Sport might be the last honest feedback loop that doesn't flatter you.
There's something deeply Nietzschean about its pull ... not domination over others, but confrontation with your own untested edges. The score doesn't negotiate. It doesn't soften the result. That clarity is increasingly rare in a world where everything gets mediated and contextualized. Well argued.
Everything good in my life I put down to my lifelong practice of sports. Being elite in competition taught me how to be elite everywhere, and now that I’m 45, I have a body and bearing regular people just don’t understand. If you’re on the fence, just get into something that interests you right now, and start slow so you don’t injure yourself.
I often feel ashamed of not being proficient in martial arts or firearms at my age, I'm 27. Although I hit the Gym regularly, I also wish to be able to defend myself, my loved ones, but also stand up when something is not right
Training bjj (and any kind of combat sports in general) implies that you also must hit the gym (or do calisthenics) whether you find it boring or not. Especially if you are older than 40..otherwise it is not really feasible.
To me, boxing was bad enough as a professional sport. Now, however, there’s (most notably) the barbaric ‘ultimate fighting’, using barely covered knuckles and even bare knees for knock-out blows — yet it’s legally selling live-viewing tickets to eagerly excited individuals and commercial-time slots to legitimate business advertisers.
I've always been bewildered and troubled by a person's moral or psychological ability to throw a serious punch without physical provocation. Learning and mastering self-defense skills is one thing, but society’s increasingly violent sporting events also serve as bad examples of how boys, and even girls, can behave towards one another.
Also disturbing are the overly-eager onlookers. … In the early 1980s, I’d see from a distance the mostly-male ‘audience’ at the after-classes fights between a pair of almost-always male students, one of whom was needed to initiate the barbaric exchange.
A few years later, during my own troubled-teen years, I observed how by ‘swinging first’ a guy potentially places himself in an unanticipated psychological disadvantage — one favoring the combatant who chooses to patiently wait for his opponent to take the first swing, perhaps even without the fist necessarily connecting.
Just having the combatant swing at him before he’d even given his challenger a physical justification for doing so seemed to instantly create a combined psychological and physical imperative within to react to that swung fist with justified anger. In fact, such testosterone-prone behavior may be reflected in the typically male (perhaps unconsciously strategic) invitation for one’s foe to ‘go ahead and lay one on me,’ while tapping one’s own chin with his forefinger.
Yet, it’s a theoretical advantage not widely noticed by both the regular scrapper mindset or general society. Instead of the commonly expected advantage of an opponent-stunning first blow, the hit triggers an infuriated response earning the instigator multi-fold returned-payment blows. [A friend has informed me, however, that he’d heard/read of research showing that the one to throw the first serious punch usually turns out to be the victor.]
Still, matters should remain peaceful, or at least non-violent, if every party shows the other due respect. And, of course, everyone follows the basic rule: Only a physical first swing will justify a returned swing. And, similarly, a verbal assault is merited only when in response to one.
Great post as usual
Sport might be the last honest feedback loop that doesn't flatter you.
There's something deeply Nietzschean about its pull ... not domination over others, but confrontation with your own untested edges. The score doesn't negotiate. It doesn't soften the result. That clarity is increasingly rare in a world where everything gets mediated and contextualized. Well argued.
Good read Jack. I have tried getting into almost every sport under the sun. I still come back to racing cars every time.
Everything good in my life I put down to my lifelong practice of sports. Being elite in competition taught me how to be elite everywhere, and now that I’m 45, I have a body and bearing regular people just don’t understand. If you’re on the fence, just get into something that interests you right now, and start slow so you don’t injure yourself.
Great post Jack.
Great reading brother
Gracias
I often feel ashamed of not being proficient in martial arts or firearms at my age, I'm 27. Although I hit the Gym regularly, I also wish to be able to defend myself, my loved ones, but also stand up when something is not right
Brother you are still in your physical prime, no time to waste. I started 4 years ago at 29 and just got my first firearm last year. You got this ✔️
"SPORTS WILL GIVE YOU WHAT THE GYM NEVER WILL"
Training bjj (and any kind of combat sports in general) implies that you also must hit the gym (or do calisthenics) whether you find it boring or not. Especially if you are older than 40..otherwise it is not really feasible.
To me, boxing was bad enough as a professional sport. Now, however, there’s (most notably) the barbaric ‘ultimate fighting’, using barely covered knuckles and even bare knees for knock-out blows — yet it’s legally selling live-viewing tickets to eagerly excited individuals and commercial-time slots to legitimate business advertisers.
I've always been bewildered and troubled by a person's moral or psychological ability to throw a serious punch without physical provocation. Learning and mastering self-defense skills is one thing, but society’s increasingly violent sporting events also serve as bad examples of how boys, and even girls, can behave towards one another.
Also disturbing are the overly-eager onlookers. … In the early 1980s, I’d see from a distance the mostly-male ‘audience’ at the after-classes fights between a pair of almost-always male students, one of whom was needed to initiate the barbaric exchange.
A few years later, during my own troubled-teen years, I observed how by ‘swinging first’ a guy potentially places himself in an unanticipated psychological disadvantage — one favoring the combatant who chooses to patiently wait for his opponent to take the first swing, perhaps even without the fist necessarily connecting.
Just having the combatant swing at him before he’d even given his challenger a physical justification for doing so seemed to instantly create a combined psychological and physical imperative within to react to that swung fist with justified anger. In fact, such testosterone-prone behavior may be reflected in the typically male (perhaps unconsciously strategic) invitation for one’s foe to ‘go ahead and lay one on me,’ while tapping one’s own chin with his forefinger.
Yet, it’s a theoretical advantage not widely noticed by both the regular scrapper mindset or general society. Instead of the commonly expected advantage of an opponent-stunning first blow, the hit triggers an infuriated response earning the instigator multi-fold returned-payment blows. [A friend has informed me, however, that he’d heard/read of research showing that the one to throw the first serious punch usually turns out to be the victor.]
Still, matters should remain peaceful, or at least non-violent, if every party shows the other due respect. And, of course, everyone follows the basic rule: Only a physical first swing will justify a returned swing. And, similarly, a verbal assault is merited only when in response to one.
Do you still go to the gym?
Yes but it's not my entire personality