Living in the Suck

Originally posted on June 5, 2014 on http://thevagabondhauschronicles.blogspot.com/

For the last 10 years, I watched my father get overtaken by a slew of health issues stemming from over 40 years of alcoholism and a two-pack-a-day nicotine habit. High blood pressure and diabetes led to a series of strokes and later to renal failure. After several years of dialysis, he passed away in April 2014.

In that decade, I had a lot of time to reflect and grow. In his years of illness, I formed a family of my own, marrying something fierce from the mountains of Pennsylvania and spawning an incredibly handsome boy and a cute-ass spark plug of a girl. Seeing your dad go forces you to meditate on your own life expectancy. What were my chances? How long do I get to enjoy this blessed life? Early on, after his first stroke, I gave up my chain-smoking habits and limited my drinking to a six-pack or less a week. But my father's demons were not mine to combat. My older body wasn't burning off the calories the way it used to and that extra weight has taken a toll on my mobility with arthritis in both ankles. While I love nothing more than following a dinner of pork fat and ice cream with some intense lounging, I was setting myself up for a shorter life span -- one in which I would not be able to run after my children, chase after a baseball or save my family from an impending zombie apocalypse.

If this outlook wasn't bleak enough, I had gotten mugged twice at gunpoint as an adult. The first time it happened, I was leaving a birthday party in a posh neighborhood, a block away from the theatre I worked at, when the guy came up to me and jabbed a hard object into my chest. While hindsight suggests that it was not a real pistol, this fat boy was not going to take any chances. After giving him the six dollars in my pocket, I took advantage of a passerby's presence to escape. The second attack took place in a hotel parking garage. I exited my car and saw three people approaching. Though I walked as fast as I could to the nearest exit, they caught up to me and shoved a gun in my face. While I gave them my wallet, I wasn't giving into their demands to lay down on the ground or taking the gun into my mouth so I prepared myself for a beat down. Luckily, a car came up the ramp and they scattered -- all of which was caught on a security camera.

So there I was. Growing fatter and slower while remaining ever so prone (and attractive) to prospective muggers. I am very aware that death is imminent -- that no one escapes it. But I didn't have to grease the skids. So at the ripe age of 35, I enrolled in krav maga. For those not in the know, this is the Israeli fighting system employed by their military known for both its efficiency and ruthlessness.

While I'm not a UFC addict (though I'm now a growing fan), I wasn't at all a stranger to the martial arts. After a bullying incident on the school playground, my mom signed me up for Vietnamese Tay Son kung fu. When I got bored of this, I moved onto Chung do Kwan-style Tae Kwon Do. I did well in both, learning to throw a mean sidekick and breaking a fair number of boards, but I stopped shy of acquiring a black belt in either discipline. But had I did, I'm not sure I would have had the skills to fight off those attackers (or the body fat).

Everything I had read and seen about krav maga told me it had the punishing rigor and practicality to address both life threats. And in the year that I've trained at my school, this has certainly turned out to be true. My first class had me gassing out fifteen minutes in, barely keeping up with the warm-up. I bloodied my unwrapped knuckles on their tombstone pads and did more sit-ups in an hour than I had in the previous year. But after six months of training, I tested into level two. The exam was the most challenging experience of my life and next to marriage and fatherhood, the most rewarding. No longer did I feel like a victim to the circumstances of my life. I was now in good enough shape and mindset to do something about it.

I wish I could say the same about BJJ. Get your minds out of the gutter - that stands for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Somewhere between wrestling and judo, this art involves a lot of weight distribution, breathing and grappling technique to submit your partner via joint-locks, chokes and other uncomfortable positions. I've been rolling for roughly six months now and only consistently (two-three times a week) for the last three. And I suck at it... hard.  Stand-up striking is something I grew up understanding through experience and pop-culture, but ground fighting and grappling while on your back was a real mind-f*ck. By far, the most foreign thing I've tackled as an adult, BJJ is incredibly humbling. It's not like in other arts or pursuits where moderate success and encouragement breeds future achievement. Nope. In BJJ, I live in the suck. And it's not like I aspire to much. I made peace with the fact that I'm not there to win. The first month or so, I was tapping so much you would have thought I was starting a drum circle. But the good news is each time I go back, I suck less. And for whatever reason, that's enough encouragement to send me back to the mats week after week. I focus on controlling my breath and not letting out high pitch squeals when a heavy, bony knee digs into my ribs or thighs. I can roll longer without tapping and actually know what to do when I successfully pass my partner's guard. Where I once only knew side control, I now have other positions to rely upon. Not to mention that the Mrs. seems impressed by the (slightly) less chubby hubby coming home after each class, nursing his giant bruises and washing his body with something so masculine, it's called "defense soap." And despite the muscle soreness and pains, my ankles haven't given out in a long while having found renewed strength via shrimping and reverse hip escapes. But don't get me wrong, I still suck, a fact my peers are always ready to remind me of. I just embrace it now and look forward to a long life in pursuit of sucking a lot less.