You think you have problems?

[AnonymousOne]

I have a friend I have known for about 46 years. He used to train with me about 25 years ago. Over the years he got into business and had a very hard time financially. He got lazy and packed on weight to the point that he was 120lbs over weight. That’s fat! He also had many health problems such as asthma, a bad back, swollen sore knees and ankles.

I saw him just before Christmas. I called to see how he was and his wife told me he was in bed and wasn’t well. So I paid him a visit. He wasn’t sick, he was exhausted. He couldn’t pay some parking tickets and the court ordered him to do a day a week of work for the government. This meant cutting down trees and the like. He had done one days work of manual labour and this put him in bed for 4 days, that’s how unfit he was. That’s bad.

Anyway… when I visited him I walked into his room and he was in tears. His life was in a mess and he was distraught. He asked me for advice. I said to him “Brother you need to get your body back in shape so that you can physically and mentally handle the demands of this tough world”. He agreed.

I went on to say to him, “My brother, I have known you all my life, and I would be doing you a disservice if I wasn’t honest with you and told you straight. You know that I love you as a brother, but you need to get off your backside, lose that weight, start eating right and you will have more energy, think better and work through your financial problems with greater enthusiasm. You have let yourself become a slob. You are greater than that. You have much potential within you and you need to get back to good health and you will find life will be different. I am sorry to be so straight forward but I don’t think your family or friends have the guts to tell you like it is. Please forgive me if I have offended you, put good medicine is not always a nice flavour, don’t you agree?”.

He looked up at me with tears in his eyes, then leaned up and hugged me and said “That’s exactly what I needed to hear and I have been thinking the same thing – thank you”. Then he asked “Will you train me?”.

I said “Brother, no I wont”. He asked “Why not?”. I said “Because you need to harness the fire within. That frustration, anger and depression you are feeling, needs to be used as a catalyst to change your destiny. You need to harness this and draw out the motivation from within you and turn all that negative stuff in a positive direction. Use the negative for a positive. If I train you, the motivation comes from an external source, if you train yourself, you will feel far better about yourself because you have made yourself do the whole thing. But I am not saying I wont train you eventually, but initially you need you draw out a driving force from within you. If you can propel yourself out of that bed and start exercising from your own mental discipline, it will have far more far reaching effects on you, than if I make you do it.”.

He said “I see your point, but what do I do?”. I replied “Okay, I will make up an mp3 audio training session that you can follow at home. Of course you can do it anytime you want and stop whenever you want. You will have your own empowerment. I wont make it too hard considering your physical condition. Slowly work up to one hours training. When you can make yourself do that, I will train with you. That may seem tough brother, but you need to motivate yourself. Your life is in a mess because you lack discipline but I now see you have reached a point where you cannot bare this any longer and you need to exploit that and use it to propel you forward”.

He agreed to do this. So I made the mp3 and dropped it into him. To cut a long story short about the suffering he went through, not only physically but psychologically in terms of making himself start this exercise, but 6 months later, he can now do that one hour training session and has lost a total of 92 lbs.

Now get this. This is a man that is 48 years old, was 120 lbs over weight. He was so unfit that doing a normal days physical work put him in bed from severe exhaustion. Apart from this, his weight caused his ankles and knees to swell up after exercise and all he had was himself to force himself to start exercising.

He started off only being able to do one push up. Initially he could only go for less than 5 minutes of training. Now he can do one hour of hard out Karate training and easily run 2-3 miles.

In my book, that is one fantastic achievement. My question to myself and to you is this: “If he can drag himself up from the lowest point in his life mentally and physically, under those very difficult conditions, why cant you and I make ourselves do more with less adversities?

This man is like a brother to me, and I am so proud of him. He is now so much slimmer and has so much energy its mind boggling.

My thanks go to the art of Karate-Do for instilling in me and more importantly him, the self discipline to achieve what many only ever dream about.

While others wallow in the quadmire of mediocrity, we train in a system that empowers us to perform what seems to many people, to be the impossible. Karate goes far beyond the dojo, its encompasses our whole life!!

[Mr. Mike]

Excellent post. I try to instill this value in my children. Especially my daughter who bores easily, and constantly tries to conveniently forget items necessary for tasks such as homework, karate, etc. I tell her, "you are beautiful, able bodied, highly talented physically, very intelligent, and good mannered." THen I ask her: When you posess these traits, why do you find it so easy to try and slack?" We saw a boy her age riding a bike away fromt he local grocery mart with a bag of groceries in his hand...what made this remarkable is that he only had one hand. If he could do it, why couldn't she even attempt to learn to ride her bicycle without giving up constantly? There are less abled people everywhere doing more than the able bodied people. Why? Because somebody told them they couldn't do it, and they couldn't accept that. We could all learn a lesson from this.

[ninjanurse]

"While others wallow in the quadmire of mediocrity, we train in a system that empowers us to perform what seems to many people, to be the impossible. Karate goes far beyond the dojo, its encompasses our whole life!!"

That pretty much says it all!

[italian_guy]

Very nice story (and post) AnonymousOne.

I wish your friend best luck in his journey.

I agree with you there's nothing better then MA to instill self-discipline and self-respect.

[Mith]

story. Truly awe inspiring.

Your friend is the true definition of the word ENDURE.

[AngelaG]

I guess the moral of the story is we all have our breaking points when we say, enough is enough, and start to take responsibility four our own actions. Unfortunately for some people that breaking point comes too late.

[Sandhoppa]

That definitely inspired me!

[jay46]

Great story, AnonymousOne. I could use some inspiration myself. Is that mp3 laying about anywhere that I can access it?

[makiwaraman]

Great story AnonymousOne, puts things into perpective for the rest of us. Alot more people could do with a friend /brother like you.

regards makiwaraman

[Uechi Kid]

Wow. That's really cool. I just got home from the Doctors office and was feeling a little down. I have arthritis in both knees that is getting worse very quickly and I don’t like my options. Your store really lifted my spirits. Thanks. And tell your friend to keep up the hard work. He has accomplished a lot.