of crime rate. My saving influence was martial arts. I trained and studied at a very good, well rounded, and traditional school where earning belts didn’t come from writing checks. I learned what real toughness was all about. Good toughness.

This is where I began my Zen journey.

Rob Wilson