CHAPTER FIVE: Why you should never use the martial arts as platform to fame.

This is the story about a fictional kid named Cody. He was the youngest kid at his Tae Kwon Do school to ever get a black belt at 6, and by 10 he’d already won over 20 medals at the Junior Olympics. Cody was an XMA star by the ripe old age of 11. He specialized in nunchaku, musical forms, and- his favorite- a weapons routine he calls aerial swords. His father, Jerry, a famed master of his own style, saw the potential in Cody and embarked on a Hollywood career for his young boy. He got a couple job offers, most notably a music video and a read for the lead in the blockbuster, Ninja Baby vs. the Assassins. He didn’t get the role, but he did get a bit part in one of the non-pivotal scenes. By age 13, he had cut a deal with a martial art supply chain to plug his very own model bo staff (although he did nothing for the design), and he had a work-out video designed for other XMA kids.

You could say that Cody was the perfect kid. And he sure was that exemplary student every teacher dreams about. He had the medals and money to prove it. It sure was a shame though, that after years of using a sword, he never developed a healthy respect for sharp blades (perhaps it was because he never used a sharp blade). I say this because what happened next was a dangerous mix of Darwinism and schadenfreude. Young Cody’s go getter attitude finally got him in trouble when he decided at age 14 to go get a stuck twig out of a push mower. The rest as they say is history.

Cody is now 20 years old. He can’t do martial arts anymore, not that he’d want to. He’s bumming about UCLA with a degree in general studies, and couldn’t care less about his future. He only has two whole fingers, a thumb, and parts of the others on his right hand- which is just enough to drink beer and hold a joint with. Despite his unfortunate turn of events, he is strangely happy with it. The experience got him out of his father’s watchful eye, which is now on his younger sister Lisa. Currently at 8, she is number one in the world in musical forms, and Jerry couldn’t be prouder. She’s won over 50 titles, has her own line of workout gear, and is on the honor roll. She is following in Cody’s footstep, alright. She’s been auditioning for roles in film and TV recently. She’s set to film her first feature film as Kiki the fighting cheerleader- that is, after she becomes the youngest athlete in history to have a total hip replacement.

So that is a fictional story, but you can see parts of it could easily be true. Which brings me to my point- why does martial arts attract this much crap to the lives of children? In what universe is it okay to tell your kid that you can participate only if you are the best? It is the most frustrating thing to watch a parent take a talented kid and run him or her into ground until they have sucked the joy out of martial arts completely.I realize that this is not a problem exclusive to martial arts. It’s tough to not want the most in everything you do, but there are other things to consider that are just as valuable; like, your sanity. Or your health. Or your money. How many people do you know have sunk their money into a dojo or gym looking to become the next big thing, or to fail in realizing that their potential just isn’t that great?

Okay, a real story now. A guy that used to go to my school ( I dubbed him Wally) had aspirations of being a cage fighter. It’s a common dream nowadays, and why not? The phrase “six figure contract” sounds pretty good to a guy working a crappy job. And when you’re a big guy anyway, it sounds like a perfect fit. Just one problem though- this guy wasn’t good. He trained in two arts; karate and aiki (neither of them exactly good for cage fighting, I might add), but he didn’t really show interest or promise in either one of them. Did I mention there was one problem? It gets worse. Wally was so big, he could barely move, and he had two (yes, two) shot knees. He also had two very young kids, and a not so stable job. I say that last part because, while his abilities were limited, Wally’s heart was in the right place, along with his wallet. He believed until the end (even after Head Sensei told him he was an idiot) that this little bit of training and some gym time would turn him into a fighter. He told us one weekend he’d be missing class to attend his first MMA fight. He never came back. I just think of all that money he wasted on something he was doomed to fail at, when his wife and kids could have benefitted from a little investment. True, fatherhood doesn’t exactly pay out, but you get where I am going, right?

Only 1% of us is a Bruce Lee, a Georges St. Pierre, a David Carradine, or a Cynthia Rothrock (go look her up, kiddies). Having said that, it astonishes me how many martial artist go out of their way to prove they’re number one. I keep thinking about that famous Youtube clip of the boy wielding a staff, and thinking that, assuming he was the best one, there must have been a hundred little kids just like him who spent whatever the ungodly amount the entry fee was, and they didn’t even get on TV, let alone place. And then there are the fighters who end up in hospital with broken appendages because they picked a fight with someone they had no chance in beating. As martial artists, we have to be better than this. The title of artist gives us the ability to forget the martial part if we so desire. A little competition is good, but a little masochism never helped anybody.