Overweight Karate Instructors

[kansascityshuffle]

I wouldn't necessarily say that Wullie is obese..."bigger," sure, but it's obvious looking at Wullie that he has some muscle packed on him, too...and the same goes with his brother Iain, who's his Kyokushin instructor....and coincidentally, his brother has done a 100 man before, too. I interviewed Wullie about his second 100 man kumite not too long ago for "Osu Magazine."

Wullie was the British Superheavyweight Kickboxing Champion some years back, too.

Osu!

[evergrey]

Haha, Wullie calls himself fat though. The point is, don't judge someone's character or abilities just by looking at them.

Also, Wullie rocks!

OSU!

[ninjanurse]

I don't think that it has anything to do with your teaching skills-or your punching skills. I think that what it comes down to is the image that you portray and how you represent the tenets of self discipline and self control to your students. If you are expecting them exhibit these qualities in their practice then you should too. And, if you are truly teaching self defense then you must not allow your students to be fooled into thinking that one punch is going to end the fight...their life may depend on their fitness and agility.

I have to take some issue with this. An obese person can also be "fit." An obese person can also have a great deal of self discipline and self control. You don't know why they are obese just by looking at them, or what kind of a person they are. All you know is that they are obese. That's it.

OSU

Perhaps you are reading way too much into the use of the word "image" in my statement. My statement refers to the kind of person you are and simple fact that if you require your students to exhibit certain qualities you should too-regardless of how good an instructor you are, for example, if I am expecting my students to have integrity that I had better have integrity in my life/business practices, and if I am touting good nutrition as integral to fitness & health then I had better not be stuffing my face with hamburgers, chips, and beer.

Having once weighed well over 200 pounds (at 5'4) I have personal experience as a "fit" obese martial artist BUT, I also have direct experience with how losing weight can impact your fitness, agility, and performance/ability to fight. You can't do anything about genetics but you can control what goes into your body and how you live your life.

[evergrey]

Yeeeeep and I eat an extremely careful and healthy diet.

I'm still "morbidly obese."

I'm not setting a bad example, and I have integrity. Don't assume an overweight person is "stuffing their face."

[ninjanurse]

I still think you are reading wayy too much into what I am saying ev-I am in no way making any generalizations or judgments about obese people at all. I am simply making a statement about how I believe that instructors (regardless of weight) should practice what they preach in all areas of their lives-finances, business practices, relationships, fitness, and yes-even diet (if I tell my students that eating fast food is not healthy then I should not be seen at McDonalds having a "happy meal"). I apologize if you took the word stuffing to mean overeating as I don't necessarily define it that way, and, as I stated, weight has nothing to do with your punching skills or your teaching skills. This subject is very personal to me, as it is to you, and I apologize for my words offending you.

[evergrey]

I still think you are reading wayy too much into what I am saying ev-I am in no way making any generalizations or judgments about obese people at all. I am simply making a statement about how I believe that instructors (regardless of weight) should practice what they preach in all areas of their lives-finances, business practices, relationships, fitness, and yes-even diet (if I tell my students that eating fast food is not healthy then I should not be seen at McDonalds having a "happy meal"). I apologize if you took the word stuffing to mean overeating as I don't necessarily define it that way, and, as I stated, weight has nothing to do with your punching skills or your teaching skills. This subject is very personal to me, as it is to you, and I apologize for my words offending you.

Thank you for that.

I think what I am getting at is that the culture of fat-shaming and judging people's personal habits based solely on their appearance is very hurtful and damaging to so many people. It encourages bullying. It encourages people who would be healthy to give up on themselves, as no matter how well they take care of themselves, if their appearance doesn't reflect what is "acceptable," everyone will assume that they are not "taking care of themselves."

Yes, there are some people who are overweight because of their eating habits. No, it's nobody's business but their own. There are also so many other reasons why people end up overweight, and stay that way. For some people, there might be a metabolic condition that prevents them from losing weight. For others, diet alone won't change it (and something like 97% of diets ultimately fail... most "we're successful" diet claims are actually based on someone losing 5 pounds over a couple years, heh) and they have chronic injuries that prevent them from doing the extreme exercise that they would need to do in order to lose fat.

Me? I have metabolic failure. I can sort of manage the weight GAIN by eating a very extreme, meticulously measured low carb diet... but comments like "oh it's just simple, you just need WILLPOWER! Intake less calories than you burn" is what lead to me starving myself for days on end, and when I did eat, having only 600 calories or less a day. At times it was as low as 200 calories a day. I would work out, HARD, for at least two hours a day.

And I was still fat. I ended up seriously crippling myself as well, ending up with a back injury that will give me chronic pain for the rest of my life.

That's why "harmless little comments" and "concern shaming" can become devastating. It's piled on overweight people every single day, from all directions. They're told the quality of their character is poor, simply because of their weight. They're told they're a "bad role model" and "encouraging obesity" simply by existing! Or doing something POSITIVE with their lives!

People assume that they are lazy, stupid, greedy, selfish, bad, hypocritical (if they dare to do something active, especially daring to help OTHERS with doing something active) and dirty. And every little stab and swipe at them re-enforces this attitude. Bullying overweight people is seen as socially acceptable, because it's "for their own good" or because they're "costing the country money" or other such rubbish.

Me, I don't think budo needs to be approved by Weight Watchers to be legitimate, but just for the sake of argument, let's say there's an overweight karate instructor, and he is preaching proper nutrition.

What... if he PRACTICES proper nutrition? And is still overweight?

[evergrey]

Some reading to look up online-

A health at any size blog called "dances with fat."

An article titled "It's Time To Admit It: I'm Totally Back In The Eating Disorder Game -- But Not The One You Think"

[DWx]

If I may add my humble 2 cents...

I can kind of see both sides of the argument here.

Overweight =/= unfit, heck at 240 lbs I'm classed as obese yet I score way higher fitness tests (such as the bleep test, push up tests etc.) than some of the young and "healthy" people at my dojang and I'm pretty sure everyone here personally knows of someone who is a fit-fat person and we could keep giving examples of people we know all day. However, I understand where ninjanurse is coming from on the practice what you preach; martial artists should be looking at what they eat and their health in general and trying to lose weight if it's possible and they can do it healthily. Simply put, you have to use more energy to move something heavier and you're not using your body as efficiently as possible if you're hauling around more fat than you need to.

But rather than just going on a calorie deficient diet to lose the weight, IMHO it's more important to eat right first. There's no point in using rubbish fuel in your $100 000 premium sports car and then expecting it to perform the same as when you give it the premium gas. Same goes for martial artists. We should look after our bodies and fuel right by sticking to a good diet and giving our bodies what it needs to work and grow muscle. That's not to say the occasional indulgence isn't permitted but on the whole, look after your equipment!

I think this whole thread isn't really getting at the bigger instructors who we know could still beat us to a pulp if they wanted, but the ones who are overweight and who are unfit. Do they expect their students to be fit and healthy? If so, should they not practice what they preach (if there are no underlying medical conditions) and maintain a good body?

Now I'm not saying this to anyone here, but Ev, you talk about "fat shaming" (which I do think happens), however on the other side of the coin, there are some bigger people who could lose weight and don't try and then get incredibly defensive about it. Obviously you're not one of them, from other posts you've made we know you eat right and train hard. I'm talking about those that sit on their backsides all day, occasionally come to class but otherwise don't do much for themselves and are way more fat than muscle. Losing a couple of pounds here and there would help them in most cases. I mean I know someone who I train with who is obese and suffers all sorts of knee and back problems which stem from their weight but they've never tried properly to lose it. They complain about how they hate being fat/unfit but don't try to do anything about it and get all defensive. That person I know for definite has never tried and IMHO it is right to criticize, perhaps even go to the extreme of shaming because they've never tried.

[Kuma]

It's training that is key. I bet the average Sumo wrestler could outwork virtually every single poster on here with their grueling training. Looking at just the cover of the book is a huge mistake.

Read Evergrey's blog sometime. She trains pretty dang hard and consistently, far more intensely than some black belts I know who have different body types. Keep it up Ev.

[ossemon]

Indeed! I have gone through all of Ev's blog posts over the last two days, and I am impressed.

She "suffers" from the same problem as me: I train hard, and a lot, but weight-loss comes hard if it comes at all.

I am, however, rather fit. I can wear down younger and tougher guys than myself, even though I probably weigh 20-30kg "too much".